Advancing Asian American Theology: Collaborative Manuscript Development Workshop
David Chao | Director, Center for Asian American Christianity | Princeton Theological Seminary
Isaac Kim | Associate Pastor | Joy Christian Fellowship
Karis Ryu | Graduate Student, Religious Studies | Yale University
Sameer Yadav | Associate Professor, Religion | Baylor University
The proposed workshop aims to convene a diverse group of faculty and graduate students (along with a minister) from theology, history, and ethnic studies to critically review and contribute to the development of a manuscript titled Asian American Christian Theology: An Introduction and New Perspectives (under contract with Wiley Blackwell). Authored by Dr. David Chao, this manuscript challenges and revitalizes the academic discipline of Asian American Theology. The workshop’s objective is to refine the manuscript so that it robustly addresses contemporary challenges and reflects the complexities of Asian American identity and Christian belief and practice. It aims to move beyond essentialist tropes, instead engaging with contemporary social issues such as racial justice, mental health, and economic inequality. Through scholarly critique and interdisciplinary discourse, the workshop will enhance the manuscript’s academic rigor and relevance, turning it into a seminal resource for scholars, practitioners, and community members.
Keywords: Asian American, Christianity, Theology
May We Gather: Multi-Part Public Speaker Series on Asian American Buddhist Historical Recovery and Resilience
Funie Hsu | Associate Professor, American Studies | San José State University
Duncan Williams | Professor of Religion and East Asian Languages & Cultures and Director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture | USC
Chenxing Han | Independent Scholar
May We Gather began in spring 2021 as a response to anti-Buddhist and anti-Asian violence and erasure. We are now planning for a major in-person pilgrimage in spring 2024 to mark the three-year memorial date of the Atlanta shootings. As educators, we find it particularly meaningful that May We Gather has been taught in a numerous of educational contexts, from high school, college, and divinity school classrooms to Buddhist temples and inter-religious communities. For the purposes of this APARRI Working Group, our aim is to increase the educational impact of the spring 2024 pilgrimage by organizing a multi-part speaker series in the winter of
2023/2024 on Asian American Buddhist Historical Recovery and Resilience.
Keywords: Asian American, Buddhism, Education
Model Christians, Model Minorities: Asian Americans, Race, and Politics in the Transformation of U.S. Evangelicalism
Jane Hong
Associate Professor, History
Occidental University
This book project uses the history of Asian American evangelicals to explore the changing relationship of race, religion, and politics in post-civil rights America. Drawing from archival research and over one hundred oral history interviews, the book charts how post-1965 Asian (along with Latinx) immigrants and their children have changed historically white evangelical institutions and politics. In so doing, the book connects and explores the intersections of two developments that have reshaped racial and religious politics in America over the past fifty years: the rise of the Religious Right and the demographic transformations resulting from the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
Keywords: Asian American, Evangelical, Immigration, Latinx
Repurposing and Greening Church Property for East Oakland
Russell Jeung | Professor, Ethnic Studies | San Francisco State University
Demetries Edwards | Lead Pastor | 23rd Avenue Church of God
Albert Hong | Co-Pastor | New Hope Covenant Church
Daniel Schmitz | Co Executive Director | Hope Avenue
Derek Wu | Graduate Student, Ethnic Studies | UC Berkeley
We galvanize existing collaborative efforts between an Asian American-led church, a historic Black church, and a secular nonprofit to further urban greening and youth development projects in East Oakland. These projects serve as models for other faith communities and advance theories of environmental activism, race relations, and secularization.
Keywords: Activism, African American, Asian American, Churches, Environment, Nonprofit, Youth
Spaces of Engagement: Connecting Asian American Protestant Communities with Scholars and Scholarship
Jessica ChenFeng | Associate Professor, Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy | Fuller Theological Seminary
Matthew Cheung | Professor, English | El Camino College
Janna Louie | Founder & Director | Coalition of AAPI Churches
Ji Son | Professor, Psychology | Cal State LA
Kathy Moua | Coalition of AAPI Churches
Chandra Mallampalli | Research Associate, Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute | Harvard University
This project engages the complex narratives that influence AAPI racial identity, religious communities, and sociopolitical realities by bringing academic discourse to every day practitioners for the betterment of our society. This project would bridge the gap between academia and on-the-ground efforts through forums and workshops online and in local communities.
