Literature on Refugee Resettlement, Intermarriage, and Integration

Scholarship on refugee resettlement and integration is masked by “long-standing divides between the terms refugee and migrant, and integration and assimilation,” with the term assimilation more frequently associated with migrants (Donato and Ferris Reference Donato and Ferris2020, 7). Ager and Strang (Reference Ager and Strang2008) developed the first conceptual framework of refugee integration that is divided into the four main themes of (1) markers and means, (2) social connections, (3) facilitators, and (4) foundations. Since its development, this framework has been widely utilized by scholars in the field to measure refugee integration. In 2015, the Panel on the Integration of Immigrants into American Society sought to measure the integration of first-and second-generation immigrants to the United States, defining the concept as a two-way process in which immigrants and their “host societies come to resemble one another” (Waters and Pineau Reference Waters and Pineau2015, 2). Building on this study, Rodríguez-García (Reference Rodríguez-García2015, 11) argues that integration is a “contextual phenomenon” in which newcomers and natives adopt each other’s cultures, but the rise of diverse and multicultural communities is making it increasingly difficult to measure integration. As a result, research on integration must come from an intercultural perspective to best assess the collaboration between natives and newcomers.

Other scholarly work debates the validity of using intermarriage as a measure of integration but agrees that intermarriage is undeniably an agent of social change and integration into mainstream society. Rodriguez-Garcia et al. (Reference Rodriguez-Garcia, Lubbers, Solana and de Miguel-Luken2015) analyze the relationship “between intermarriage and sociocultural dimensions of the integration of immigrants in Spain” using 94 interviews with “immigrants of seven different origins in exogamous (mixed) and endogamous (same-origin) unions in Catalonia, the region with the highest rate of immigration and ethno-racial diversity in Spain” (223). They find a bidirectional influence between language acquisition and intermarriage in which “respondents in mixed unions have a clearly higher proficiency in Catalan than endogamous respondents” (Rodriguez-Garcia et al. Reference Rodriguez-Garcia, Lubbers, Solana and de Miguel-Luken2015, 230). Additionally, intermarriage has a positive and statistically significant association with the social capital of women in mixed unions but a statistically insignificant association with the social capital of men in mixed unions (Ibid 2015, 230). Kalmijn (Reference Kalmijn2015) uses secondary-school survey data from children of intermarriage living in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden to test the theory that intermarriage promotes integration. Using three dimensions of integration, social (contact with natives), cultural (religiosity and family values), and economic (school achievement tests), he finds children of mixed unions to be more integrated in all three dimensions than second-generation immigrants, but less integrated in all three dimensions than native children.

Using data from the 2008-2012 American Community Surveys, Lichter et al. (Reference Lichter, Qian and Tumin2015) argue that intermarriage indicates integration by providing “indirect evidence that intergroup boundaries have weakened and increasing shares of the foreign-born population are exposed to the natives by living in the same neighborhoods, attending the same schools, speaking the same language, and sharing the same economic status” (58). Similarly, Gall and Meintel (Reference Gall and Meintel2015) argue that intermarriage contributes to integration by normalizing plural identities (112). Using eighty interviews of mixed couples in Quebec, they argue that intermarriage between foreign-born and native-born individuals has a significant impact on the cultural identities of their children. Alba and Foner (Reference Alba and Foner2015) analyzed unions between non-Western immigrants and native majorities in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States to identify the frequency and significance of intermarriage on integration. They find that the significance and frequency are entirely context dependent. For example, being a Muslim immigrant in a Western European country or an African immigrant in the United States significantly lowers the frequency of intermarriage. Intermarriage among Asian immigrants and native-born Americans has risen significantly since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which removed the national origins formula that had shaped U.S. immigration policy since the 1920s, and this rise in intermarriage has provided many Asian immigrants with “racial mobility” (Lee Reference Lee2015, 79). Furtado and Song (Reference Furtado and Song2015) use data from the U.S. census (1980-2000) and the American Community Survey (2005-2010) to examine why intermarriage wage premiums have increased in recent decades. They argue that the rise in intermarriage wage premiums is not “explained by changes in the attributes of immigrants who tend to marry natives but instead by a result of changes in how these attributes are rewarded in the labor market” (207).

