Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith: Haitian Religion in Miami
Two sociologists of religion spent years in Miami's Little Haiti and its wider archdiocese, and they treat Haitian Catholicism, Protestantism and Vodou as one field rather than three separate subjects. Their organising idea, taken from Bourdieu, is a shared Haitian religious collusio, a common feel for a world inhabited by invisible powers that can be enlisted for healing, luck and protection, which holds even where Catholic, Protestant and Vodouist dispositions push believers apart. Chapters move from Notre Dame d'Haiti and its Pierre Toussaint centre through class differences among Catholics who have left the neighbourhood, the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Vodou temples serving the spirits across the sea, and a storefront Pentecostal congregation. Evidence comes from congregational fieldwork, interviews, murals and shrines, and archdiocesan mass listings. The authors argue that these congregations convert faith into jobs, childcare and legal help, and that the loyalty they sustain travels back to Haiti as remittances.
Rey, T., & Stepick, A. (2013). Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith: Haitian Religion in Miami. New York University Press.