Dismantling Legacy
It grieves me that the media photos of protestors outside of the Supreme Court depicted Blacks and Asians, screaming at one another. Our fight is not with each other. As an Asian American Christian, I’m compelled to delineate what Harvard and my faith have taught me about how the world works versus how God’s divine economy works.
Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul: A Pop-Psych Guide to Activism
“Finding your own way in social justice work requires courage, creativity, wisdom, and an openness to possibility. It requires shaking off the unhealthy and unrealistic expectations of others. It asks us to embrace our differences as beautiful and our unique personalities and perspectives as gifts, rather than comparing ourselves to others.”
The Provision Of Rest
I had grown accustomed to spending my life in hyperdrive, running from one task to the next, so I could do more, be more, and make my family proud. Suddenly, I could do nothing.
Creatively Narrating the Stories of Multiracial Individuals: A Conversation with Becky White
My own bitterness towards the Korean society and culture followed me for a long time. I hope I can relieve my fellow mixed Koreans of that same bitterness by providing the words to help us understand ourselves. Perhaps this isn’t explicitly a “Christian” tenet wrapped neatly in a Bible verse; but everything I do, I hope it may be founded in the honest and joyful love of Christ.
Two Halves Make a Hole
When you put two halves together you make a whole. This is basic math. But when you merge different ethnicities the rules of math change.
Gifts of the Asian American Church
Perhaps we have been content to be spectators in our own homes, mimickers of our neighbors, and borrowers of their blessings. And I wonder: What would it take to make us care? If our resignation is learned behavior, a consequence of our unique structural disadvantages, how can we unlearn it and become brave?
Book Review: Passport to Shame: From Asian-Immigrant to American Addict by Sam Louie
Sam’s former profession as a storyteller is apparent as he vividly paints a picture as though you are there with him in his humble beginnings and follow him through his highs and lows.
We Are Not Immune: Lessons from a Mental Health Crisis
The compounded stress, physical strain, lack of self-monitoring, and dearth of healthy Christian friendships finally imploded on me. I could no longer sleep. Like a jammed switch continually set to “on,” my brain refused to shut down. For five months, it seemed all I could do was lie down at night and stare at the ceiling.
The End of Affirmative Action
Affirmative has never been a perfect tool to level the playing field of educational diversity. But it has made an important impact for thousands such as myself who otherwise were overlooked and not given a fair chance.
Not All Social Justice Advocates March
Over the years, trying to emulate my peers and my social justice heroes—Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Óscar Romero, and others—led me to burnout again and again. Each episode of burnout was worse than the last, until I found myself in bed, debilitatingly depressed, unable to work and barely able to function, for almost a year. I finally began to understand that I was following the way of other people more than the way of the cross.
Communi-tea
We are not a myth, Of a minority nor a monolith, Foreign, we are perpetually not. Asians aren’t a footnote, An afterthought
Someday
Someday I hope my child thinks I’m brave for making beautiful things as reminders of beauty.
AAPI Allyship on Juneteenth
Juneteenth celebrates what many refer to as a “second Independence Day” for our nation (Juneteenth Foundation), marking a mix of freedom, injustice, and progress.
AACC Parenting Conference: An Interview with the Conference Organizers
I have never attended a conference specifically designed to speak to the needs and concerns that pertain to me as an Asian American Christian parent . . . it was so refreshing to have our experiences as Asian American Christians centered in the conversations.
Beyond Essentialist Understandings of Asianness in Multicultural Liturgy
There is a place for multicultural celebrations that put Asian cultures on display; but, if we exclusively celebrate this form of liturgy, we run the risk of feeding into the stereotype that Asian Americans are forever foreigners.
8 Memoirs for AANHPI Heritage Month
For Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we recommend picking up a book (or two) to help you learn about a perspective that may be unfamiliar to you, or perhaps makes you feel more seen in your own identify and experience.
AACC Statement on the Allen Mall Shooting
But we must also pray that God moves citizens and elected officials alike to not hide behind “thoughts and prayers” but courageously pursue policies that reduce the scourge of gun violence in our communities.
When Code Switching is Not Enough
I was a stranger in the country, which had been home for so many years. People had moved on, and I was no longer a little child. My friends were no longer there, and my parents had a new routine as empty nesters. I had become more South Indian than they wanted me to be, and they found my new habits different. I had learned to move adeptly between two cultures, but I was neither here nor there.
Loving
Dad, a white man born in Kansas—
grew up in a time when plenty
folks who looked like them
were not allowed to wed,
To Bless My Chinese Self
I felt that I existed as a series of masks, appearing as others wanted me to, but without any sense of who I actually was. I waded through a depressive fog, wondering if there was any hope to feel at peace in the body that felt so foreign to me.