threads don't run after request returns?

[Larry Martell]

I have a django app that I serve with nginx. Some requests that the
app receives start python threads that are not complete when the
request returns a response to the client. When I run with the django
devel server the threads continue to run to completion. But when I run
with nginx it seems that the threads terminate when the response is
sent. Would that be expected or is there something else going on? If
that is expected, is there a way I can get around this?