Religion unified American identity while race divided it

Evidence

The assimilation of racial minorities in America has had a different history from that of religious minorities. While religion has had a unifying role in the development of American national identity, race has not. — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 286

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens the analytical machinery for comparing Muslim assimilation to earlier Catholic and Jewish cases versus racial minority cases.
• XREF: connects to: Billy Graham fused Christian identity with American patriotism as early as the 1950s — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 237; Rural evangelical communities fused Christian and American identity as one — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 53