One thing I’ve noticed when I walk around NYC is that there are a lot of different types of religious institutions. There are Temples, Mosques, Churches and more. For the project we can study religion and how it differentiates among ethnic groups. Religion plays a major role in every ethnic group because it is a collection of beliefs and cultural systems. It affects the way people act since it is so integrated into every individual’s lifestyle. We can study how religion affects individual’s behavior and lifestyle.

Since religion is a broad category, there are a lot of different paths we can explore for our project. For example, on one page we can talk about the different types of holidays and festivities that derive from this particular religion. On another page, we can talk about the different types of music that are used during prayer rituals. We can also talk about the different types of foods that certain religious groups can or cannot eat. Why don’t Muslims eat pork, and why don’t Christians eat meat on Lent? And yet another topic we can explore is religion clashes. We can study whether or not there are any religious clashes between ethnic groups that live amongst each other. And if there are certain religious groups that are notoriously known to disagree, do any of these religious groups live in the same community?

I think that this topic will allow us to learn a lot more about all the different cultures in NYC. We could divide up the work like we did with the neighborhood visits. In her book, Foner mentions that a lot of religious institutions were formed in order to help ethnic groups preserve their culture. Since there are so many religious groups in NYC, we could have small groups of students visit the different types of religious institutions. We can interview the directors of these institutions, and see how these institutions have upheld their traditional rituals and how they have adapted their services to help new immigrant groups arriving in the neighborhood. (The Church of Transfiguration was originally built as a Roman Catholic Church serving the Italians, but their services are now catered to serve the Chinese. How have these services changed?) Yet another thing we could do is attend the different types of festivities that are associated with certain religions. For example, since Easter is coming up, we could interview people to see how the Christians celebrate this holiday, and we can also do some research to understand why Christians celebrate this particular holiday.

After looking at the previous websites, I’ve realized that we can incorporate a lot of the technology that they used into our website. We could have maps to show where these religious institutions are located, and we can also show how certain religious institutions are only located in certain communities. For example, we would typically find Buddhist Temples in Chinese communities, and Gurdwaras (place of worship for the Sikhs) in Punjabi communities. We could also use audio and video recordings to document the events that we attend and the interviews that we conduct.