“The Space Between” — where Asian liberation theologies engages immigrants and intergenerational trauma

Topic — We hope to engage how Asian American immigration impacts theology for first and second generation, looking at trauma through an intergenerational/multicultural lens. This learning conversation is not a clear cut journey but rather one we are crafting together ongoing.

Reading — We plan to engage Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score as our primary trauma-related text, in addition to some of Rachel Yehuda’s work about intergenerational trauma. We are compiling a reading list of various theological readings by a variety of (mostly) Asian authors. We are looking forward to reading the thoughts of people who come from varied parts of Asia.

Meet Us — We are a group of people of Asian decent or who live with people of Asian decent.

• Elsy: My name is Elsy and I am a fierce and tender Indian American woman. My parents immigrated here in the late seventies and raised my brothers and I as Brethren Christians. I am the only one in my family to seriously question my theological roots and I soon realized that Brethren Christian theology is a recent phenomenon in our household. My ancestors were rooted in Hinduism and the women in my family were powerful matriarchs. I joined this group for cultural support as I explore my own theological identity as a practicing Christian with Hindu roots in an Indian, female body. I am interested in continuing to explore that and also to learn about cultural and intergenerational trauma.
• Roy: My name is Roy. I am a second generation Chinese American. As a Chinese man who grew up in America and was raised in a Chinese household, I’ve felt myself to be somewhat of a hybrid individual — not completely connected to Chinese culture, but also not completely connected to American culture. Asian theologies is a topic that I feel very ambivalent about. Part of me wants to learn more about how Asian theologies can speak to my experience as an Asian American, while another part of me seems to want to distance myself from my Asian identity. Underneath all of this, I feel a pain and yearning to discover who I am in a Chinese male body that so often feels constricted and inferior. In joining this group, I hope to learn more about Asian liberation theologies, the impact of cultural trauma on Asian Americans, and the experience many Asian males have expressed of feeling inferior with regards to their masculinity.
• Bina: I relate to what Roy said about being second generation but growing up in an Indian household and not quite feeling like I fit in with white America, and also not fully fitting in with Indian culture (for many reasons… not having many Indians around when I was growing up, my parents not wanting to teach us their native tongue out of fear that we would be treated as inferior because of an accent (as they felt they were), my family being Christian — 3% of India is Christian — we knew very few Indian American Christians, our family was South Indian and much of the migration at the time was North Indian, etc.) studying womanist theology last term helped me see how narrow my exposure to the theology has been — particularly coming from conservative reformed churches in my adult life. I am curious about how the experience of living in the space between different cultures informs how we do theology — both in terms of how we experience theology but also in terms of the unique perspective we have to bring to the discussion.
• Sarah: My name is Sarah. I am the middle child of a low income white family — four daughters and one son — all squished together in a double-wide trailer behind the Baptist church that my dad pastored. My father converted to Christianity at age 17, and my mother comes from a long line of Christian women. I find myself highly ambivalent towards my faith, as it has brought me both comfort and harm. The dynamics in my family of origin stir my curiosity in intergenerational trauma. My husband Chris is half Korean and half white, and he was raised primarily by his Korean mother, Moon, who converted to Christianity at age 17 and moved to the US when Chris was 6 months old. I want to hear from Asian American voices in theology in an effort to better understand where my husband comes from, and to better understand my mother-in-law. I want to learn how intergenerational and cultural trauma have impacted Moon, and as a result, Chris.
• Gayoung: I am a Korean immigrant who was initially resistant to ideas of Asian theologies until I came to The Seattle School. It felt like I was doing my culture injustice by learning about it in English words, from the “American” perspective. But now that I’ve learned to question and reflect on my own culture and the way its played out in America, I became curious of how I can (or can’t) relate to the ideas behind liberation Asian theology. I desire to name my own trauma in my role as a Korean immigrant woman, and how it connects to various theologians in their relationships with God, family, and community.
• Yurushka: I am a 5th generation Indian born in South Africa. My generation enjoyed freedom from Apartheid that great men like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu fought for. I was the first person in family to go to a school that had different races. It was the beginning of me seeing people of a different color blend together on the same level. My parents were eager for my brother and I to have what they did not and therefore I grew up with more western influences than eastern. My Christian influences comes from my mother who was raised as a traditional Anglican. Her family was more western (even in their dress) than my dad’s. It’s felt like if you are Christian, you have to embrace western dress to be accepted as one. It was in the womanist theology reading group that I began to identify with the way Christianity was taught to me. My mother and grandmother have read scripture for hope and encouragement for the dire circumstances they were in (Apartheid). They did not have the luxury of lament. That would have taken time and resources, which was not available to them. I am caught between this way of encouragement and actually using the luxury of lament. I am interested in Asian liberation theology to learn more theology from an eastern perspective and know that it is good. I also want to learn about the trauma Asians hold, some due to many honor systems it has.
• Michelle: I am a fifth generation Irish and German Catholic/Protestant English woman from the Midwest…mainly. I grew up feeling torn between worlds denominationally, politically, and societally. I found my connections with those who felt out of place themselves; these folks were often internationals. In coming to this theology group, I am aware of how much I am ignorant of how race, culture and religion actually impact individual Asian or Asian-American people. In living with a first generation Thai-American, I realize that there is much in the interpersonal as well as religious dynamics that is complex. For years I had hoped to work with international students, adopted kids, immigrants or refugees; yet, I am feeling progressively shaky now, particularly in light of Multicultural class. Yet, two women from this group and I were together last term in Theology I group; in the process of getting to know them as peers and hearing their genuine responses and care for me too, I started to believe maybe I had something to bring to the world, even though I am white.