The Moral Universe of Fabian Garramon: Religion and the Divided Self among Second-Generation Immigrants in the U.S.

How do spiritual and religious values interface with the process of assimilation among the children of immigrants in the United States at the beginning of the New Millennium? The purpose of this paper is to address that question on the basis of ethnographic evidence collected between 2002 and 2006 in Miami-Dade County. I follow three lines of argument. First, I take stock of earlier works to show how religion and spirituality function as part of a cognitive arsenal that second-generation immigrants deploy to ‘make sense’ of new and often inhospitable surroundings. In the case of racial minorities this is a matter of critical importance because religious and spiritual narratives can be used to resist and combat normative stereotypes; they can also provide a means for individuals to redefine circumstances in ways that restore dignity, creating a bridge between despair and hope. Even more importantly, adherence to particular religious and spiritual currents can be used by immigrant children to claim new identities in their adopted country.