Anthony Stevens-Arroyo On Hispanic Christians in the U.S. By Tracy Schier Anthony Stevens-Arroyo is professor of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College and Distinguished Scholar of the City University of New York. He is co-founder and first president of the Program for the Analysis of Religion Among Latinos/as (PARAL). The latter is a network of scholars who conduct social science research on the religious experiences of Latinos. Stevens-Arroyo and his team of researchers compiled significant information about the faith communities that serve Latinos in the U.S. From 2000 through 2001, the National Survey of Leadership in Latino Parishes and Congregations (NSLLPC) gathered data from a national sample of the leaders of churches representing nine denominations. Altogether, this work looked at churches serving 75% or more of American Hispanic Christians. The project, in addition to surveying the heads of faith communities, also queried lay and volunteer leaders who were named by their pastors. These two NSLLPC instruments were specifically designed to complement information from the U.S. Census and other national surveys, including Hartford Seminary s Collaborative Congregational Study Project (CCSP) and the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Further ethnographic work that included community studies of Latino churches in eight sites across the country added significant information to the project findings. In summer, Page 1 of 8
2002 Lilly Endowment funded a further project called Amanecer: Latino Leadership Research Planning for a New Century. Amanecer is designed to disseminate the findings and conclusions of the above projects to a wide audience. According to Stevens-Arroyo, the NSLLPC sought correlation between a congregation s attention to the material needs of the people and the importance placed on culture through maintenance of ethnic traditions and the Spanish language. Because of its national scope, the project was able to ascertain the size of congregations, length of their existence, location (metropolis, city or small town) as well as learn whether or not the Christianity practiced was founded among Latinos in Spanish colonial times before annexation to the United States. This conversation is edited. Q. One of the things you make very evident in all of your work is that, even as you are studying religion in all of its aspects and manifestations, cultural determinants are extremely important in understanding Latinos/as in the U.S. Please talk about this. A. This is true in so many ways. For one thing, denominational loyalties among Hispanics are weaker than cultural determinants. How can I describe this? Perhaps the readiest example that comes to mind is to tell you that Hispanic Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists often feel closer to each other than Hispanic Catholics might to Irish Catholics. This is a factor that has importance when we are considering such issues as denominational loyalty and denominational switching. Also, Hispanics are sensitive that people hold on to religion as a collective memory, as something that holds them together. Things that exist in the collective memory Guadalupe, Cinco del Mayo, patronal feasts which are historically Catholic have acquired a cultural meaning so that even some Protestant Latinos have adopted them. The Spanish language is also an important cultural determinant, and its relevance continues as an issue for discussion and understanding. Some Hispanics insist that they can be Hispanic without speaking Spanish while others, mostly those born in Latin America, tell us that the Spanish language is the most important cultural bond among Latinos. Most of the Hispanics whom we surveyed no longer think that to learn English means that you must forget Spanish. Today the gravitational pull for bilingualism is greater than ever before and so it is a matter of time before we truly know to what extent the Spanish language will continue in its importance as a cultural determinant. Page 2 of 8
What we know from our work is that there are many social and cultural characteristics that are shared by all Hispanics. But we are more aware than ever of the striking differences among Latinos. I need to mention here something very significant that came out of the 2000 census. That is the diasporic character of Hispanic peoples in the U.S. Both immigration and migration have brought Latinos into just about every region of the country. It was not long ago when Hispanic presence in some areas of the Southeast states like North Carolina, Georgia and Arkansas and Midwest Nebraska and Iowa come to mind was not at all significant. This has changed rapidly and has caused us to understand that we can no longer look at a few key urban areas to understand what is going on among Hispanic Americans. So, just as the Hispanic diaspora is geographic so also is it generational. And, as I mentioned above, there is great diversity among those who are known as Hispanic. Q. Why are the differences so important to congregations in the U.S.? A. For one thing, the differences among Latinos of faith suggest that it is simply not possible for congregation leaders, or denominational leaders, to develop strategies that are relevant to all church members. What we learned from our surveys tells us that if certain segments of the Hispanic population for example members of a certain generation, or recent Mexican immigrants instead of recent Puerto Rican immigrants are focused on exclusively, church membership can decline or even disappear. Q. Can you talk about how you went about identifying the religious preferences of Hispanics in the U.S.? But first, please give our readers some information about numbers. A. It is important to note that there has been a lot of growth in the Hispanic population since 1990. The census of that year counted some 14.6 million adult Hispanics and by the census of 2000 the numbers were up to 23 million. So you see that is a considerable increase. As far as how we went about questioning and identifying religious preferences, we left the question open to self-reporting. We asked in the 2001 questionnaire, just as was asked in 1990, What is your religion, if any? And to that question we found that Hispanics belong to over 60 religious groupings. We were interested in comparing patterns of religious self-identification between 1990 and 2001. One finding was that the number of adult Hispanic Catholics went up to 13 million in 2001 from 9.6 million in the earlier survey. And while Catholicism still claims the most members in absolute numbers, there is a real decrease in the proportion of Latinos who are Catholic. We saw 66 percent of adult Hispanics self-reporting as Catholics in the early study while in 2001 that number dropped to 57 percent. Page 3 of 8