While the above studies make a significant contribution to our understanding of the association between intermarriage and integration more broadly, we know little about resettled refugees’ attitudes toward intermarriage and the role that religion might play in those attitudes. Previous studies show that ascriptive characteristics such as skin tone and religion affect non-European immigrants’ integration into American society (Jones-Correa et al. Reference Jones-Correa, Marrow, Okamoto and Tropp2018; Kurien Reference Kurien2001; Joshi Reference Joshi2006). Using New Immigration Survey data, Bohra-Mishra and Massey (Reference Bohra-Mishra and Massey2015) find Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist immigrants are approximately 72 percent less likely to “marry a U.S. native” (10). Unlike voluntary migrants, resettled refugees are usually victims of violent political situations due to ethnic or religious fractionalization, are forced from their home countries, and have little or no say in where they are relocated to. To have a better understanding of why some resettled refugees support intermarriage while others do not, we focus on the case of Bhutanese refugees resettled in the state of Michigan.

The Case of Bhutanese Refugees

Bhutanese refugees are an interesting case for studying resettled refugees’ attitudes toward intermarriage in the United States. They represent a population displaced by government-sponsored ethnic cleansing due to marriage. Bhutan is made up of several ethnic groups, including the Lhotshampas, who were originally from Nepal, settled in Bhutan in the 19th century, and maintained their Nepali language as well as their caste-based Hindu religion and culture (Adhikari et al. Reference Adhikari, Hansen, Zaman and Acharya2025). A 19^th-century feudal law called Muluki Ain classified Nepalis into a five-tier caste hierarchy “based on relative ritual purity” (Mainali et al. Reference Mainali, Jafarey and Montes-Rojas2016, 398; Hoffer Reference Höfer2004, 9-10). Those considered pure (“wearers of the holy cord” or Tagadhari, such as Brahmin and Chhetri), “non-enslavable alcohol drinkers” (such as Magar and Gurung), “Enslavable alcohol drinkers” (such as Bhote (Tibetans) and Tharu), impure but touchable (Newar butchers, musicians, laundrymen, Muslims and Europeans), and impure and untouchable ((Kami (blacksmiths), Sarki (tanners, shoemakers), Damai (tailors), and scavengers)). The so-called “pure” were permitted to share water (Pani chalne) while for the impure, water sharing was forbidden (Pani nachalne). As described below, Nepali migrants to Bhutan continued practicing their caste-based Hindu religion, which is often cited as a cause of their expulsion from the country.

In 1958, Bhutan enacted its first Nationality Act, granted citizenship to all the “Nepalis who had settled in the Kingdom before 1958,” and started referring to them as “Lhotshampas (Southern Bhutanese)” (Hutt 2003, 135). However, this law also implemented exclusionary citizenship policies, including prohibiting anyone whose father was not a Bhutanese national and anyone not married to a Bhutanese national from acquiring legal status (Hutt 2003, 147). Potential citizens also had to maintain residency in Bhutan for at least 10 years, as well as own property or work for the Bhutanese government for at least 5 years. In 1977, the government introduced a new Citizenship Act, raising the period of required government service/property ownership to 15 years and residency to 20 years and removing the ability of noncitizens to access legal status by marrying a Bhutanese national (Adhikari et al. Reference Adhikari, Hansen, Zaman and Acharya2025, 878). The new law also required applicants to have “some knowledge of the Bhutanese language both spoken and written and the history of Bhutan” (Hutt 2003, 147). Written in Tibetan script, Bhutan’s national language, Dzonghka, is significantly different from the Nepali language spoken by ethnic Nepalis.

