Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church

Christine J. Hong

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781349563234, 9781137497833
• eBook ISBN: 9781137488060
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Korean History
• Index: Social Sciences

This book studies Korean American girls between thirteen and nineteen and their formation with regard to self, gender, and God in the context of Korean American protestant congregational life. It develops a hybrid methodology of de-colonial aims and indigenous research methods, aiming to facilitate transformative life in faith communities.

1

Introduction

Abstract: Chapter 1 introduces the book’s study, a feminist ethnography of second-generation Korean American girls’ identity, gender, and theological formations in the Korean American immigrant church. It describes the origins of the author’s interest in the topic and the narrative and self-reflexive style and format of the book. Chapter 1 also describes the author’s hopes for the book’s contribution to the wider scholarship in the field of Practical Theology and for a new gender affirming religious education for second-generation Korean American girls.

Hong, Christine J. Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Christian Church. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137488060.0003.

Sociologists and theologians have long worked at unpacking the intrinsic connection between religion and culture. One interpretation understands culture as teacher and religion as compass. Culture teaches us the rules and modalities for living in our many worlds and communities, while religion provides us with rationales for why the rules and modalities exist in the first place. Another interpretation claims that culture and religion undergird one another in indistinguishable ways, leaving people to wonder whether it is culture, religion, or both that bears the most influence on the formation of our convictions.

The heart of this book is a feminist ethnography that explores both of these interpretations. We will examine the relationships between culture, religion, and formation through Korean American girls’ narratives as they navigate life in the Korean American immigrant church. The book and its ethnography pose the question, “What is the experience of growing up as a Korean American girl in the Korean American immigrant church?” It seeks to understand these experiences by documenting understandings of self and gender among Korean American girls between the ages of 13 and 19. In asking this question and others like it, religious educators like myself can pinpoint, unpack, and weigh patriarchally laden religio-cultural messages internalized by Korean American girls and provide an analysis that results in avenues for gender positive or gender affirming spiritual and theological formation in Korean American contexts.

This book is narrative and reflective in form. A deep understanding of the ethnography and emerging themes shared later in this book relies heavily on the reader’s willingness to first undergo a process of contextualization. Before diving into the study itself we explore Korean American history, theologies, indigenous and contemporary spiritualties, and the psychological development of Asian American adolescents. These topics are key to understanding the themes that emerge at the study’s conclusion.

In many ways this book is a personally meaningful attempt to unpack my own experiences and contexts as a second-generation Korean American woman by collecting and listening to the narratives of others. According to Kamala Visweswaran, a South-Asian feminist sociologist, this self-reflexive first-person narrative strategy is key for feminist ethnography’s methodology, particularly among vulnerable communities—something she calls “Confessional field literature.”¹ Visweswaran argues that feminist ethnographers often choose this approach as “part of an implicit critique of positivist assumptions and as a strategy of communication and self-discovery.”²

It is my hope that this study will provide rich descriptions and context for future gender-affirming religious educational practices among Korean American churches for the sake of Korean American girls and other Asian American second-generation women leading to self-knowledge in relation to self, God, and the world. Gender-affirming religious educational practices should ideally respect both the girls’ journey towards formation and the Korean American community as a whole, especially since we will discover that churches are a major, albeit imperfect, source of developmental support in the lives of the bi-cultural generation.

Growing up in the Korean American immigrant church I had difficulty separating my Korean American identity from my Christian values and beliefs. What I learned about God and Christianity converged with what I learned at home and in my congregation about my identity as a Korean American woman. The values of both culture and religion seemed one and the same with very little to distinguish between them. My family instilled in me an unwavering adherence to the patterns of patriarchy, which boiled down to the diminishment of my own agency. I learned to unquestionably respect the authority of men, especially those in the first-generation. As a child and adolescent, this meant I was often called away from doing homework or playing with my friends to fetch a glass of water for my father who would incidentally be sitting only a few feet from the kitchen. These seemingly simple tasks conveyed life lessons. I learned that the combination of youth and being gendered female meant I was responsible not only for my own well-being but also for that of others, especially the comfort and well being of the men in my family.

Regardless of how aggravated I felt in this patriarchal bind, I felt reluctant to question it because of the religious connotations it bore. What I learned at church, where I spent most of my free time, only affirmed these patriarchal values. Time spent in church made me feel guilty for any ill feelings I possessed over assigned gender roles. I would hear from my pastors, Bible study teachers, and other first-generation Korean Americans that a male God had designed men and women to carry out different and complementary roles in the home and in the world. I was given examples of biblical women whose lives were perceived as humble, gentle, and demure: Mary the Mother of Christ, Esther, and Ruth among others. Religious education worked in tandem with education in the home imparting to me that God, through the auspices of Korean culture, had pre-ordained specific and gendered roles.

At the same time, through socialization outside of the Korean American church, I began to experience autonomy as a member of a more “Americanized” generation. While I felt somewhat liberated, there were limits. I learned quickly that I would never fully assimilate to a white normative culture and society. I experienced the pervasive nature of white supremacy in American life and society, particularly through bigotry against the Asian American community. As a perpetual foreigner and bi-cultural person I was consistently between two worlds, which provided both certain comforts and certain discomforts in my formation. As uncomfortable as I found the restrictive gender roles of Korean Christian contexts, I needed the solace of the Korean American church to escape the racism becoming increasingly and painfully more visible and unbearable. Yet my time in the Korean American church context left me feeling dispossessed of personal agency. The liminal nature of being a second-generation Korean American adolescent meant navigating the uncomfortable space between two cultures, Korean American Christian and North American, neither of which seemed to acknowledge the questions that continued to bubble up inside me. I most often chose the Korean Christian community for the comfort and shelter it provided during my formative adolescent years. With this choice, I understood that any challenges I had for Korean American Christian culture would mean that I was not only challenging my faith but also my culture, and therefore my chosen home; a home hard won by my parents and other members of the first-generation.

