eMusing Series: Doing Pastoral Work In The Big Apple

Part One – A Diverse Asian Community as Context for Church Ministry

Easter 2003 - John L.Ng © Copyright 2003

The Big Apple As A Place of Cultural Diversity

One of the more frequent questions asked of me as pastor is about heaven. Children or child-like adults ask: What is heaven like? Since we cannot see, touch or smell heaven, we can only compare it with tangible objects we can see, touch and smell. When we think of heaven, we like to imagine an aesthetic garden where we smell the gardenias and pet the lions lying next to the lambs; we like to envision an unspoiled rain forest where we are sitting under a shady tree, drinking cold ice tea while playing the guitar.

But St. John in Revelation says that heaven is most like a city – a Jerusalem, or a Paris, a Hong Kong or a New York. What is it about a city that reflects the reality of heaven? Among other things, it is its cultural and social diversity that best defines heaven. The Beloved Apostle saw a vision of heaven where a great multitude of people from every nation, tribe and language worshipping God. (21. 1 – 2, 7.9)

The New York City area has a diverse population of 20-millions. That is, for every 14 people in the United States, one of them lives in greater New York. The human hues are a mosaic of brown, yellow, red, black and white. You can speak any language of the world and some one in New York will understand you. For two dollars, you can take a delicious bite of the Big Apple. You can travel around the world on the #7 subway train. As the train rumbles from Times Square in Manhattan to Flushing, Queens, you can get off on Sunnyside and spend an evening at a Spanish theater or a Romanian disco. Get off in Woodside and rent a Thai video or meet a friend in an Irish pub. Get off in Jackson Heights and browse through an Asian Indian shop or dance at a Columbian nightclub. Get off in Corona and buy fresh tortillas at a Mexican bakery. Get off in Flushing and have lunch in an Afghan restaurant or takes classes in Korean calligraphy. For midnight snack, you can always sit in a Chinese teahouse and sip bubble tea while munching sweet milk toast. New York has more than 400 neighborhoods, and each one is culturally rich, socially enriching, spiritually renewing and racially diverse.

The Asian Community In The United States

This rich and diverse city serves as an analogous for the Asian population in America. Like the Big Apple, the Asian communities are also rich and diverse. The 2000 government census shows that there are more than 11.9 millions people (4.2 % of population) who identify themselves as Asian. It is the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. The Chinese comprise the largest Asian group with about 2.7 millions. According to the Institute for Chinese Studies, about 40 percent are American Born. In New York City, besides the Asian Indians as the second largest Asian community, there are about 360,000 Chinese, 86,000 Koreans, 55,000 Philipinos and 11,000 Vietnamese. Although these numbers are imprecise and most likely undercounted they do serve well as a context for comparison. It is also obvious that these numbers do not demonstrate their people groups’ diversity.

To appreciate their rich cultural and social diversity I have to refer to what my daughter gave me recently. It was a list of Asian groups that she had downloaded from the Internet. She took care to remind me that they are nothing more than satirical and funny caricatures. While taken them lightheartedly, they illustrate vividly the cultural differences and social disparities in the Asian community. What is even more interesting is that this list expresses how Asians see themselves. The article is titled “What Kind Of Asians Are You?” Some random types will suffice.

Asian Type One: you claim yourself as Asian, but real Asians think you’re whitewashed and non-Asians see you as a foreigner. You fit in nowhere. You have heard of Bubble Tea but have never actually had any. You are confused about your cultural identity and express this frustration since your college days. You read A. magazine (a monthly periodical targeted toward Asians in America) and think it’s great. You are only vaguely aware of other Asians who are different from you. (Italized phrase added).

Asian Type Two: You are an Asian-American who has recently “awoken.” You have a newly found fetish of Asian girls/boys. You have taken the Asian Studies course at college. You are trying to learn as much as possible about your culture to make up for your lifetime of trying to be white.

Asian Type Three: You were not born in America. You speak your native language fluently and so do all your friends. Your parents do not speak any English. When you speak English, you like to make everything plural. You get extremely good grades in school. You cannot dance. Your fashion sense comes from whatever country you’re from and you incorporate nothing from American fashion.

Asian Type Four: You speak perfect English and you are fluent in your native language. You have Asian friends as well as non-Asian friends. You listen to Asian pop as well as American music. You are equally aware of both popular American culture and Asian pop culture. You are a good dancer. You date Asian by choice. For you, FOB (commonly means fresh off the boat) stands for Fabulous Oriental Being. You have lots of Asian pride.

Asian-Americans and The Hyphenation Experience

Every ethnic group of every generation has its own vernaculars to tag its identity and association with the dominant culture. The term Asian-American was coined more than a generation ago to describe the assimilation process of Asians in America. It is only in vogue recently as a common term most used to identify Americanized Asians. I like the term because it describes the Asian identity without any racial or national trappings. Assimilation is a complex process with varied and many factors. To be sure, every person in a culturally diverse place like New York is experiencing assimilation.

We have a need to assimilate simply because we have an innate need to belong. It is an ontological necessity. In some ways, assimilation is not a choice. Many Asian-Americans do not feel they belong to a particular racial group. They feel little emotional and historical affinity toward China, Korea or Japan. Yet they realize intuitively that they are not emotionally attached to the greater American community completely either. We need to remember that being Asian-American is not synonymous with being American. The hyphen between those two words provides a profound reality of who Asians are in America.