In 1980, the government enacted the Marriage Act of Bhutan and “introduced punitive measures against Bhutanese who married non-Bhutanese” with a retroactive effect (Hutt 2003, 148). Under this new law, government employees who married foreigners were barred from promotion beyond their current position and could only reach the rank of a subdivisional officer. Bhutanese citizens marrying noncitizens were barred from employment in the defense ministry and lost access to various government benefits, including land distribution, medical treatment, and loans, and they forfeited government support for education. Government scholarship recipients were required to repay those funds if they married a noncitizen (Neikirk Reference Neikirk2023; Hutt 2003).

In 1985, the government enacted the Bhutan Citizenship Act, under which only individuals both of whose parents (not just the father) were citizens of Bhutan could claim citizenship. This change in citizenship rules was seen as targeting the ethnic Nepalis, who often married along caste lines that transcend national borders. For example, Nepali males frequently married someone from India or Nepal and brought them to Bhutan. Under the new law, these wives and their children, who were waiting for naturalization under the previous law, suddenly became noncitizens. The new law also had retroactive effects. To qualify for citizenship, applicants were required to submit documented proof of tax payments before 1958. It rendered other documents, such as land titles, marriage certificates, or passports, insufficient for establishing citizenship. Thus, many individuals were stripped of their rights to property and citizenship, forcing them to become noncitizens who were subsequently evicted from the country (Neikirk Reference Neikirk2023, 39-41; Hutt 2003, 148-49; Adhikari et al. Reference Adhikari, Hansen, Zaman and Acharya2025, 878).

The adoption of citizenship policies that discriminated against the Lhotshampas in the mid-1980s led to demonstrations and a government crackdown. Ethnic stereotypes were developed against Bhutanese of Nepali origin, describing the Lhotshampas as “mercenary…land hungry…[and] migratory” (Hutt 2003, 30). In 1988, Bhutan launched a census, officially implementing the 1985 citizenship law, and began sorting Bhutanese of Nepali origin into different categories. Those who could produce proof of tax payment before 1958 were classified as “genuine Bhutanese citizens,” while those who could not were classified as “non-nationals, i.e., migrants and illegal settlers” (Ibid, 154). When the census ended in 1990, the Bhutanese government reported that “its census operations had detected the presence in southern Bhutan of over 100,000 illegal immigrants” (Hutt 2003, 157).

In September 1990, the Lhotshampas responded to this report by organizing political rallies and demonstrations to protest the various government decisions. They were met with a brutal government crackdown, including arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, rape, murder, and kidnapping of civilians. The government labeled the protestors “anti-nationals” and mobilized state armed forces to silence the Lhotshampas (Amnesty International 1992). These events resulted in mass imprisonments and torture, forcing over 80,000 Bhutanese Nepali to flee to Nepal in the early 1990s (Adhikari et al. Reference Adhikari, Hansen, Zaman and Acharya2025, 878). Despite the traumatic nature of their forced migration, Bhutanese refugees who were later resettled to the United States have been cited as the most successful “new” population in terms of economic achievement and community development (Chmura Economics & Analytics 2013; Qin Reference Qin2024; Neikirk Reference Neikirk2023), making them an important group to study with regard to religion, intermarriage, and integration.

Because these refugees were driven from their homes for reasons of “race, religion and nationality,” were in exile for as long as 15-20 years (making them a “protracted” group, defined by UNHCR as more than 25,000 persons from the same country in exile for more than 5 years), and were in refugee camps long enough for their offspring to be born and even reach adulthood in the camps in Nepal where inter-ethnic and inter-caste marriage is discouraged for religious reasons, this group represents a unique opportunity for studying the impact of religious practices on attitude toward intermarriage. Besides speaking Nepali, a majority of the Bhutanese Nepali are Hindu and practice endogamy.

