An Exploration of Lutheran Music-Making among US Immigrant and Refugee Populations

Abstract

This study investigated how music, religion, and culture intersect in the lives of immigrants and recently resettled refugees in the United States. I collected data using ethnographic methodology in 20 different Lutheran congregations. Participant observations occurred at church services, choir rehearsals, funerals, weddings, and other special celebrations. One-to-one interviews were conducted with 35 adults who identified as Lutheran, were actively involved in music at their church, and were first- or second-generation immigrants or refugees. Outcomes demonstrated that the majority of participants used Lutheran music-making to negotiate the dynamic process of selectively acquiring elements from their new culture while also actively maintaining cultural practices from their homeland. While Christianity, especially under colonialism, frequently disrupted pre-existing musical traditions, in this contemporary postcolonial context, musicians found congregational- and choir-singing to be a cultural occupation capable of encompassing their emergent, multi-faceted identity in the US, thereby facilitating the adjustment process.

Keywords:

• Music-making
• Refugees
• Immigrants
• Religion
• Diaspora
• Identity

The aim of this study was to explore the participation of refugees and immigrants to the United States, over the last 3–4 decades, in music as an active and social leisure occupation in their new cultural context. Two research questions were formulated in relation to concepts previously reported in occupational science research: Does a new cultural context affect music's assumed restorative value (Unruh, 2004)? and How do occupation, identity, and place intersect (Huot & Laliberte Rudman, 2010) in the musical groups created by immigrants and refugees? A further question was: How does music-making reaffirm or recreate identity following migration?

The past decade has seen a rapid increase in the research published on the topic of religious practice and spirituality. Of particular interest to occupational science are studies that show statistically significant, positive relationships with religious/spiritual practice and health outcomes. Given that this research documented musical activities in and around Lutheran congregations, spiritual occupations were primarily religious pursuits identified as such by the participants, though this does not imply that spiritual occupations not associated with religious practice are necessarily less efficacious.

Research has demonstrated that music, whether devotional or not, can promote health (Neumayer & Wilding, 2005), foster successful aging (Wise, Hartmann, & Fisher, 1992), and inspire feelings of well-being and relaxation (Clift & Hancox, 2001). Moreover, Tonneijck, Kinébanian and Josephsson (2008) found that participating in a choir not only helped individuals to feel socially connected, but offered a challenge which led to opportunities to experience flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and wholeness. That 2008 study, however, listed the ethnic similarity of its participants as a limitation. Do these rewarding experiences of social connectedness, wholeness, and challenge in a choir setting change when the musical population consists of immigrants and refugees from Asia, Latin America, and Africa in a new context in which they are the racial minority?

Literature demonstrating that involvement with spirituality and faith can have protective effects against the stress of racism is documented in occupational science and psychology (Bowen-Reid & Harrell, 2002; Lawson & Thomas, 2007). In a study similar to the present study, Beagan, Etowa and Thomas (2012) reported that the spirituality of African Nova Scotian women helped them to believe in possibilities beyond the current reality and to connect with others who shared their values. This belief, in turn, enabled them to cope with the racism they experienced in their everyday lives.

Some insights into the ways migration might affect the inter-connections among identity, place, and occupation have been generated by Huot and Laliberte Rudman (2010). Using Bourdieu's (1977) concept of habitus and Goffman's theories of interaction to inform their analysis, they suggested that changes in social locations (as in migration) disrupt people's habitus, thereby challenging the way in which they perform or “do identity”. Huot and Laliberte Rudman posed further questions that could enrich understandings of migration and occupation, including, “How do people ultimately reaffirm or recreate identity following migration?” (p. 75). This article provides examples of ways in which immigrants and refugees re-negotiate their routines and occupations in religious settings, developing musical performances that not only reflect, but also shape aspects of identity that they chose to reinforce within their new context.

Demographic Patterns

Race, ethnicity and spirituality have become intertwined in the US Lutheran imagination since great waves of immigration from Scandinavia and Germany brought Lutherans to the US in the 19th century. This entanglement of ethnicity and spirituality creates a challenging environment for newer Lutheran refugees and immigrants from Africa, Asia and Latin America who make Minnesota their home, because their race does not correspond with conventional expectations of who Lutheran Minnesotans are.

