236 Helen Rose Ebaugh
serving ethnic foods for social events both at the central religious site and at home
for religiously connected practices (Orsi 1985; Flores 1994; Leon 1998; Ebaugh and ́
Chafetz 1999); (b) as central actors in domestic religious practices (Orsi 1985; Brown
1991; Jacobs 1996; Orsi 1996; Pena and Frehill 1998); and (c) as teachers of children ̃
in ethnoreligious classes (e.g., Sunday school; J. H. Kim 1996; A. R. Kim 1996; Hepner
1998; Ebaugh and Chafetz 1999).
In addition, in many cases, women are organized into gender-segregated women’s
groups or ministries that serve as mutual support groups (Abusharaf 1998; Ebaugh and
Chafetz 1999). These groups are especially helpful for newly arrived immigrant women,
many of whom do not speak English and are not working outside the home. In addition
to assisting these women adjust to American society (e.g., find schools for their children,
locate ethnic stores, learn to use public transportation), over time some often create
consciousness-raising among the women as they share common experiences, especially
regarding their role within their religious institutions.
As immigrant religious institutions become more congregational in structure and
establish community centers, the number and scope of lay roles expand to the point
where women’s active participation in formal roles is needed, whether or not such
participation is permitted in the old country (Ebaugh and Chafetz 1999). Simultane-
ously, immigrant women and especially their daughters are increasingly becoming well
educated and employed outside the home, providing them with the skills and self con-
fidence required for performing leadership roles. One significant factor in the pace
at which women enter such roles is men’s desires to play them. To the extent that
immigrant men suffer downward mobility in the process of immigration, such as is
frequently the case with Koreans (Min 1992; Kwon et al. 1997) and sometimes Indians
(George 1998), they try to recoup their sense of worth by filling prestigious congrega-
tional roles. Traditional cultural norms provide them preferential access to such roles,
and women are left with whatever roles men cannot fill. Whether the daughters and
granddaughters of immigrants will challenge this situation remains to be seen.
Transnational Religious Ties
Within the past decade there has been increasing awareness of the fact that immigrants
often remain part of transnational communities in so far as they “forge and sustain
multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settle-
ment” (Basch et al. 1994: 7). These economic, political and social ties are sufficiently
enough widespread and sustained to lead Glick-Schiller (1999) to propose transnation-
alism as a new paradigm for the study of migration across the borders of nation-states
and to argue for the existence of transnational communities (Nagengast and Kearney
1990; Rouse 1992; Smith 1994; Goldring 1996; Portes 1996; Levitt 1998).
The existence of religious ties between immigrants in the United States and both
individuals and religious institutions in their home countries is just beginning to be doc-
umented (Levitt 1998, 2000; Popkin 1999; Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000b). As was the more
general case for research on the role of religion among the new immigrants, the study of
the role of religious ties in forging transnational communities has also lagged behind the
documentation of political, economic, cultural, and social ties. Levitt (1998) traces local
level religious ties between Catholic Dominicans in Boston and their home commu-
nity of Miraflores, in the Dominican Republic. In her current research, she is expanding