Q. Was this surprising to you that the proportion of Catholics has dropped? A. It is not surprising that the second generation born in the United States tends to convert to Protestantism because it is perceived as the American religion. That has always happened with immigrants Jews having been a notable exception. Even when conversion to Protestantism doesn t take place, the religion of choice tends to imitate certain Americanizing traits, which often are derived from Protestantism. So we did expect to find a drop in the Catholic percentage of Hispanics. What was surprising and important is our finding about the Hispanics who have left Catholicism. We always thought that most of those who left the Catholic Church went to other Christian denominations, especially the Pentecostals. What we found was that many of the Hispanics who have left the Catholic Church have chosen not to affiliate with another religion. When we asked switchers what their religious preference was before the switch, 70 percent of Protestants and 60 percent of those who say they now have no religion tell us they used to be Catholic. This means that about an equal number of former Catholics choose no religion as those choosing Protestantism. Even though our 2001 ARIS study showed that the number of Pentecostal Hispanics increased over the last ten years, their proportion within the general Hispanic population has not changed up or down. We see that the fastest growing group is the no-religion group, and these people are the second largest Latino group as of 2001. We would need more studies to find out if the trend to prefer no religion has now replaced conversion to Protestantism as the principal choice of Hispanics who no longer consider themselves Catholic. It s probably worthwhile to point out here that in the general American population, some 16 percent of adults have switched religions. And we found that 17 percent of Hispanics do this. Those Hispanics who are more likely to have switched from one denomination to another are currently Protestant. In other words, it is more likely today that Methodists have more former Baptists in their Hispanic congregation than former Catholics or vice versa. Something else that was intriguing was the comparison between American-born Hispanics and those who have recently immigrated. We had hypothesized that those who are American born would be less likely to switch. But the findings are to the contrary. Some 12 percent of recently immigrated Hispanics changed their religion but 19 percent of the U.S.-born Hispanics did so. We believe this could reflect Hispanics adaptation into American society which, as we know, is a culture that pretty freely accepts the idea of religious switching as part of individual free choice as well as a way that Americans improve their lives. Page 4 of 8
Q. Are there particular segments that have a greater proportion of the unchurched than others? A. We found that those immigrants who are newly arrived, as well as youth, are particularly in this group we can call unchurched. But, interestingly, what we also find is that these Latino peoples who do not belong to any specific denomination are not necessarily irreligious. We point out in our study that lack of belonging does not mean lack of believing in God or lack of a religious outlook. Compared to the general population of Americans who are not affiliated with a particular religion, Hispanics are more likely to believe in God. We also found that Protestant Hispanics resemble the general American population when it comes to a higher level of church membership and strong religious beliefs. Q. Are there any gender issues that come forth from your studies? A. Let me say that, in general, men are less likely to self-identify a religious preference on a survey. It is well known that women are more likely to regard themselves as belonging to a religious group. With this said, we find that 48% of Hispanic Catholics are males and 62% of the group of Hispanics espousing no religious affiliation are males. There are not a lot of differences between Catholics and Protestants, so what I am pointing out is that gender differences are very much like those in the general population and not of huge significance to our overall understanding. As far as persons in leadership are concerned, men outnumber women on parish councils, although there is a higher percentage of Catholic women (23%) on parish councils than women of other denominations on their church boards. Put another way, one out of five Catholic Hispanics on parish councils is a woman, which is nearly double that role for Protestant Hispanics. In both Catholic and all other denominations, however, women are in greater numbers when it comes to religious education. In the Catholic church, 68 percent of teachers are women and in both Catholic and all other denominations women are in charge of the day care and after-school programming. Even in liturgies in the Catholic church, women are more likely than men to be lectors. These findings suggest that gender does determine many ministries. In the Protestant denominations, men are more likely than women to lead bible study, and in both Catholic and Protestant churches men are more likely to be choir or music directors. Q. Are there other demographic factors that are useful for understanding the Hispanic church experience? A. I would say that a useful factor is age. In the wider U.S. population, 23 percent are under age 30 compared to 40 percent among Hispanics. And further, in the general population, 21 percent of adults are over 60 years while only 7 percent of Hispanics are over 60. One statistic offered to me by the Instituto Fe y Vida from California refers to Page 5 of 8