US Lutherans may still be predominantly white, but changes in global Christianity, US church attendance, and immigration patterns have recently altered the landscape of US Lutheranism, especially in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Minnesota has historically had one of the smallest minority populations in the nation, but recent trends in immigration and refugee resettlement complicate the homogeneity of the state. 2010 census figures estimate that foreign-born residents make up almost 15% of the population in Minneapolis and St. Paul. They also indicate that people of color constitute almost 25% of the metropolitan population. From 1990–2000, the number of foreign-born residents increased by 130% (Katz, 2003). Moreover, in 2005, Minnesota received an influx of 15,456 immigrants, more than in any of the state's previous 25 years (Gillaspy, 2006). African migration to the state is particularly strong. In 2006, it was estimated that Minnesota's black population was growing five times faster than the nation's black population as a whole (“Immigrants from Africa,” 2007). Minnesota is also home to a large population of refugees. In fact, since the turn of the 21^st century, Minnesota has consistently ranked highest in the nation for proportion of refugees to immigrants (Casale, 2005), and claimed the second-highest number of refugee arrivals (after California) in the nation in 2005 (Gillaspy, 2006).

This latest influx in immigration coincides with a period of declining membership in North American Lutheran churches. The largest Lutheran body in the US, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), reported flat or declining membership in 82% of its congregations in 2007 (Hanson, 2008, p. 159). Meanwhile, Lutheranism is growing at a rapid rate in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Lutheran membership reached almost 70 million worldwide in 2004, increasing by 5.4%, while North American membership declined 2.2% in the same period (Eunice, 2005).

Mark Hanson, the presiding bishop of the ELCA, views US Lutherans' general intolerance for multiculturalism as one of the most damaging reasons for its North American deterioration. He has urged Euro-American Lutherans, a 97% majority in the US, to rearticulate their Lutheran identity in terms of Lutheran theology rather than European ancestry:

Ethnic identities traditionally have been the glue that holds Lutheranism together as a culture. This is no longer possible or even desirable … the church must confront the power and privilege given to persons of European-American descent … yet we in the majority seem steadfastly unwilling to confront our racism. (Hanson, 2008, p. 158)

While most scholarship on Lutheran growth focuses on the context outside of the US, Hanson's statement reminds his audience that the US Lutheran churches are increasingly ethnically and racially diverse, largely due to steady immigration from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In addition, his statements warn of the racism that immigrants and refugees might experience.

The Lutheran Music of New Minnesotans

Music is fundamental to Lutheranism, such that the church is known by founder Martin Luther's insistence on congregational singing. Musical tradition is a critical thread by which Lutheran communities strengthen their shared association with the past, and reinforce their sense of belonging with one another in the present. Connecting the past and the present is particularly difficult for recent immigrants and refugees, who have especially complex points of identification to maintain and create as they (re)make their lives in a new environment. Their ‘discontinuity of identity’ corresponds to transitions of occupation as they (re)create their identity within a new context (Espin, 1997). While conventional knowledge of culture and identity holds that they are cohesive and pure, both culture and identity are dynamic and performative, continually being remade (Bonder, Martin, & Miracle, 2004). In this, one could argue that “culture itself [is] a form of occupation” (Kumar, 2011, p. 36). One persistent question for immigrants is how to be both African, Asian, or Latin American and Lutheran.

Just as culture is dynamic, contemporary ethnomusicologists conceptualize music as a malleable art form. As Manuel (1997) indicated, “musical tastes, practices, and ideas can serve as particularly salient indices of the complex multiple identities of migrant communities” (p. 17). While music articulates multiple, complex points of identification (or perhaps because of it), it also encourages groups of people “to feel they are in touch with an essential part of themselves, their emotions, and their community” (Stokes, 1994, p. 12), thereby providing a platform from which to organize, activate, and celebrate human connection. For choir singers, the musical experience is a social experience. Small (1998) urged music scholars to think about music as a process (rather than a product) whose meaning lies within the relationships among those who make it and listen to it. In making music, he asserted that individuals and groups articulate ideals of human relationships. Music may also give an intimate and often more candid glimpse into a group's emergent culture: “In song the individual or the group can apparently express deep-seated feelings not permissibly verbalized in other contexts” (Merriam, 1964, p. 190).

