It's not important for women to come. Men go to the synagogue and pray for the family. Ebaugh, who heads the University of Houston's Religion, Ethnicity, New Immigrants Research Project, found that women reproduce the traditional culture in the 13 immigrant congregations she studied. They prepare and serve native foods for social events, are central players in domestic religious practices and are teachers of language and religion to the youth congregants, she found. At the Wat Buddhathai Thavornvanaram temple, not only are the monks forbidden to touch anything a woman is holding, but women are barred from visiting the monks in their residence, which is on the third floor of the temple building.
Male congregants are welcome to come and go as they please.
At a Protestant Thai community in Astoria, Mona Suwatson sat one recent Sunday with an elderly congregant suffering from poor eyesight. Suwatson, along with her husband, Kenneth, helped start the Thai fellowship nearly eight years ago. Every Sunday, about half of the fellowship's more than 100 members worship in the First Presbyterian Church of Astoria. On this particular Sunday, when Suwatson was not busy passing out hymnals, she went from pew to pew to extend a welcome. She described herself as the laborer for the fellowship.