The UNHCR set up several refugee camps in southeastern Nepal to shelter the incoming Bhutanese, and by 2007, the population in the camps had grown to over 108,000, which included new refugees who were born in the camps. With Bhutan refusing to repatriate its citizens and Nepal unwilling or unable to sustain the cost of maintaining the camps, the UNHCR negotiated with third countries to resettle the refugees. Resettlement took place largely between 2008 and 2019, with over 85,000 Bhutanese accepted by the United States (Adhikari et al. Reference Adhikari, Hansen, Zaman and Acharya2025). Bhutanese are one of the largest refugee groups resettled in the US since the end of World War II. In sum, due to their history of being subjected to ethnic cleansing, their religious beliefs, the policies discouraging intermarriage before fleeing the lives they had built in Bhutan, and the size of the resettled population, the Bhutanese are an ideal group for examining opinions on intermarriage. In addition, they are representative of other refugee populations, such as the Karen, Kachin, or Rohingyas from Burma or Afghans from Afghanistan, recently resettled in the United States (Tran and Lara-Garcia, Reference Tran and Lara-García2020), making the study more broadly relevant.

Theoretical Argument and Hypotheses

We argue that resettled refugees’ willingness to allow their children to marry outside of their own ethnic group is a sign of integration into American society. Building on studies that have established intermarriage as an indicator of immigrant integration (Gordon Reference Gordon1964; Perlmann and Waters Reference Perlmann, Waters, Foner and Frederickson2004; Qian et al. Reference Qian, Glick and Batson2012; Fu and Hatfield Reference Fu and Hatfield2008; Kulczycki and Lobo Reference Kulczycki and Lobo2002; Bohra-Mishra and Massey Reference Bohra-Mishra and Massey2015), we argue that refugees who support intermarriage are more likely to feel that they are part of American society. In America, intermarriage across ethnic, religious, cultural, and class lines is not only legal but also commonplace. It can be argued that those who support intermarriage among ethnic groups, despite religious and cultural differences, have integrated into American society.

Once resettled into the United States, where people are free to choose their religion, we might expect religion to take a back seat to other factors, such as age, time spent in a host country, exposure to culturally diverse community members, and socioeconomic status, in determining decisions and opinions on whether one should marry exogamously or endogamously. Research suggests that marrying a native-born individual can make it easier for resettled refugees to acquire citizenship, increase their language proficiency, advance their socioeconomic status, and develop more extensive, culturally integrated social networks (Rodriguez-Garcia et al. Reference Rodriguez-Garcia, Lubbers, Solana and de Miguel-Luken2015; Kalmijn Reference Kalmijn2015; Lichter et al. Reference Lichter, Qian and Tumin2015; Gall and Meintel Reference Gall and Meintel2015; Alba and Foner Reference Alba and Foner2015; Lee Reference Lee2015; Furtado and Song Reference Furtado and Song2015). Furthermore, “by intermarrying, individuals may lose the negative attitudes they have toward other groups” (Kalmijn Reference Kalmijn1998, 396), grounded in differences such as religion or culture.

Based on the above argument, we theorize that opposition to intermarriage can be overcome through social interactions. In particular, individuals who frequently interact with others from outside of their own community/culture are more likely to support intermarriage as they have a more developed awareness and have become more supportive of “outsiders” (Agliari et al. Reference Agliari, Barra, Contucci, Pizzoferrato and Vernia2018). Social interconnectedness builds “social bridges” (Puma et al. Reference Puma, Lichtenstein and Stein2018, 607), providing resettled refugees with opportunities to understand and know people from outside of their own ethnic groups. This interconnectedness contributes to building cross-ethnic ties, making them more likely to support intermarriage. More specifically, we hypothesize that respondents with more frequent interactions with individuals from different ethnic backgrounds are more likely to support intermarriage.

In addition to non-co-ethnic interactions, we include several other variables that likely impact the willingness of resettled refugees to support intermarriage. Research on immigrant intermarriage shows that education is associated with exogamy (Kalmijn Reference Kalmijn1998; Lieberson and Waters Reference Lieberson and Waters1988; Qian et al. Reference Qian, Glick and Batson2012; Bohra-Mishra and Massey Reference Bohra-Mishra and Massey2015). Education helps resettled refugees learn about cultural practices and norms outside of their own ethnic groups, making them more willing to accept intermarriage.