Music's transportability makes it one of the most mobile and consumed cultural practices available to immigrants and refugees in their new context. As such, it plays an especially important role in the creation of a new religious life for migrants as they venture far from their homeland, yet seek to maintain ties with it. Music is one of the few worship practices that Lutherans can readily receive from their homeland (in the form of cassette tapes, CDs or via the Internet), making it possible to stay up to date with the latest trends. Consequently, music is revered by many for its power to transport its participants back to the homeland. However, music sung by immigrants and refugees is not simply the past remembered. Rather, “the rhetoric of continuity obscures that actors constantly re-constitute and re-invent (or refuse to re-constitute) in diverse manners what is imagined as simply continuing” (Sökefeld, as cited in Vertovec, 2004, p. 285). While members of choirs and congregations frequently desire continuity with music from their homelands, the community and the music they practice is changed by the processes of migration and resettlement, just as the immigrants themselves are.

Methods

This qualitative study based on ethnographic methodology (Nettl, 2005) received ethical permission from the Institutional Review Board at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The research took place from 2004 to 2010. Informed consent was obtained from all individuals who volunteered for the study. Consent forms indicated that the goal of the study was to explore and document the diversity of music-making in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, as well as the role of music-making in the life of a community. Volunteers could terminate participation at any point in the study. Their identity was protected by using pseudonyms for the purpose of this article.

The recruitment process involved searching for Lutheran congregations whose constituents were immigrants, personally introducing myself to the pastor or choir director of a church, and requesting their permission to attend and observe church services, choir practices, and other related activities. Word of mouth and snowball sampling was then used to recruit 35 first- or second-generation immigrant or refugee volunteers who practiced music in Lutheran settings in the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Data were gathered from participant observation and qualitative, in-depth interviews conducted in English (with the exception of one interview for which a translator was present to translate Khmer and English). Participant observations largely included participation in church services, but also occurred when I was invited to choir practices, funerals, weddings, special events, and into the homes of participating volunteers for interviews. Insights gleaned from participant observation and interviews were supplemented with the examination of hymnals, hymnal companions, music recordings, and church publications, such as bulletins and newsletters. The findings reported here discuss how the occupation of music-making in a religious setting may assist immigrants and refugees in re-negotiating their identities after migration.

Researcher subjectivity

Field notes, documented at research sites during participant observation, helped maintain awareness of my subjectivity, and to analyze and contextualize observations and responses during one-to-one interviews. I am a cultural outsider in many respects as I am not an immigrant or refugee, am Caucasian, and was raised in the Catholic Church. I was not a member of any of the congregations studied. However, I was a cultural insider in that I had also attended many Lutheran services throughout my life, even participating in Lutheran youth groups and a mission trip organized by a Lutheran congregation during high school. In addition, I identify as someone who values music. Finally, my identification as a Minnesotan residing in the Twin Cities area in some occasions enabled me to feel like a cultural insider and at other times, to feel like an outsider.

Participants

The study included Lutherans that identified as Hmong, Lao, Oromo, Ethiopian (Amhara), Latino, Anuak, Cambodian (Khmer), Liberian, Latvian, Chinese (mainland/Han), Tanzanian, Kenyan, Eritrean, and Sudanese (Nuer). Some of them practiced Lutheranism in their homelands. Others converted to Lutheranism or another form of Christianity in refugee camps before resettlement, and still others converted after arriving in the US. All of them practiced Lutheranism in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota, and had since at least 2004. Most of them worshipped in homogeneous groups dependent on identification from their homeland (whether ethnic or national), though a few of them worshipped alongside non-immigrant congregants (largely Euro-Americans). Most of the participants were amateur musicians, though a few of them were professionally accomplished.

