By Reclaim Editorial Team
T
his past week, Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday. While a marker of progress in undoing generations of racial injustice, it is also a reminder of how much more we need to do as we seek a more perfect union where peoples of all races and ethnicities can truly be equal and free under God and under the law.
But why should Asian American Christians care about anti-Black racism? In this conversation with the Reclaim editorial team, I chat with Denise Kruse (Managing Editor) and Joshua Huver (Operations Editor) about why and how we must continue to be allies in the pursuit of racial reconciliation and justice.
Why should AAPI Christians care about Juneteenth? What does it signify or remind us to do?
JH: One thing that comes to mind are the ways Israel commemorated the Exodus. Through commemorative events, such as the passover seder meal and other practices, the Israelites intentionally etched the Exodus into their national and religious memory. For instance, in Exodus 13:14, Moses reminds the people that “In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” The son and future generations are included in the story. They commemorated the event so that generations later, those who never stepped foot in Egypt, could identify with the liberation of their people.
I think Juneteenth functions in a similar way. While Asian Americans may not fit neatly into the white-Black binary, we are not excluded from reckoning with the racial history of this country. We too should commemorate the freedom of slaves, mourn the evils of white supremacy, and commit to pursuing justice and reconciliation. Through remembrance, we take ownership of our history - even if none of us were there. In this way, remembering can become a powerful force for social change in the present. St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “The power of memory is great, O Lord!”
In the past year, there has been a well-documented rise of anti-Asian racism and violence. Given the problems facing the Asian American community, why should AAPI Christians care about other issues such as anti-Black racism as well? Shouldn’t we prioritize taking care of our own?
DK: I actually just had this conversation with a dear friend about how true justice is interdependent. The foundations of American prejudice against Latinx, AAPI, and other culture groups evolved out of injustices against indigenous and Black peoples, this silent assertion—an insidious poisoning of the water we swim in—that “different” is dangerous.
In Jemar Tisby’s book How to Fight Racism, he writes, “Love for neighbor requires critiquing and dismantling unjust systems of racial oppression...if Christians claim to be concerned for their neighbors, then they must also be concerned about the structures and systems that enable or inhibit their neighbors’ flourishing.” And so our liberation is bound to theirs. We saw this at the AACC panel of Black and Asian pastors in Chicago and the marches led by AACC this past spring; we can and must fight collectively as a body of believers.
JH: Exactly! I think this is why the language of “collaboration” that the AACC uses is particularly helpful for framing the work of interdependent justice. In Asian American circles, there is the temptation to prioritize “our own.” For instance, why should I as a Filipino American help shoulder the burden of Chinese Americans when our cultures, experiences, and histories are so different? But collaboration maintains the particular experiences of different groups while also acknowledging the common goal of human flourishing. We are all working together to combat injustice and navigate the racialized spaces we inhabit.
I sometimes hear the critique that people today cannot be held responsible for things that happened before they were born; we weren’t alive when slavery existed, so why should I care about it now? How should we push back against this type of intentional forgetting?
DK: There is so much value in seeing ourselves as part of a larger story. We are collectively part of who came before us and who will come after us. We have a responsibility to shape the culture of our collective group, and are part of a culture established before our existence that actively influences us. This isn’t always toxic—I’ve been personally empowered by learning that pre-colonial Philippines was a matriarchal society. But there are negative implications that are ours to deal with as well.
I think the most vivid analogy I’ve heard on this comes from Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste. In it, she describes those of us in the developed world as people who have inherited a house that was built on land that on the surface, appears to be beautiful and vibrant, but like the parabolic house built on the sand, this house was built on an unsteady foundation, that over the years, has caused the house to shift and incur damage.Yes, we weren’t there when the house was built. We didn’t choose to build on rocky ground. But we are here now, and any further damage is on us. We have to acknowledge the mistakes that were made in the building of this house, and are responsible to repair this damage before we can even think about adding to the structure. And like Josh said, through remembrance, we take ownership of our history.
How can we encourage our communities and churches to remember the past and be compelled to action?
JH: A few years ago I was browsing in a bookstore and came across a book on America’s territorial expansion, How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. He describes how the attack on the Philippines during WWII was written out of FDR’s famous speech, “Day of Infamy,” because it did not sound “American enough” despite the fact that Filipinos were effectively American citizens at the time. Yet the Philippines had some of the highest casualties of Japanese attacks on American territory, and unlike Pearl Harbor, the devastation of the Philippines would continue on for years. I literally wept in the store and mourned the fact of how woefully unaware I was of Asian American history.
But the reality is, I’m not alone. The problem is twofold: many Asian Americans don’t know enough about our own history, and our history has been intentionally erased and forgotten. Asian Americans have been treated as a footnote in American history. Combating this erasure and prompting memory is vital for action. AACC has demonstrated this by prioritizing resources. We publish articles, podcasts, videos, and webinars because without education, there will be no action. So, we start there. We direct churches and communities to resources, create materials, open discussions on race, start book clubs, etc. I think the most important step Asian American Christians can take to help their communities and churches is to educate ourselves.
How can Reclaim empower and encourage AAPI Christians to live out our Isaiah 1:17 mandate to do right, seek justice, and defend the oppressed?
DK: I want Reclaim to be a resource for AAPI Christians learning to live out the holistic gospel, beyond “the saving of souls,” to applying Jesus’s teachings on how to cultivate the earth and live a life of service through the pursuit of collective justice, within our individual cultural contexts. We want to create a space for AAPI Christians to find community, kinship, and friendship with others also seeking to follow Christ faithfully in and through our unique cultural identities and experiences.
JH: As a principally AAPI Christian publication, my hope is that Reclaim demonstrates how our histories, our experiences, and our identities matter for pursuing justice - our AAPI identity matters! This holistic gospel, which Denise rightly describes, requires an understanding that our cultural identity cannot be separated from our pursuit of justice. In view of Christ becoming flesh, justice must be embodied, with all its particularities and messiness. When we embrace and reclaim who we are, we can move forward toward a racially-conscious, collective pursuit of cultivating the Kingdom of God on earth.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Joshua Wu is a husband, father, pastor's kid, and social scientist seeking to faithfully reflect Christ in all aspects of his life. He has a doctorate in Political Science from The Ohio State University, works in data analytics for a global communications firm, and currently lives in Rochester New York with his family. You can follow him on Twitter @joshswu.
Denise Peñacerrada Kruse is an editor with the Asian American Christian Collaborative, a proud Chicago native, and pandemic-induced homeschool mom. She and her husband Vince live with their three kids in a suburb of St. Louis. If you’re into nonsense kid quotes and oft-irreverent musings, follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
