midterm 2 as am

ethnogenesis

the creation/birth of a new group identity

effect of WWII Internment on Japanese American Identity and history

Internment experience marks the beginning of “Japanese American” history, and therefore Japanese American identity

When does Japanese American History begin

• The trauma and meaning of WWII

• Internment experience marks the beginning of “Japanese American” history, and therefore Japanese American identity

Post-Internment effects/reactions on/by Japanese Americans

The model minority stereotype, Japanese American view of civil religion, Resilient silence

Post-Internment effects: The model minority stereotype

camps → success story; magic in the news

Post-Internment effects: Japanese American view of civil religion

• “for Japanese americans, interment constituted a time of trial - the transcendent event - that would come to define its identity and mission” - jane iwamura

• ambivalent stance to american civil religion

Post-Internment effects:Resilient silence

using silence as a tool for cultural survival and resistance

stereotype origins

Both of these stereotypes come from the history and predicaments of asians negotiating what it means to be/become american

Model Minority

• the myth that asians are “naturally” or “culturally” inclined towards excelling at education

• the outcome of this culturally hegemonic idea is that asian americans are economically “better” than whites and therefore not “minorities” the same ways as black people or latinx

Perpetual Foreigner

asian americans are viewed as “strangers”, “foreigners”, no matter where they were born or how long their families have been in the US

Perpetual Foreigner related to yellow peril

during the 19th century fear about labor competition and whether or not asians could “assimilate” fueled the stereotype

Pre-1965 asian america

• “sojourner” workers

• secondary labor market

  • hotels, agricultural, and stuff like that

• incomplete communities

  • primarily male enclaves, whom couldn’t function culturally without women

• exclusion, harassment, caste legislation

Post-1965 asian america

• educated/professional

  • Hart-Cellar Act wanted to bring is specialized labor

  • they came better prepared for life in the US because they had more money

• families and network

  • with that money they were able to bring their families along

• in context of immense population diversity

• internally diverse

• transnational

culinary tourism

people are dying to go to “exotic” places in order to try their cuisine

cultural food colonialism

how this passion for cooking/eating others food comes from the european need for things that are novel or exploration

culinary orientalism

oriental desires and fears expressed in asian food, who asians are supposed to be

The “Chinese Food Continuum”

• the closer other foods are to chinese food cuisine the better the american people feel about it

• chinese ——→ thai → cambodian → Vietnamese → Japanese ———→ filipino

Jonathan Gold, food critic for LA Times describes ethnic food as what and why?

• Jonathan Gold describes ethnic food as an “anti-melting pot”

• Why? people not caring for non asian customers, but have a preference for providing comfort food for their community

Coercive Mimeticism

the idea that the dominant culture expect asian american to look, perform, and act in a certain ways

• to conform or else they are NOT authentic

Mosby – his explanation for why MSG in Chinese food is about race

• msg fear is a manufactured fake story; “we can’t trust foreign food”

New England Transcendentalism

literary hinduism; literary movement reacting against intellectualism, formal/strict christianity. emphasized individualism “intuition” and what can be revealed in nature. the spiritual “transcends” the material and empirical 

literary hinduism characteristics

• text centered, search for the authenticity of ancient/original forms of “Hindu” traditions

Theosophy

• saw asians were not fit to pass on Hindu traditions;they had to save the east from themselves

• Helena Petovna Blavatsky & Col. Henry Steel Olcott (1888)

south asian hinduism

• pre- 1965: primarily Sikh; part of Sikh diaspora out of british colonial empire

• Post-1965: targets professional/technical class

sarvavyāpidharma

pervasive hinduism; south asian religious ideas, concepts, and practices, that have become pervasive in US culture and often removed from their original meanings

• ex) karma, reincarnation, yoga, “namaste”, music

ecumenical hinduism

engagement of Hindus and Hindu organizations in interfaith dialogues and initiatives promoting mutual understanding and cooperation with people of other faiths, particularly other religions. 

Guru enchantment

The new spirituality

The new spirituality

• Christianity loses its relevance for many; orientalist interest in Asian spirituality, philosophies

• Seeker focus- anti-institutional / anti-authority, religious switching, individualistic, pragmatic

SBNR

Spiritual But Not Religious

The Guru in context of  “The new spirituality”

• U.S. context requires $$$ (vs. traditional voluntary donation)

•  success = need for business organization: advisors,board of directors, guards, bank accounts, etc

Theosophy’s “Three Objects”

1.  to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, or color

2.  to promote the study of Aryan and other Eastern literature, religions and sciences

3. investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and the psychical powers latent in man

Satyāgraha

civil disobedience

• weapon of the weak, non-violent, insists on truth

Ahimsa

non-violence

• demonstrates the power of the individual

Upavāsa

fasting

• connected traditionally to purification, health, act of authority to force gods into action

1965 Immigration Reform Act:

Also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, wanted to attract educated/professional workers from asia

Your mother's yoga -- is it the ancient yoga?

No, asian physical practices like meditation, tai chi, and yoga used to activate and perfect the spiritual VS perfecting the spiritual through doctrine and/or text

Spirituality of Seeking

negotiation

• focus often on Asian Religions, Philosophies, Beliefs, Practices

• Helps explain continuing interest in buddhism, yoga, gurus, other asian beliefs

Spirituality of Dwelling

habitation

The New Spirituality – characteristics

• Christianity loses its relevance for many; orientalist interest in Asian spirituality, philosophies

• The “seeker” and the guru

• SBNR

The Enlightened Body Self is about how the physical body indicates what?

