After defining immigrant fellowships as "groups of fairly-recent immigrants who do not speak English (or do not speak it well) who gather regularly for worship in their native language," congregations were asked if any such groups used space in their buildings. Only 5% of reporting congregations housed immigrant fellowships in 1995 (483 congregations). Of those that did, 466 (96%) wrote in the ethnicity/national origin of the group. Many different ethnicities were reported, including: Korean, Hispanic, Taiwanese, Spanish, Japanese, Pakistani, Indian, Haitian, Ghana, Russian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Mexican, Brazilian, Puerto Rican, South American, Laotian, Nuer, Anuak, Nicaraguan, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Georgian, Sudanese, Cambodian, Cuban, Thai, Iranian, Hmong, Samoan, Guatemalan, West African, Egyptian, Filipino, Armenian, El Salvadorian, Ethiopian, Mizo Tribe, Hungarian, Jewish, Slavic, Polish, Latin American, Mien, Navajo, and African.
The mean, or average, size of congregations that house immigrant fellowships was 366 members. Compared to congregations in other regions, a larger percentage of congregations in the West, and a smaller percentage in the Midwest, support immigrant fellowships (33% in the West, 28% in the South, 24% in the Northeast, and 16% in the Midwest). Such congregations are also more likely to be located in medium or large cities (25% in each) rather than in suburbs (21%), in small towns (11%), in small cities (11%) or in rural areas (6%). Three-quarters of congregations housing immigrant fellowships were were majority white congregations (77% had between 75% and 100% white members; only 16% had 50% or more racial ethnic members).
Research Services