Out of Africa

Jacob K. Olupona and Regina Gemignani, eds.

African Immigrant Religions in America

New York University Press, May 2007. 338 pp. ($23)

In 2003, demographers estimated that 1.1 million African immigrants resided in the United States. Since then, many more Africans have moved here. With the influx of increasing numbers of Africans comes phenomena that most religious scholars, like their sociology counterparts, have been slow to recognize.

Edited by Jacob K. Olupona, professor of African and American studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Professor of African Religious Traditions, and Regina Gemignani, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Davis, African Immigrant Religions in America is the first book, a collection of articles, to explore the increasingly rich presence of Africans in this nation and the concomitant traditions and institutions that have followed and will continue to proliferate. A major strength of the book is that the scholars hail from a broad range of disciplines, theology, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and, of course, history.

As Africans transplant to the United States, they find themselves in an alien land, in a land where their skin color and unique practices are enough to set them apart from the rest of the nation, including American-born blacks. Often ostracized, Africans have found refuge in their own company, in African-led churches and mosques and in African-led community organizations and familial groups.

In the words of the editors, the book "is interested in questions about the nature of the African immigrant religious communities, what they aim to accomplish, and their wider social impact. A thematic analysis helps to understand some of the ways in which scholars are approaching these questions. The overarching themes found in this work include social identities, transnationalism, migration as process, civic engagement and political incorporation, and gender relations."

African Immigrant Religions in America, will be a valuable addition to the collections of those wishing to understand the scope of challenges Africans face when they transplant into a mostly Christian culture.

"The significance of African immigrant religious communities is evidenced by their diversity and growing numbers, as well as by their impact on American social life," the editors write. "As a result, they can no longer be overlooked either in academia or in public policy debates."

COPYRIGHT 2007 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life
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