Questions asked during the one-on-one interviews focused on the perspectives of the participants, often addressing how music-making fit into the process of identity-formation as they navigated the cultural terrain between their homeland and their new context. Special attention was given to the process of composing or preparing a song for a church service and group preferences for particular tunes. The interviews lasted anywhere from 60 to 120 minutes, and were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Findings

A study of choir-singing as a leisure occupation found that Dutch choir singers articulated three main themes about its benefits: social connectedness, offering a challenge, and experiencing something different from everyday routines (Tonneijck et al., 2008). The intersection of these three themes created a sense of wholeness. Evidence from interviews and participant observation in the current study indicated that the participants also found wholeness according to the intersection of these three themes. However, two further factors also significantly contributed to their sense of wholeness; namely, the spiritual dimension of choir-singing and the way that singing enabled choir members to embody and express their multiple points of identification. These five factors combined to facilitate their transition and affected their identity and sense of belonging in an unfamiliar environment. Singing in a group setting became a vehicle that assisted in identity (re)formation and adaptation. Furthermore, through choir members’ performances with and for other US Lutherans, singing frequently facilitated cross-cultural understanding among different ethnic groups within the same religion.

Spirituality

Choir members cited the recitation of Christian texts and stories through singing as a source of comfort in their new context, regardless of whether their Christian faith had been a continuation of their religious life in their homeland or acquired after arriving in the US. For refugees who were fleeing violence or political persecution, Bible texts and worship song lyrics became a way to help manage, and even overcome, their anger and grief about the damage done to their country and their displacement. One Khmer (Cambodian) choir member discussed how she used the Bible and song texts to help forgive the Khmer Rouge for the torture and killing they enacted on fellow Cambodians. She explained:

One thing I learned from the Bible is forgiveness. What about all of the suffering and torture my country experienced under the communist regime? What does it mean to forgive the Khmer Rouge? … The words of songs always inspire me, especially when I am familiar with the music. The words really make me reflect and contemplate how to turn scripture into practice. (2006, March 12)

Moreover, the leader of the Khmer Choir believed that music was a God-given talent that kept him alive in a Khmer Rouge work camp.

I've been playing music since I was 12 years old. I played with the Khmer Rouge—at that time they wanted to kill me, but because of the knowledge that God had given me, they couldn't afford to because Cambodian music, it's all strings that need to be tuned. Whenever we played, I was the one who did the tuning. If I didn't tune, they couldn't play. Music saved me. (2004, August 4)

After resettling in the US, he used his musical knowledge to start and direct the Khmer Choir at Christ Lutheran on Capitol Hill, where he accompanied choir members on traditional Cambodian instruments such as a 3-stringed fiddle called the tro khmer and the skor, a Cambodian drum. He believed that Cambodian parishioners joined the choir “to sing their hearts out to God.” It is worth mentioning that he did not feel as though he had to give up previous spiritual beliefs and practices (a mix of Brahmanism, Hinduism and Buddhism) to become Lutheran. He also enjoyed going to the Cambodian Buddhist temple (Watt Munisota) in Hampton, Minnesota for special celebrations.

The preferred repertoire at St. Matthew's Sudanese (Nuer) services consisted of songs received in dreams as messages from God. One St. Matthew's member briefly described the abilities of those appointed to receive such songs: “God trusts the people who receive songs in their dreams and they trust God's word” (2006, March 5). Those who received songs in their dreams wrote them down upon waking and shared them with other Christians if they felt confident that it was God's will. This practice is also common among Ethiopian Christians.

Many refugee Lutherans believed that their purpose in the US was to spread and strengthen the word of God. In this way, they were able to claim some agency and find purpose in their forced dispersion. Research findings consistent with similar instances of positive reinterpretation demonstrate that people who identify as racial minorities may change their interpretation of events as a way to cope with racism (Beagan & Etowa, 2011; Mellor, 2004). Positive reinterpretation, as enacted by refugees in this study, had less to do with coping with racism. Rather, it was a strategy of re-assigning meaning to their forced migration, an event out of their control that traumatically transformed their lives. Refugee Lutherans frequently found parallels to their experiences of being scattered in passages from the Bible that focus on diaspora and evangelism. A pastor at Our Redeemer Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church, a church whose constituents largely hail from Ethiopia, stated:

Our people, who were locally evangelized by the pioneer European missionaries, [it] is now their turn to serve the Lord globally. Through the pain that our people are passing through, Oromo churches have been established wherever the Oromo people settled and above all, are considered as one of the most [rapidly-] growing immigrant churches in the USA. (2007)