Age is also likely to be an important factor associated with resettled refugees’ opinions on intermarriage. Previous studies on immigrant integration find variation in propensity to intermarry by age (Kulczycki and Lobo Reference Kulczycki and Lobo2002). We argue that younger refugees are more likely to support intermarriage than the older generation. As discussed above, older generations are typically more traditional and have stronger cultural ties to their native countries. Given their newfound freedoms in a country of resettlement like the United States, they may have a greater desire to adhere to their home country’s religious principles. Thus, we hypothesize that older refugees are more likely to want to return to their religious roots and promote the norms of their culture regarding intermarriage.

Third, higher income can provide resettled refugees with resources to socialize outside their own community and enable them to travel outside of their own state or across the country, which can widen their understanding of diversity. Prior studies have also established that immigrants who intermarry tend to earn significantly more than immigrants in endogamous relationships (Meng and Gregory Reference Meng and Gregory2005).

Finally, previous studies on immigrant intermarriage show that propensity to intermarry varies by time spent in the host country (Bohra-Mishra and Massey Reference Bohra-Mishra and Massey2015; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine 2015). Individuals who have spent longer periods of time in the United States are likely to have greater exposure to American culture and stronger attachments to the U.S. (Jones-Correa et al. Reference Jones-Correa, Marrow, Okamoto and Tropp2018). Therefore, they are more familiar with the practices and more likely to support intermarriage.

Religion plays an important role in attitudes toward intermarriage in many populations of resettled refugees. In the specific context of the Bhutanese, the issue of intermarriage is particularly important due to the many exclusionary laws enacted by the Bhutanese government related to intermarriage before their expulsion (Hutt 2003; Neikirk Reference Neikirk2023). Before being evicted from their native country, ethnic Nepalis in Bhutan were essentially forced to marry Bhutanese nationals who follow “Lamaistic (Tibetan) Buddhism” to acquire citizenship (Hutt 2003; Neikirk Reference Neikirk2023; CIA 2025). This contradicts Hinduism, the primary religion of a vast majority of the displaced Bhutanese population, which forbids intermarriage across caste or religion. These laws effectively forced the Nepali population in Bhutan to sacrifice their legal status if they wanted to practice a religion other than Tibetan Buddhism.

Once resettled in the United States, where the Bhutanese are free to choose, we might expect religion to once again become a dominant factor in their opinions on marriage, especially for older individuals who suffered directly under Bhutanese rule. And these same values may have been passed down to the younger generation, who learned of the suffering from their parents and elders. Focusing on the Bhutanese Nepalis, what explains why some resettled refugees in this community are more willing than others to support intermarriage? Given the experiences of the Bhutanese refugees prior to resettlement, our case study is “particularly well suited for resolving questions about whether prevailing concepts and measures can be extended to emergent and changing minority populations” (Rogers Reference Rogers, Mosley and Ithaca2013, 226-227). We want to know whether prevailing concepts, such as age, time since resettlement, socioeconomic status, or exposure to other cultures, extend to this population, or whether religion, a constant force in the Bhutanese population, reemerges as an overriding factor in determining attitudes toward intermarriage.

Research Method

Data for this research come from an individual-level survey conducted in the state of Michigan in 2021 (CMU IRB Protocol Approval# 2019-1135). Conducting primary research on resettled refugees is challenging because there are a variety of reasons why resettled refugees might not want to be identified, including the potential stigma attached to or associated with them, or something seemingly simple, such as defining a population based on a specific characteristic, or their religious identities or immigrant status (Tourangeau Reference Tourangeau, Tourangeau, Edwards, Johnson, Wolter and Bates2014), making this population hard to reach (Adhikari and Bryant Reference Adhikari, Bryant, Michael Alvarez and Rae Atkeson2018). Access to Bhutanese refugees was facilitated by the Bhutanese Community of Michigan (BCM), a 501c nonprofit organization that works with refugees in the state, as well as Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids and St. Vincent Catholic Charities in Lansing, both subsidiaries of voluntary agencies (VOLAGs), which resettle refugees in the US.