the youth ministry within the Catholic church. It is estimated that nationwide 45% of Catholics under the age of 21 today are Hispanic. Q. You have written that it is vital for Christian denominations that serve Hispanics to develop leadership policies that address the issues you bring up. Can you reiterate why this is so important. A. First of all, you have to understand that the generation of Latinos that were born in the U.S. is growing faster than the generation of immigrants who arrive from Latin America. Because those born in the U.S. are the ones that our studies show are most inclined to abandon religious practice, the denominations need to target these people and dedicate ministerial resources appropriately. This assumes, of course, that church leaders want to retain this vital segment of the population as members of congregations. Also, the data tell us that people of Hispanic origin already outnumber African Americans as the largest U.S. minority. I have written about political trends suggesting that government attention to social inequalities may focus increasingly on the Hispanic populations, thus creating opportunities for faith-based communities to fund important service delivery as well as to professionalize church outreach programs. We see that the vitality of many churches located in Latino neighborhoods may depend on attracting the generation born in the U.S. What I have said is that the convergence of new leadership resources among the U.S.-born segment of the Latino population and funded opportunities for outreach ministries for faith-based communities create a remarkable opportunity for 21 st century religion. Q. Can you expand further on these opportunities? A. Churches can have a lead role when demographic changes take place. We certainly saw this, and still see it, in the black Protestant tradition where the minister is often a political as well as a religious leader. The churches invariably are the place where the first step is taken for organizing to meet local needs. Churches have become very good at doing this because the government lags behind. Q. Looking to the future, it would seem that church vitality will have something to do with how children are, or are not, educated in a faith tradition. Please talk about this issue. A. Let me say first of all, that we found no significant difference in fertility rates among the denominations. But another factor having a bearing on children is the patterns of families within a single faith or in interfaith families. Catholics have the highest percentage, 79 percent, of members marrying other Catholics. Sixty-eight percent of those who said they have no religion marry similar persons. With Protestants, it is 75 Page 6 of 8
percent. So, numbers-wise, this leaves us with a fair number of interfaith families. And while our sample on this was small, we found that among interfaith families, about half raise their children in the Catholic faith, one third report in as raising the children as Protestant, and 13 percent as no religion. Another view shows that 80 percent of Catholic parents in interfaith families raise the children Catholic but only some 40 percent of Protestant parents in such families raise the children in a Protestant faith. Q. Please talk about your newest effort, the Amanecer dissemination project. A. The word amanecer is Spanish for an awakening. We have a number of objectives in the project that are designed to bring about an awakening among Hispanics about the not-distant future as they become the largest ethnic/racial group in the country. There are so many possibilities for church leaders and church members, as well as responsibilities. This phase of our work involves three national committees working with the data from the various projects that have been named. There is a national committee for Catholics, one for mainline Protestant denominations, and a third for Southern Baptists. We have conducted workshops and planning sessions to tailor the dissemination effort to the needs of each denomination. From the work of these efforts, along with panel presentations, we have prepared a website with relevant materials. In addition, we followed the suggestion of our Protestant colleagues and distributed materials nationwide to most seminaries with Hispanic ministry programs. In that effort we expect to see considerable attention given to the demographic aspects of the study which reinforce the goodwill on the part of ministers. We intend this effort to allow replication and comparison of earlier research. For Catholics, we have prepared a training tape on the importance of youth ministry. The Catholic committee helped frame the issues and draft the text. The tape was filmed and edited at the Brooklyn College film center. We expect that this tape and the discussion guide under preparation will be used this fall nationwide as the directors of the Hispanic apostolate in various dioceses begin to wake up their leaders as to the crucial importance of attention to Catholic youth. I want to add the important support given to us in this by the USCC s (United States Catholic Conference) Office for Hispanic Affairs in Washington, D.C. As I mentioned, the diasporic character of the Latino population is extremely important. It is part of the reason that there are divisions between generations. I think I mentioned before the cultural and social differences that occur between Hispanics born in the U.S. and those who migrate here. We find that children born to immigrant parents quickly take on the characteristics of American-born Latinos and this is something that separates them from their own parents. Many things besides language enter into this picture including attitudes toward education, social involvement and interest in political issues. This provides a large challenge for the churches because they play a very Page 7 of 8
important part in the formation of young peoples values and attitudes. We need to pay attention to diversity and to our leadership abilities in coalition building and in bridging the generational gaps. But to get back to the question, the Amanecer project has goals of dissemination of all of our findings as well as planning for new research. Hopefully, we will produce articles and books and work on developing leadership within all of the denominations. We don t see ourselves working alone. We will collaborate with other scholars and with existing research programs that can help include Latino issues and interests in a wide spectrum of interdenominational surveys and organizations. Page 8 of 8