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American Religious Identification Survey
RELIGION AND ETHNICITY
The question of religious identification among the different racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. is of considerable importance because of the way religion and ethnic culture affect each other. In addition, the American religious scene has historically been shaped by continuous waves of immigration. The last two decades in particular have seen an unusually large influx of immigrants, especially from Asia and Latin America. Thus, many observers would expect to see the impact of these new populations on the national profile of American religious groups. Many of these changes are reported in the exhibits that follow. However, due to the size and diversity of the American population, immigrant groups even in large numbers might have only a marginal effect on the national picture.
Moreover, this study and the survey methodology of contemporary social science does not easily lend itself to capturing all elements of the newest segments of the population. Because the survey depends on telephone interviews, overcoming language barriers has proven prohibitively costly. In effect, this survey has interviewed only the English-speaking population of the U.S. In addition, many new immigrants originate in societies and states where responding to personal questions over the telephone is an alien experience, and discussions of one's religious beliefs and identification are deemed to be risky. Therefore, in the 2001 survey the rate of refusal to questions about religion has risen from 2.3 % in 1990 to 5.4 %. It is interesting to note that among Black Americans (a non-immigrant minority) the rate of refusal to the religion question has remained at 2.3 %.
The changing composition of the Asian population has been one of the signal features of U.S. immigration. It has drawn newcomers from a wide variety of countries and cultures. As a result, between 1990-2001 the proportion of the newly enlarged Asian American population who are Christian has fallen from 63% to 43%, while those professing Asian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc) has risen from 15% to 28%. Thus, for example, there are more than three times as many Hindus in the U.S. today as there were in 1990. Undoubtedly, due to the limitations of this study, we have not picked up the full impact of those changes yet.
Turning from the newest Americans to the oldest, the present survey is the first to systematically inquire into the religious preferences of a nationally representative sample of Native Americans. Although under 2 % of the total sample, their religious profile is very similar to white, non-Hispanic Americans: 20% self-identified as Baptist, 17% as Catholic and 17% indicated no religious preference. Only 3% indicated their primary religious identification as an "Indian" or tribal religion.
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