While many North Americans continue to perceive the US as a Christian nation, many refugee and immigrant Lutherans described how surprised they were by the discrepancy between the American culture they imagined they would find and the reality of living there. A lay leader of the Anuak service at Christ Lutheran commented:

It used to be that what we know as Americans or Westerners are Christians and the rest of them are non-Christians, but people [in the US] take religion for granted. Block after block, there are church buildings. But, some of the churches are just empty. There's so much materialism and dependence on their ability because they are so advanced in technology that they question the existence of God. There was a time when we couldn't even worship in the country we came from. Here we can worship freely, and it's time to share our faith with fellow American Christians and non-Christians. Some [Anuak] people actually paid their dear life because they were worshipping God; they have been killed. They were asked to deny it … I don't think we ever thought in our lifetime that we would come to America. God put us here purposely because we are willing to share our love, and the message of God. (2006, March 5)

Transforming an experience of displacement in which they had little control into a meaningful undertaking appointed by God helped refugees feel purposeful in their new lives. Singing was one of the most public ways in which a group of refugees or immigrants could communicate their faith to fellow Americans. Therefore, singing was one of the main vehicles that facilitated cross-cultural understanding. A member of the Khmer choir remarked, “Our Cambodian choir inspires [Euro-American parishioners]. We translate [the text] and put it in the brochure, so they can read that [while they listen to our singing]” (2006, March 12). Through singing, Cambodians and other refugee Lutherans publicly enacted their faith in a way that acknowledged their cultural background and their new American identity. Music-making confirmed both their similarities and differences with fellow US Lutheran parishioners and affirmed their rightful place in the US.

Diasporic status

While the challenge identified in Tonneijck et al.'s (2008) study of Dutch choir-singing related to sounding “pleasant” or their competency as musicians, the challenge for immigrants and refugees was two-part: 1) competency as musicians, and 2) negotiating the music-making process so that it was representative of their identities in the diaspora. The repertoire chosen, as well as the way in which the group performed it, was of utmost importance. Choir members selectively incorporated musical aspects from their new context while they maintained selected aspects of what most called their “cultural music”. The agency (Schwandt, 2001) involved in selecting, enacting and embodying their new identities through singing, an act that both reflected and created their changed identity, facilitated their adaptation to US life.

Refugees and immigrants often describe resettlement as an isolating experience. Christiansen's (1999) discussion of occupation and identity indicates that the disjuncture experienced in periods of transition, such as immigration, has implications for individuals' identities: “If our identities are crafted by what we do and how we do it, then it follows that any threat to our ability to engage in occupations and present ourselves as competent people becomes a threat to our identity” (p. 553). Choir-singing with a group that spoke their native tongue, and had experienced resettlement under the same conditions with a similar set of cultural values, provided the participants with respite from a reality in which their identities felt fractured.

In summary, the challenges of working together to produce music that could encompass their multiple points of identification in a socially safe and spiritually-enriching setting, which was different from the everyday realities in which they felt quite isolated, provided immigrants and refugees the opportunity to be active agents in the difficult process of resettlement and to thereby experience an enhanced sense of wholeness in their new context. A few examples from some of the choirs and congregations studied will help illuminate the benefits of singing in a group setting as a cultural occupation for immigrants and refugees.

The Khmer (Cambodian) choir at Christ Lutheran on Capitol Hill, one of the most ethnically diverse Lutheran congregations in the nation, sang a Khmer tune at every service, accompanied by piano and occasionally, a tro khmer and a skor. Khmer participants sang traditional Cambodian lullabies and folk music set to Christian texts, and also adopted new musical skills common in the US, such as performing a solo, singing in harmony and with the accompaniment of an instrument tuned to a diatonic scale (the piano). Joining a choir that sang a repertoire in a way that encompassed their multiple identities (Cambodian, American, Lutheran) helped refugees and immigrants have agency in constructing their sense of self in a new context. A choir member commented on the comfort found in a socially safe, spiritually-enriched setting that was different from her everyday reality:

There are a lot of adjustment issues, like isolation; [being unable] to speak the language; the weather, the ice, the snow; you can't go anywhere until your sponsor picks you up … Being in a choir, you learn the Word of God, and the way of life here … [when you become involved with] the church and the choir, you keep learning and growing … you sing from your heart and soul and you feel the joy of sharing music. (2006, March 12)

The opportunity to sing communally in their native language in an environment where they were encouraged to express their cultural background helped refugees and immigrants actively incorporate their past into their new present. For example, one resettled Cambodian refugee remarked:

The music comforts you, especially if you're talking about Cambodian melodies. They remind you of your home, and what you learned in the past. You can carry it on now and contribute it, use it for your life. You have to have that opportunity to sing with other [Cambodian] members. (2006, March 12)

For Lao Lutherans, the challenge of making music that encompassed their multiple points of identification existed primarily in the negotiation of generational preferences. The older generation of Lao Lutherans preferred to sing in the Lao language, in a more subdued style with sparse accompaniment (a cappella or with piano). The younger generation preferred to sing in the English language, in a more charismatic style, with rock instrumentation (bass, electric guitar, and drumset). All worship tunes at Sunday church services were accompanied by bass, guitar, and drumset (the typical instrumentation for an American rock group), the lyrics were sung simultaneously in Lao and English, and the vocalization of English lyrics was quite energetic while vocalization in Lao was rather reserved. The inclusion of many diverse musical characteristics created discordance in the musical product. While a unified musical style and language would have created a more coherent sound, it also would have jeopardized the music's ability to encompass the complex identities of the congregants. The singing at the church was thus an illustrative symbol of the members' diasporic identities, and an example of a situation in which creating a pleasant musical product was not as important as enacting music that expressed their changed identities.

Unlike the music practiced by Lao Lutherans in the Twin Cities, Swahili choir musicians from Tanzania and Kenya sang what the choir-founder referred to as “old” music. Uncertain about contemporary Christian music movements in Tanzania and Kenya that rely on western instrumentation like the guitar and electric keyboards, the group sang a cappella in 4-part harmony, a style not frequently heard in their homeland anymore. Many choir members had children who were born in the US. The choir served as a way for east African participants to acknowledge their roots in a setting different from mainstream American culture and ensured the retention of east African cultural knowledge for their children while they resided in the US. One choir member stated, “Part of me pushing the Swahili service even to go on is for [my children's] benefit. So they know they have roots. So they know it's not all Britney Spears” (2004, July 8). In an American culture that threatened to overwhelm their heritage as Tanzanians or Kenyans, singing in the Swahili choir created a space for the many generations of the congregation to embody their African and Lutheran identities.

In contrast, Anuak parishioners at the Christ Lutheran Church favored the most contemporary worship music from their homeland. Though there was a text-only hymnal in Anuak derived from translations of European hymns, tunes from the hymnal were rarely sung at services. Instead, they sang the newest songs they could get from their homeland, circulated throughout the community on tapes, CDs or via the Internet. The most revered song leaders were those who had most recently immigrated, bringing with them the newly-composed Christian songs. Rather than sing Anuak translations of European tunes, the majority of the music sung at the service was derived from what the Anuak call their “cultural music” – which was the music they traditionally danced to in a call-and-response pattern, with the accompaniment of three interlocking drums. This music was then set to Christian lyrics. An Anuak service leader remarked:

[The music] is what we would sing in a traditional setting, being among our people; it could have nothing to do with Christianity at all. [But], that is what generates the true worship and the true feeling of being attracted to a love of God … That's why you get people jumping up and saying, ‘Oh, okay, we used to dance to kings but now we are dancing to God.’ That kind of music is actually traditional, but yet it is Christian. (2006, March 5)

Without the drumming, the call-and-response patterns, the Anuak language, and the specific east African vocal delivery, Anuaks would have experienced discontinuity of identification (Espin, 1997). The singing of Christian texts in a Euro-American style would not have provided a “genuine” sense of connection to God, nor would it have enabled a sense of wholeness to parishioners seeking to express both their “Lutheran-ness” and their “Anuak-ness” simultaneously.

