Alba, Richard, Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh DeWind, eds. Immigration and Religion in America. New York: New York UP, 2009. Print.

I began my search for my Shelfie book on the Lafayette Library website. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted my paper to be about, so I started off with broad terms in the search engine, in hopes that I would read a title that interested me, and then I would be able to narrow my search. My first search was “religion in America”. As I scrolled through the books and articles that related to religion in America, I came across a book called, “Immigration and Religion in America”. I have always been interested in stories of immigrants and their experiences while traveling into America, and also their stories pertaining to their experiences adjusting to American society, so I decided that this would be the book I would use.

When I went to find this book in the library, I was happy to find that on the front cover of the book, it said right underneath the title, “Comparative and Historical Perspectives”. In my mind, having both comparative and historical perspectives about immigration and religion in American is a big plus, because it gives some background on the past of these issues, it also shows how the issues have progressed over time, and it explains many different views on how religion and immigration relate.

As I flipped through the first few pages of the book, I stopped and read the contents page. Part I of the book is about the “integration of Italian and Mexican Immigrants into an American Religion”, Part II is the “religious conversion among Japanese and Korean immigrants”, Part III is incorporation if new religions into American society by European Jews and Arab Muslims, and lastly Part IV is “religious diversification among African American and Haitian migrants,”. Because it seems that this book covers several of the religions we have discussed in this course, and may possibly get to, I thought it would be a good book and topic for my final paper of the year, in a way concluding this course.

Cabezón, José Ignacio, ed. Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Print.

After reading Sallie King’s, “Awakening Stories of Zen Buddhist Women,” I became very interested in the role, and standing of women in Buddhism. I first visited the Lafayette College Library Catalog and used the keyword “Buddhism” in my initial search. I then was able to look through the list of books given and try to find one that incorporated the role of gender that plays in Buddhism. After looking through a few of the titles, I came across, “Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender”. This title really got my attention because it was the only book I found that discussed not just the role of gender, but also the role of sexuality.

The role of sexuality in Buddhism had never crossed my mind, but after reading the title of this book, it became a topic I was thoroughly interested in. I then decided that I would search for this book among the shelves at Skillman Library using the book’s call number, and skim through a few of the pages to see if this was still something that drew my attention.

After reading the table of contents, several topics that I wanted to read further were, “Gender and Contemporary Buddhist Culture”, and “Homosexuality as Seen in Indian Buddhist Texts,”. I never thought that homosexuality would ever be mentioned in Buddhism texts, but after skimming through the chapter that focused on it, I realized that I was wrong. The role of sexuality, and thus homosexuality, in buddhism discussed in this book, made me realize that this was a book I would want to potentially use in the future to use in my paper.

After finding this book, my idea of wanting to write my paper about gender in Buddhism has been solidified, and has also expanded to the role of sexuality in Buddhism as well.