Read a Jan. 19, 2000, story from Beliefnet.com exploring whether there’s a divide in American Buddhism between “Asian Buddhists” and “New Buddhists” – converts from other ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Read a story from the June 26, 2001, Village Voice about the involvement of black women in Buddhism.

Richard H. Seager is an associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. He is studying the globalization and Americanization of Buddhism and is the author of Buddhism in America and Encountering the Dharma: Daisaku Ikeda, Soka Gakkai and the Globalization of Buddhism Humanism.

Janice Willis is a retired professor emerita of religion and social sciences at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. She is the author of Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey. Read an excerpt on Beliefnet.com. Willis has talked about her journey from the segregated, revival-preacher South to a Buddhist monastery in Nepal where she began to find peace.

Esperanza USA is a network of Hispanic Christians, churches, and ministries. It is based in Philadelphia. Jodi Reynhout is media contact.

Jonathan Kim is associate professor of Christian education at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, Calif., and author of “The role of Christian education in the Korean church” in the Jan. 1, 2003, special edition of Christian Today newspaper.

Russell Jeung is assistant professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University and author of Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches (Rutgers University Press, 2004).

Eugene Eung-Chun Park is Robert S. Dollar Professor of New Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, Calif., and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

Edmond Yee is a professor of Asian studies at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif., and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He wrote The Soaring Crane: Stories of Asian Lutherans in North America (Augsburg Fortress, 2002).