The Hmong community in the Twin Cities was initially concerned that Christianity would usurp Hmong culture. However, one of the ways the Hmong language has been maintained among the younger generation is through church music. A younger member and music leader at Hmong Central Lutheran Church explained, “Singing in church has really helped my Hmong. I can read it, speak it, write it” (2006, February 15). Though most Hmong youth are generally more comfortable with the English language, they frequently sang in Hmong to be inclusive and respectful to the older generations. Worship music leaders used the keyboard to accompany hymns. They cited the complications of learning traditional Hmong instruments, like the qeej, and the complex form of Hmong songs as impediments to the younger US Hmong population's knowledge of traditional Hmong music. A further complication was that traditional Hmong songs are not conventionally considered “music” but rather poetry, as they are delivered extemporaneously and prioritize a performer's cleverness with the text rather than the musicality of their delivery.

While the worship music leaders believed that the worship music sung at church was “Christian music that's sung in Hmong,” they also noted the congregation's decided preference for particular sound settings on the keyboard. One church musician stated, “For the most part, I use the strings … and [the congregation also] seems to like the organ sound because it's similar to the traditional instruments that are used in Hmong music” (2006, February 15). Special songs were also occasionally performed by older members in a style that more closely resembled traditional Hmong poetic forms. Participation in music at Lutheran churches enabled Hmong refugees and their children to select, enact, and embody many aspects of their cultural identity in a communal, socially-safe and spiritually-enriching environment apart from their everyday lives.

The above examples demonstrate the two-fold challenge for immigrant and refugee choir- and congregational-singers of 1) achieving competency as musicians and 2) negotiating musical choices so that the repertoire and performance style was consistent with parishioners’ diasporic identities. While the challenges remained similar for each group, the musical outcome was very different for each choir.

Discussion

This study addressed how the occupation of music-making influenced identity (re)creation in immigrants and refugees who worshipped at Lutheran congregations in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. The purpose of this article was to enrich occupational understandings of how music-making contributes to the adjustment process. Tonneijck and colleagues (2008) illuminated three factors at work in the leisure occupation of choir-singing: social connectedness, offering a challenge, and experiencing something different from everyday routines. They proposed that these three aspects of choir-singing led to an enhanced sense of wholeness for their participants (Hammell, 2004). This article asked whether these same factors contribute to a sense of wholeness for immigrants and refugees.

The outcomes demonstrate that social connectedness, offering a challenge, and experiencing something different from everyday routines were indeed important elements that created a sense of wholeness for participants, in turn facilitating their adjustment to a new social location. However, analysis uncovered two further factors contributing to a sense of wholeness for the immigrants and refugees in this study. First, the religious setting was a significant factor in their adjustment process, with many refugees using the religious context of the Lutheran setting as a way to positively reinterpret (Beagan & Etowa, 2011; Mellor, 2004) their dislocation from their previous home. Music was one of the most expressive ways that immigrant and refugee Lutherans publicly acknowledged their faith in God's presence throughout their plight and enacted acceptance of their resettlement.

Music-making also became an occupation that facilitated cross-cultural understanding among immigrant/refugee Lutherans and Lutherans native to the Twin Cities. While the social locations of these two groups of Lutherans were typically quite different in terms of class, race, and ethnicity, the sharing of a common faith facilitated communication. Immigrant and refugee Lutherans performed music in their native tongue that was largely indecipherable to western Lutherans, but musical practice provided opportunities for both groups to enact their spiritual and cultural identities, generating a safe space for exchange in which musical difference was expected. While music is not a universal language, that misunderstanding encourages people to believe that music has the capacity to communicate across difference in ways that language cannot. The expectation of communication and the communal act of offering music to share with fellow parishioners (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Tonneijck et al., 2008) engendered a sense of community among people with disparate social circumstances, thereby creating a greater sense of belonging among immigrant and refugee Lutherans.

The second additional finding was that the volunteers used music-making in the Lutheran context to both maintain selective aspects of cultural practice from their homeland while also acquiring novel musical practices pertaining to their new social location. This process of actively and habitually (Huot & Laliberte Rudman, 2010) engaging in practices and performances that connected them to multiple aspects of their identities, during a time of dramatic transition enabled them to feel a sense of wholeness not frequently present in their new, everyday lives.