Keywords: Asian American, Churches, Protestantism
Spiritual Legacy of Fred Ho: Monkey as Matriarchal Socialist Spiritual Transformation
Brett Esaki
Assistant Professor of Practice
Arizona State University
Fred Ho was a major figure in Afro-Asian solidarity through music, community organizing, and scholarly contributions. In his theatrical production of Journey Beyond the West: The New Adventures of Monkey, Ho showcases a unique combination of music, martial arts, and spirituality. This proposed project consists of interviewing the writers, cast, crew, and musicians of his play, who are now in Brooklyn and Chicago along with archival research. Ho was notoriously dedicated to practical and political ideals. This project seeks to discover the experience of spiritual transformation, if any, of the writers, cast, crew, and musicians as they trained and performed the martial arts opera.
Keywords: African American, Asian American, Performance
The Romance of American Democracy: Asian American Fiction as Secular Scripture
Kathy Chow
PhD Candidate, Religious Studies
Yale University
This dissertation research is on the formation of American democratic community as narrated in the genre of the romance. Arguing that the romance of American democracy is the secular scripture of American political life, this project traces the origin of the romance of American democracy to the American Romantics (Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman); and then then track how the romance has been taken up in Asian American fiction. Two chapters examine the remarriage plot in the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) and Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker (1995), and the romanticization of the American landscape in C. Pam Zhang’s How Much of These Hills Is Gold (2020) and Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2020). By juxtaposing American Romanticism and Asian American fiction to theorize the secular scripture of democracy, the project pioneers a new method in Asian American religious studies that offers an alternative beyond liberal multicultural projects.
Keywords: Asian American, Democracy, Literature, Secularism
Unheard Soundscapes: A Close Listening to Asian America
Chanhee Heo | Graduate Student, Religious Studies | Stanford University
Kathryn Gin Lum | Associate Professor, Religious Studies and History (by courtesy) | Stanford University
Chenxing Han | Independent Scholar
Xianfeng Shi | Graduate Student in Religion | Boston University
Elaine Lai | Graduate Student in Religious Studies | Stanford University
Unheard Soundscapes is a podcast series consisting of interviews, soundscapes, and conversations with people and places where Asian and Asian American religions have been underrepresented in history and society. Our project explores the intersection of Asian and Asian American resistance and religious practice. By attending to multisensorial perceptions and experiences and bringing creative attention to Asian and Asian American religious spaces, Unheard Soundspaces unsettles western-centered epistemologies and modes of knowledge production. Through the podcast series and an accompanying website, our project targets scholars, students of religious studies, practitioners, and activists. As a community-engaged project, Unheard Soundscapes aims to achieve three goals: 1) name and honor marginalized religious spaces and ontological pluralities; 2) empower Asian and Asian American individuals to connect over soundspaces that bridge racial, ethnic, and generational differences; and 3) cultivate decolonial research methods and pedagogical practices.
Keywords: Activism, Asian American, Resistance
Voices of Resilience: Documenting the Foremothers of Asian American Feminist Theologies
Boyung Lee | Professor, Practical Theology, Iliff School of Theology | PANAAWTM Board Chair
Kristine Chong | Director, Shay Moral Injury Injury Center at Volunteers of America | PANAAWTM Board Secretary
Linda Morgan-Clement | Project Manager | PANAAWTM
The 40th anniversary of the Pacific, Asian, and North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) is a milestone worth celebrating and commemorating. In honor of this significant occasion, we propose an oral history project titled “Voices of Resilience: Documenting the Foremothers of Asian American Feminist Theologies.” This project aims to preserve and amplify the narratives of five influential figures in Asian American feminist theologies, co-founders of PANAAWTM and/or significant shapers of Asian American feminist theologies in various fields: Kwok Pui Lan, Rita Nakashima Brock, Gale Yee, Jung Ha Kim, and Su Yon Park. Through their stories, as shared through intergenerational dialogues with interviewers of successive generations, we seek to enrich the understanding of Asian American feminist theological thoughts and their contributions to broader theological discourse and feminist praxes.
Keywords: Asian American, Feminst, Theology
* For the 2023-24 cycle, a person can only be a part of one working group.