How Post-1965 Asian Migration Changed US Protestant Christianity

Abstract

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (or the Hart-Celler Act) remade the racial and ethnic composition of the nation, opening the United States to large numbers of Asian migrants for the first time. The new immigration system, based on job skills and family reunification, flipped the racial demographics of US-bound migrants from majority European to majority Asian and Latin American. It is estimated that as many as 75 percent of Asians who migrated to the United States between 1965 and 2000 had some kind of Christian background. This article provides a brief overview of how post-1965 Asian migrants have changed a range of US Protestant institutions and organizations.