Postcolonial theorists have demonstrated how European Christian norms were privileged in areas under colonial rule to strengthen and justify inequities in power (Said, 1979; Young, 2003). Given the colonial past of Christianity in the homelands of many participants, where Christian practice frequently usurped indigenous cultural and religious expression, it is somewhat surprising that Christian music-making enabled participants in this study to create and reflect their contemporary cultural identities in a postcolonial, diasporic context. Christian music-making became one of the most important platforms from which to connect disparate aspects of migrants’ identities, perhaps because of Christianity's associations with the west, but also because of an enhanced acceptance of cultural diversity within Lutheran expression (Freed in Christ, 1993). For the participants of this study, their Christian experience in the United States was a source of comfort and a way to selectively maintain cultural traditions rather than disrupt them.

Limitations

The findings present the experiences of only 35 of the hundreds of immigrant or refugee Lutherans practicing in the Twin Cities. Immigrant/refugee communities living in rural areas were not included, nor were groups of immigrants and refugees practicing other religions. The most severe limitation of this study was my inability to speak the various languages spoken within the congregations. Although the majority of parishioners spoke English, fluency in Nuer, Khmer, Swahili, Mandarin, Hmong, Lao, Bassa, Afaan Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrigna would have enriched interpretations of the worship music and culture and enabled many of the volunteers to speak to me with more ease about their experiences. As in any ethnographic research, the subjectivity of the researcher can influence interview responses and interpretations of the findings. Accordingly, I continually questioned and evaluated how my background might impact research findings and analysis in an effort to remain aware of and acknowledge bias.

The conflation of spirituality and religiosity in the study was a limitation, as participants treated them as one and the same. In addition, it was difficult to parse the benefits of social connection from the benefits of spiritual/religious practice. Participants expressed that they were both important factors in the process of selecting, enacting and embodying a changed identity through music in their new context. However, because all of the participants in the study identified as Lutheran, there was no comparison with other immigrants and refugees who might enact their newly re-created identities musically in a non-religious group setting. Future studies might focus on music-making, identity, and adaptation for recent immigrants/refugees outside of religious contexts or music-making in non-Christian religious settings.

Conclusion

Given the Scandinavian or German ethnic background of the average US Lutheran, it may seem odd that immigrants and refugees from Africa, Asia, and Latin America would find the occupation of singing Lutheran music a meaningful vehicle in negotiating their diasporic identities and facilitating their transition to their new cultural context. The racial and ethnic homogeneity of North American Lutheran membership and its firm attachment to its European roots appear to be exclusionary. However, the ethnic culture that permeates Minnesotan Lutheran congregations many generations after their ancestors arrived from Europe may engender support for the practice and maintenance of cultural traditions and ethnic identity. Immigrant and refugee choir members, worship music leaders and congregational singers consistently cited that singing assisted in identity (re)formation, adaptation, and cross-cultural understanding. For refugee participants, the religious setting facilitated positive reinterpretation (Mellor, 2004) of their displacement, and music-making was an occupation that enabled refugees to select, enact, and embody their changed identity. The context of a new culture did not diminish music's restorative value (Unruh, 2004). In fact, music's transportability and malleability endowed music-making as an occupation with enhanced power to (re)create identity in a new context (Huot & Laliberte Rudman, 2010). Lutheran music-making encouraged refugees and immigrants to feel in touch with essential aspects of their emotions and identities (Stokes, 1994), as well as to socially connect to fellow humans intra-culturally or cross-culturally in a socially safe and spiritually-enriched setting different from their everyday routines. While Huot and Laliberte Rudman's (2010) research indicated that changes in social locations, like migration, disrupt people's habitus, thereby challenging the way in which people perform or ‘do identity’, the collective challenge of performing and embodying their (re)created identities through music-making led to enhanced sense of wholeness (Tonneijck et al., 2008) following migration for many different ethnic groups that had resettled in the US.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research conducted for a dissertation by Allison Adrian to attain a PhD in Musicology/Ethnomusicology. She extends her deepest gratitude to all of the volunteers who participated in the study, entrusting her with their ideas and feelings about music, religion, migration, and Minnesota.