To overcome the challenges of identifying the hard-to-reach Bhutanese refugees, we used a respondent-driven sampling (RDS) technique developed by Heckathorn Reference Heckathorn2011) (Reference Heckathorn1997; Reference Heckathorn2007). This technique addresses the concerns of inference and generalizability caused by snowball sampling and is frequently employed for sampling hidden or stigmatized populations such as resettled refugees. RDS allows participants to mask or protect the identities of their connections (Salganik Reference Salganik2012; Tourangeau Reference Tourangeau, Tourangeau, Edwards, Johnson, Wolter and Bates2014). It is a peer-to-peer recruitment technique, in which researchers start with a few known subjects who are the study “seeds” (Heckathorn Reference Heckathorn1997, 179). The seeds are then asked to recruit contacts into the study; however, the number of referrals is limited to minimize sample bias (Adhikari and Bryant Reference Adhikari, Bryant, Michael Alvarez and Rae Atkeson2018, 159). Using our connections through the BCM, Bethany Christian Services, and St. Vincent Catholic Charities, we recruited five subjects to serve as our seeds, trained them in institutional review board protocol, and used them as paid bilingual enumerators. The seeds were told to recruit six peers each to participate in the survey and to pass on flyers to subjects completing the surveys to obtain additional recruits. We administered the survey both in English and Nepali for those Bhutanese who have not yet become proficient in English. As many of the respondents have low levels of literacy, interpreters assisted respondents in completing the survey, which took approximately 60 minutes to complete. We have data on 87 respondents; the five seeds are dropped from the sample (Adhikari et al. Reference Adhikari, Hansen, Zaman and Acharya2025, 880).

While our sample is relatively small, the focused nature of the sample has some methodological benefits, particularly in terms of our research goals. Refugees are not monolithic; even refugees fleeing from the same region (i.e., Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia) or the same country (e.g., Karen, Kachin, and Rohingya from Myanmar) may do so for entirely different reasons, with unique religious and cultural backgrounds and lived experiences. Using a case study approach enables us to push the literature forward by implementing an intersectional perspective that emphasizes how different intertwined identities, such as religion, culture, and nationality, shape specific attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes (Brown et al. Reference Brown, Caballero and Gershon2021). Intersectional research explores “the systematic way that social norms, laws, practices, and institutions advantage certain groups and forms of life and disadvantage others” (Weldon Reference Weldon2006, 236). This requires research focused on group-specific experiences that highlight social structures of inequality that would otherwise be missed (Weldon Reference Weldon2006, 240; Collins Reference Collins1990; Reference Collins1998; Crenshaw Reference Crenshaw1991; Harris Reference Harris1990; hooks Reference hooks1981; Reference hooks2000; Hurtado Reference Hurtado1989). Research on immigrant groups in general often categorizes both newcomers and long-settled immigrants from a variety of countries under uniform labels that disguise critical intersections in nationality, religion, and culture (Rogers Reference Rogers, Mosley and Ithaca2013; Lee Reference Lee2007). Bhutanese refugees are not entirely homogenous, as can be expected of any group of diverse individuals. However, many (if not all) have shared experiences of religious discrimination, marital restrictions, forced expulsion, and life in the refugee camps awaiting resettlement. Our study enables a greater understanding of how these “niche” religious premigration experiences impact social integration outcomes.