Notes

  1   Kamala Visweswaran, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 21.

  2   Ibid., 23.

2

Immigration: Our Collective History

Abstract: Chapter 2 describes in brief the history of Korean American immigration to the United States and the growth of Korean American immigrant churches. It introduces the concepts of marginality and liminality, the first and second-generation’s theological and spiritual interpretation of the experiences of immigration, particularly influenced by the painful experience of racism and discrimination. The chapter also offers a brief overview of the relevant Korean American theologians and sociologists pertinent to the themes of marginality and liminality and the feminist ethnography central to the book.

Hong, Christine J. Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Christian Church. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137488060.0004.

A new home

Whenever my parents retell the story of their immigration it always begins and ends the same way. They arrived at LAX with barely a suitcase between them and their life savings in their pockets. A local pastor, with whom they connected through a friend of a friend, picked them up in his rickety car and brought them to a rundown apartment complex in downtown Los Angeles. With their savings they were able to secure an apartment, find jobs with the help of other Korean immigrants, and joined the hospitable pastor’s church. For my parents, the Korean American immigrant church was a welcome slice of home; solace in an unfamiliar host nation. There, they were not judged for their broken English, for the color of their skin, or for the smell of their traditional foods. Their congregation didn’t butcher their names and most importantly, they valued them. The church made them visible, whole beings among a whole people. They would say to me, “How could you not feel God’s presence in a place that made you whole?” For all their complexities around gender, intergenerational conflict, cultural strife, and power struggles, Korean American churches are historically beacons of hope for new immigrants. The church continues to shine its beacon as new waves of first-generation Koreans cross borders and start new lives in a strange place. The history of Korean American immigration is historically interwoven with the Korean American immigrant church. The stunning growth of Korean American churches correlates to immigrant need to find a place to belong amid the day-to-day burden of being perceived and treated as unwelcome perpetual foreigners.

The growth of Korean American churches: a brief history

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. They are also one of the most diverse in language, ethnicity, and religion. A recent Pew Research Center study states that Asian Americans comprise over 5.8 percent of the population in the United States. Within this figure Christianity is the religious affiliation of the majority.¹ As part of this Asian American population explosion, Korean American communities have also continued to grow exponentially since the January 13, 1903, arrival of the first wave of Korean immigrants on Hawaiian shores. According to Won Moo Hurh, the original group of 101 immigrants grew to an estimated 7,226 within three years.²

During this first wave of Korean immigration churches established themselves not only as a refuge for political exiles but also simultaneously as a center for cultural preservation and assimilation to American life. Like the Japanese American churches and temples before them, early Korean American churches helped new immigrants settle into their new lives. They were places where one could learn English, American culture, and customs. At the same time, Korean American churches quickly became a social hub for immigrants where they developed community and fellowship with other immigrants. Korean American churches today are still places where immigrant generations transmit Korean culture, traditions, and language to their children and grandchildren. Here, Korean Americans find shelter against the pervasive and unexpected burden of macro and micro modes of racism and discrimination in American society. Church as place where resilience is cultivated well into the second-generation is discussed more fully later.

The second wave of Korean immigrants arrived shortly after the Korean War ceasefire in 1951. During this time US servicemen arrived back home, some bringing with them Korean brides. The War Brides Act of 1946 allowed for the immigration of Korean wives of US soldiers and their children. War-torn Korea also began opening its borders, supporting the adoptions of South Korean babies by families in the United States. My paternal grandmother immigrated to the United Stated by chaperoning and caring for a Korean infant on its way to its adopted family. She told me how she held a crying baby in her lap on her plane ride thinking, “This child is my ticket to a new life!” Along with adoptees and the wives of servicemen, the second wave of Korean immigrants also brought students to US shores.

The final wave of Korean immigrants arrived post 1965. The Hart-Celler Act re-opened the doors of immigration to Asians after a 40-year exclusion policy based solely on race and nationality that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This third wave brought with it the immigration of entire Korean families. Hart-Celler also allowed those who were already residents in the United States to bring family members across the border. It opened the doors for new immigrants to arrive and make homes in the United States. Korean immigrants continue to arrive on US soil as business professionals, entrepreneurs, and student-sojourners.

Throughout these three waves, Korean immigrant churches have been both a place of welcome for the immigrant population and a place of exclusion for the second and recent third-generation. While Korean American immigrant churches preserve language and culture, the first-generation does not generally share church governance with the second and third-generations. Mainline Korean immigrant churches still thrive in the United States, while many of their white American counterparts struggle to fill pews, perhaps in part due to the continued influx of Korean immigrants that keeps churches vibrant.

Marginality and lim...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Immigration: Our Collective History
• 3  We Are Who We Were: Korean and Korean American Spiritualities
• 4  Asian American Adolescents: Development and Mental Health
• 5  Methodology
• 6  The Study
• 7  Findings and Emerging Themes
• 8  Discussion of the Themes
• 9  Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index