From INHERITANCE Issue #2 - Summer 2009

The need: I remember becoming a Fuller Theological Seminary faculty member in 1992, during the Los Angeles Riots; it was April 29th. The energy at that time on campus was directed toward multicultural awareness, i.e. how do we get along, Rodney King, etc. It was just everywhere.

As I started teaching there, I realized that I was the only woman of color in all three schools.

Looking back, I didn’t know what territory I was getting into; I came out of a local immigrant church setting where I did a lot of bridging ministry between different generations in the Korean American church. Both my husband and I were like surrogate parents for the younger generation.

We did game shows and fun events to relate to the two generations through games instead of the normal Western way of just talking about it. We were pretty creative and made our own inductive Bible study out of the gospel of John because there was no tailor made studies for them.

But upon finishing my Ph.D. at Fuller, what I was not prepared for was the whole gamut of politics in higher education. I attended an Asian Association of Theological school gathering in Chicago in 1992 — many seminary schools are under it.

There was only one other Asian American woman there with grey hair. It was just the two of us. So even if I wanted to look for an Asian American mentor, she lived in Vancouver, and here I was in Pasadena. That was the era I came from.

So I was like “Oh my goodness.” If any other Asian American woman comes along to become faculty or a leader in higher education, I’d like to pack her a lunchbox of my mind and show her where the mines in this field are.

I would like to show them because if they’re just facing and uncovering these things while on the job, they would spend so much time discovering and learning the truth that they’re not prepared to handle what’s going on. It’s a very charged atmosphere.

On top of that, usually the messenger predetermines the message anyways. So sometimes you’re very visible as a minority — you’re a sore thumb. When you don’t want to stick out, you do. And when you think your voice matters, all of a sudden, you’re a ghost. So while navigating and juggling all of this, I just said, “I don’t want any other women to go through this.”

This was the conception of AAWOL. I wanted to foster a community for Asian American woman by leveraging our pioneers’ legacies rather than watching Asian American

women professionals consistently starting from scratch — constantly reinventing the wheel.
The mission of AAWOL is the three T’s: Transcribe, Translate, and Transmit.

Without transcribing, there is no bridge. Transcribing lays down generational bridges that future generations can step on.

Translate is contextualizing. All of this cultural American knowledge from American context; it doesn’t translate to our own setting. So what do we do about that? We have to start documenting the legacies of Asian Americans, and not just Chinese, Japanese, Korean Americans, but all Asian Americans. We have to build from those amazing histories and learn from the wisdom that comes out of it.

Transmit is venue. We are creating a venue through education. We will always be behind unless we raise a consciousness of Asian Americans coming together. Why? Because the strategy of divide and conquer is still plaguing us.

In a conference with Jim Lewis, executive director of the Louisville Institute, he mentioned that Asians are one of the most scattered groups. So divide and conquer is still in effect. If we don’t consolidate, our amazing resources such as social capital AND actual capital and keep doing our own thing in our divided cells, then we’re not optimizing — we’re not being a good steward.

I’ve been around long enough to know my mission in life and I keep asking myself, “What would you like to leave behind when you depart?” I think about that often, and those with a history of documentation seem to win.

But Asian American churches aren’t aware of this as a mission. The more we consolidate, the better steward we become. We reduce overhead while documenting and learning the wisdom of previous generations to help form and cement our identity. If you don’t know your history, then how will you know who you are?

I have projects like the Asian North American church legacies. I’ve just interviewed this 90-year-old Japanese woman who was relocated to the internment camp in Arkansas. It’s tedious and inspiring work — will any church be supporting me with all this work and documentation? No. But, it’s a task that has to be done for our sustainability.

Sometimes I feel like I’m about to burnout, but it’s a calling, it’s a mission. Because after having taught two decades in theological institutions, I know for a fact that if we don’t write and document our history, theological education will forever exclude our legacies and our mission; they’ll forget what we’ve done.

Therefore, it’ll constantly be a dissonant education for immigrants. But progress has been made. For example, AAWOL sisters have a soon to be published book coming out called Yin and Yang of Leadership: Biblical Characters According to Asian American Women.

Is AAWOL is specifically only for women?
We just had a roundtable fellowship that invited men too. Two males showed up. Basically, AAWOL is geared towards empowering female church members and scholars. We are a chapter under ISAAC; who also strives for the three T’s in addition to equipping pastors and providing services to local churches.

There’s a silent exodus of English ministry pastors going on right now and we need to do something about that. So, the Northern California division has provided some resources such as the Equipping and Research center for Chinese American church pastors — and the social division is looking to do the same.

But in order to do that, we need help and supporting churches so we can sustain and not burn out. If we don’t retool, contextualize, equip resources or even de-assimilate theological training (coming from a theologian), we can’t bring change.