• The path to transcendence

• Underlying assumption -  

the perfected body = superior spirituality/enlightenment = “success” “happiness”

outward/visible perfection = inward/spiritual perfection

What is meant by “Christianity beyond its European captivity”?

Since there is a long history of equating biblical religion/christianity with “caucasian” peoples the origin of the modern concept of race has origins in a christian worldview

Is Christianity an “Asian” religion?

Our view influenced by the heroic history of european/roman catholic, then american protestant missionary work into asia

“Nestorian” Christianity

a catch all term to describe “syrian” and “persian” traditions, theological view of dual nature jesus, and christian traditions not greatly influenced by “western” greek philosophy

Blumenbach’s origin of “Caucasian”

“I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both bc of its neighborhood…produces the most beautiful race of men”

• Lots of racially motivated talk of how white is superior skin color and skull shape

What is the Nestorian Stele?

• Memorial to the propagation in China of the luminous religion of Da Qin

• 781 AD

Hansen’s Law / “Principle of Third Generation Interest”

1st gen (immigrants) 

→ 2nd gen (born in the USA) “what the son wishes to forget…” 

→ 3rd gen “...the grandson wishes to remember”; goes back to 1st gen’s religion, language, and culture

Second Generation Issue (dealing with Asian cultures, immigrant generation [parents])

 Church raised asian american young people find their immigrant parents’ churches irrelevant, culturally stifling, not equipping them spiritually for life in multicultural USA

Mark Mullin’s “Life-cycle of Ethnic Churches”

• Stage 1: emphasis on cultural heritage and dominated by asian language

• Stage 2: significant 2nd gen (american born) w/ the issue of generational co-existance and the response of bilingual strategy

• Stage 3: assimilation of 2nd gen, passing away of immigrant gen

Critical response: “de-ethnicized” or die

Russell Jeung / panethnicity (“Asian American” Churches)

symbolic racial identity and Pan-ethnicity

Pan-ethnicity

2nd generation Asian American Christians in “Silent Exodus” find each other and create new “Asian American” Churches (vs. “Korean,” or “Chinese,” or “Japanese” Churches)

Rudy Busto / religious identity primary (reading)

• Evangelicalism requires that Christians identify first as Christians — race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, class, etc. are secondary. “Born again” as a theological must.

• Asian American evangelicals suppress their identities as “Asian American” in favor of being “Christian” as their primary identification

Kelly Chong / evangelical Christianity affirms and helps maintain ethnic identity (reading)

• Religion offers 2nd Generation a refuge from their marginal status in US culture

• One “must become Korean to become Christian” -immigrant generation imposes “key traditional morality and values”

Indigenization

presenting christianity from within the language and forms of a non-christian culture, leading to the transformation of christianity into a local, cultural form

Inculturation

the appropriation of a target culture’s religion (myths, symbols, theology, ect.) and reinterpreting them as Christian for the purposes of conversion

Syncretism

a term that arises in Christian theology, worried about preserving a traditional christianity practice; when two religions come together and make something new

“Re-Nestorianization” of Asian American Christianity?

the “kernel and husk” problem

kernel

essence of christianity, timeless, in every time and place was covered by culture

husk

the cultures that make christianity their own

Themes in Asian American Theology

• Feminist foundation

• Acknowledgement and incorporation of non-christian asian traditions

• Viewing christianity within the specific predicaments and issues for asian americans

  • Model minority, perpetual foreigner, as marginal to dominate society, family ties to asia, generational issues

“Fides quarens intellectum”

“faith seeking understanding/intelligence”

“Contextual Theology”

og definition: the poor and oppressed

updated definition: god defined by the poor and oppressed

Rita Nakashima Brock – what does she mean by “thealogy”? How might Asian Religions assist in creating an Asian American form of Christianity?

• she argues asian american christians should gain from non-christian beliefs

  • ex implementing Buddhist ideas of compassion

• she also acknowledges that they can both be patriarchal

How does Gale Yee apply Asian American stereotypes to a reading of the Bible?

she reads into the biblical narrative of the “model minority” and “the perpetual foreigner”

 Two-Party Protestantism

• Mainline

• Born again

“authetic fake”

fandom, not intentionally religious but can have the function of religion

Tensions/Contradictions of gurus in the west (Kumare)

-people believe in anything they hear due to uniqueness/foreigness
-gurus make money as traveling salesmen
-things/people/places in popular culture that, despite their "fraudulence... still do authentic religious work" by providing
-sense of community
-allowing people to come to terms with their humanity
-create/offer a sense of transcendence
-authentic fake

Japanese American Buddhist "Protestantization" (Williams, Yoo)

In Internment camps, Buddhists were forced to operate in the context of an americanization program
Organized to assimilate the japanese and allow them to demonstrate loyalty to the US
Changed name of largest Buddhist organization from Buddhist mission of N. america to Buddhist Churches of America to give the org. A more christian-sounding name
Got rid of commonly used swastika symbol in buddhism and switched it with dharma wheel
Japanese American buddhist honored their buddhist traditions while simultaneously demonstrating loyalty to US

Functions of religious institutions for Japanese Americans in relation to internment (Yoo reading)

Religious institutions served various functions, including providing structures for creating meaning and revealing faith.