ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the expansion of Shin Buddhism outside Japan, focusing on the Americas and Hawai'i and Europe. In North America and Hawai'i Jōdo Shinshū was closely associated with the Japanese diaspora and developed in a context of discrimination and marginalisation of the ethnic Japanese community from the first period of migration in the late nineteenth century up to the end of World War II. In Latin America too, Shin Buddhism has been closely linked to the ethnic Japanese community. In Europe, on the other hand, Shin Buddhism was introduced in the post-war period and the membership (at least for the Honganji-ha school of Jōdo Shinshū) is almost entirely composed of non-Japanese converts. The differences between these contrasting overseas Jōdo Shinshū communities, are considered here, as a framework within which to understand the variations in ritual practice that will be explored in subsequent chapters.