I call this the hyphenation experience. All my four children were born in American – two in New York and the others in California. Our family has lived on the West coast, the Mid-West and the East coast. To belong, they have to find themselves in their assimilated community. When my second daughter returns to New York after college, she complains that it has been a reverse cultural shock. For the past five years, she has attended a non-Asian church and all her friends were non-Asian except for her last roommate. All four have little emotional attachment to their grandparents’ Chinese heritage or their parents’ Chinatown experience.

“I don’t feel very Chinese,” as one puts it. Yet they don’t feel American as their Caucasian friends are American. Being Asian-American defines who they are. American explains their sense of belonging; Asian modifies that sense of belonging. This hyphenation experience has little to do with racial prejudice and more to do with seeking and finding an identity for belonging. In some personal and communal ways, Asian-Americans would not know who they are without the hyphen.

Some time ago, I went to watch a basketball game in Madison Square Garden where the New York Knicks were playing the Houston Rockets that night. We came because Yao Ming, the first professional Chinese player was playing for Houston. A bunch of guys from our church were sitting across the arena from me. In the middle of the game, they got up, ripped off their shirts to show their bare chests painted with letters spelling Yao Ming’s name. Next to them was a larger group of overseas-born Chinese waving a Chinese flag. Both groups roared in unison every time Yao Ming made a shot.

Because Yao Ming was Chinese, some how they feel a kind of ethnic-esteem as descendants of a same racial origin. Yet during the entire evening, those two groups had nothing to do with the other. In fact, they ignored each other. It is precisely because of their cultural and social differences, they do not feel that they belong to each other meaningfully. They may share a common racial pride and the color of their skin wrapping is the same, but they do not belong.

The hyphenation experience is further complicated by globalization and post-modernity. Like most New Yorkers, Asians are from everywhere and going everywhere around the world. Several years ago, a core of mostly American-Born Chinese and I planted a church across the street from Lincoln Center to reach out to the second- and third-generation urban professional Asians. We soon realize that the church’s demographics show a diverse congregation. Not only are the congregants from different regions of North America that include Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago and Boston, but their family backgrounds are from Korea, Japan, Philippine and Singapore, among others. Their ecclesiastical traditions are also diverse. Some grew up Mormon, Catholic and nominal Protestant or Buddhist. Few did not hear about Jesus until they entered college.

Living in a post-modern world, they also do not share a singular and unifying worldview. In fact, they do not understand objective truths or experience meanings quite the same way. Everything about them is different and varied. If and when they stumble into church, their individual interests are at once competing and conflicting. Just one illustration. Since they are mostly young urban professionals in their twenties and thirties, as their pastor I often talk with them on friendship and marriage. That both intimate friendships and marriage point to something essential about what it means to be human. I remind them that some churches understand marriage as a sacramental expression of divine grace and have a high view of marriage. Like their typical response to much of my teaching, they often blur out, “That’s your opinion!” Being Christian does not necessarily mean they embrace the teaching of the Christian church. They still want to get married but for varied and personal reasons. Everything about them, including relationships and marriage, is subjectively defined and nurtured. Yet, at the end of the day, many still lament to me that they have few meaningful friendships and no prospects for marriage.

The Asian-American And The Asian-American Churches

Of the 11.9 million Asians in America, about 250,000 consider themselves Evangelical Christians, with more than 3,000-Korean, 700-Chinese and 200-Japanese churches. In New York City, there are about 600-Korean, 150-Chinese and a few Japanese churches. Most of them use their native language in worship. Almost all of them have a secondary ministry in English.

In part, that explain a great deal why Asian-Americans have not been able to adopt into these ethnic churches. On the other hand, they have also not been able to incorporate into other non-Asian churches. In a profound way, why people come to church has little to do with God. If Asians go to church solely because of God, they would attend any of the 5,000 plus churches in New York City (number according to Council of Churches of New York City). Why people leave church may also not necessarily have something to do with God. Most people come to church because they seek to belong, and most people leave church because they do not feel that they belong. People simply like to go to church without crossing social or cultural barriers.

The reasons for the Asian-Americans’ inability to assimilate into the Christian church, ethnic or otherwise, are complex. To be sure, race or racial prejudice is not one of them. Living in a racially diverse city, New Yorkers are used to the blending of ethnicity. There are very few places in the Big Apple where they can spend with people in a mono-racial setting. Most Asian-Americans are used to a racially diverse environment. Their inability to assimilate into the church is also not racial or linguistic. English is the primary language for Asian-Americans. Yet speaking the same language alone does not promote a sense of communal living. They have failed to be part of the church mainly because they have failed in their ontological search for cultural integrity and personal integration.

Because of who they are, Asian-Americans’ church experience is marginalized. They feel that they do not fit anywhere. They need to find a church where they can also find community, significance and transcendence. That church has to fulfill their innate desire to seek, protect and preserve their hyphenated identity. It seems to me, the church’s spiritual formation of its congregants has an identity process. The Christian faith is personal but not private. The way we live, move and have our being in Christ is always in the environment of other people who are just like us. To practice our faith in a community where we do not feel that we belong is the blanding of who we are.

What have emerged in some regions and are emerging in other parts of North America are Asian-American churches. These are churches whose congregants are a mixture of Asian-Americans whose ancestries are from Asia. In the last two decades or so, this church model seems to provide an inviting environment where they can enter without crossing cultural and social lines and where they can find and preserve their hyphenated identity. (This ministry model will be addressed more extensively in the fourth article.)

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