Large-N analyses often disguise these differences by utilizing broad categories to define refugee groups. For example, both Rohingyas and Bhutanese refugees are usually classified simply as “Asian” in most integration studies. However, the two groups have radically different backgrounds and practices concerning intermarriage. While the Bhutanese were required by law to marry outside of their religion, many Rohingyas utilized intermarriage with Bangladeshi citizens as a tool for social advancement in the years following their displacement, despite legal bans against the practice. Each population has a unique cultural experience with exogamy that broad identification categories miss. Additionally, the hard-to-locate nature of resettled refugees makes acquiring a large sample very difficult, particularly when focusing on specific ethno-religious communities such as the Bhutanese or the Rohingyas. Third, there is an overarching assumption often applied to immigrant integration research that individuals within defined minority categories have a shared solidarity with that group that shapes shared common interests and subsequent shared political behavior (Rogers Reference Rogers, Mosley and Ithaca2013).

Over the last decades, “[n]ot only has the refugee population grown dramatically, but the countries they flee have also diversified” (Tran and Lara-Garcia 2020, 141). Unlike the Cold War era, when most refugees came from European and communist countries, today the U.S. resettles people fleeing violent conflicts and/or ethnic cleansing in places such as Myanmar, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Somalia. Arrival of these new populations has also led to a shift in the so-called “gateway” cities, such as New York, Boston, and San Francisco, to lesser-known cities, such as Grand Rapids, Lewiston, Dallas, and so on (Singer et al. Reference Singer, Hardwick, Brettell, Singer and Brettell2009). Findings from this study are expected to shed important light on our understanding of integration by emergent minority populations such as the Burmese, Iraqis, Somalis, and Afghans.

The survey asked respondents a series of questions related to their backgrounds and communication methods, housing, education, training and employment, social interactions, safety and stability, civic and political engagement and knowledge, and COVID-19. This study examines the effects of social networks as well as demographic factors on resettled refugees’ opinions on intermarriage in the context of a culturally and religiously homogeneous community. While any descriptive statistics and ordinary regression models produced from this sample cannot be generalized to the broader refugee population in the United States due to its uniqueness and small sample size, the results provide a foundation on which further studies of the role of religion and culture can be built for numerous religiously devout populations of refugees.

The dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of whether (yes = 1) or not (no = 0) resettled refugees reported a willingness to allow their children to marry someone outside of their own ethnic community (N = 87) derived from the following question: “Would you allow your child to marry someone outside of your ethnic group?” Unlike the US, where intermarriage is commonplace, in many South Asian cultures, including the Bhutanese Nepali, intermarriage is forbidden or discouraged. Marriage along caste lines was/is a common practice among Hindu Lhotshampas and the main reason for their expulsion from Bhutan. Intermarriage across caste and/or ethnic groups in Nepal, where many of the Bhutanese refugees were living in limbo for 15-20 years before being resettled into the US, is also discouraged. We seek to identify factors that affect the attitudes of Nepali Bhutanese toward the intermarriage of their children. By using children, we seek to assess resettled refugees’ “mutual regard” for American culture (Collier Reference Collier2013).

The main independent variable used in this study is the number of hours per week respondents had interactions with someone outside of their own ethnic group (building social networks) captured from the following question: “Before the Coronavirus pandemic, how much time did you spend interacting socially with people (who are not related to you) who do not share your culture, ethnic group, language, or religion?” The response options ranged from <1 hour to >10 hours per week. Non-co-ethnic individual interaction is measured by the number of hours resettled refugees weekly interact with the people who are from a different culture, ethnic group, language, or religion. About 53% of respondents indicated that they interacted with non-co-ethnics not at all or less than an hour a week, with 23% interacting between 1 and 3 hours, and 24% interacting 4 hours or more each week. We also include level of education upon arrival in the United States, age, gender, net monthly income groups based on US dollars, verbal English proficiency, whether or not they are married, the number of children they have, and time since their resettlement in the United States. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics of our variables.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics

Note: The N varies due to random missing values on some independent variables.

We find that on average, 64% would allow their child to marry someone outside of their own ethnic/cultural/religious group. The descriptive statistics also show that on average, respondents spent between 1 and 3 hours per week interacting with someone outside of their own ethnic group, had been in the US for 10.5 years, and were about 40 years old at the time of the survey.