Religion and Ethnicity in Late-Twentieth-Century America

Abstract

A tie to the old-country religion remains one of the ways by which ethnic group identity is expressed and maintained in America. Recent survey results suggest, however, that this relationship between religion and ethnicity is not as strong as it once may have been. Moreover, the degree of ethnic and religious identification, as well as the strength of their corelationship, varies from one ethnic group to another. After a presentation of these facts, we then discuss what they mean for ethnic assimilation and religious development in these waning years of the twentieth century.