Motivation and the Role of Religious Participation in the Lives of Latino Immigrants: A Comparative Case Study of Garden City and Syracuse, Kansas

Abstract

Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, this ethnographic research examines motivation and the role of religious participation among Latino Evangelical immigrants in two cities in Kansas: Garden City and Syracuse. Interviews and surveys were utilized for data gathering to discover that religion and the congregation plays a fundamental role in the lives of both Garden City Evangelical Latino immigrants and to establish five common themes across congregations in Garden City and Syracuse: 1. Alienation of congregants, 2. The congregation as an immigrant support center, 3. The congregation as a surrogate family, 4. The pivotal role of religion, and 5. Meals as a venue for social interaction. This study is significant, for it fills the current gap in the post-1965 religious immigrant congregation literature by geographically focusing this study on a new immigrant gateway and by systematically evaluating two comparable cities to test four main hypotheses.