China’s newly-rich starting to give generously

By RACHAEL KAM

CHARITABLE activities, which are encouraged by the teachings of Confucius, have existed in China for centuries within communities, clans, and kinships.

As the country becomes more prosperous and the people become more affluent, there have been an emergence of more philanthropists who provide generous support to charities, social welfare, and education of the people in their clans and counties.

China today, is not only a place where fortunes are being made, but increasingly a place where the wealthy people, including famous tycoons and movie stars, are involved in charitable acts.

According to the 2008 Hurun Philanthropy List in Hurun Report, most of the top 100 philanthropists in China are giving away their wealth to education, social welfare, poverty alleviation, health care, disaster relief, culture and sports, and religion donation.

Most donors contribute to the fields of education, followed by Social welfare, poverty alleviation and health care. Of the top 100 philanthropists last year, 73 gave to education, 48 to social welfare, 29 to poverty alleviation and 25 to health care.

Jet Li: Through his One Foundation he has set a mission to shield billions of disaster-stricken victims in Asia.

The Hurun Report says the country’s top 100 philanthropists have contributed 12.9 billion yuan (US$1.8bil) since 2003.

“From 2003 to 2007, China’s top 100 philanthropists had given 9.5 billion yuan in donations,” it says.

Shanghai-based Hurun Report is the leading media platform for China’s richest individuals, including a quarterly magazine, a fortnightly newsletter and an active event business.

The founder and compiler of the Hurun Report Briton Rupert Hoogewerf established The China Rich List in 1999 with two students from Donghua University in Shanghai, and published the first China Rich List in Forbes magazine.

Li Ka-shing: Regarded as one of Asia’s most generous philanthropists, he has pledged to donate one-third of his fortune to charity and philanthropic projects throughout the world.

“More and more wealthy people are setting up their own charitable funds, and the whole of society have paid more attention to charity,” Hoogewerf, who is also a qualified charted accountant says in the Hurun Report.

The Hurun Report discovered that 66 of the top philanthropists were also ranked China’s 100 wealthiest in 2008.

The average age of the philanthropists list last year was 52, compared with the average age of 48, five years ago.

In 2008, the 86-year-old hotel and real estate entrepreneur in Shenzhen, Yu Pengnian was topping the list for the third year. Yu has endowed his foundation with 3 billion yuan in the past five years to provide cataract operations.

According to the 2008 Hurun Philanthropy List, Yu has donated US$420mil to health and higher education, followed by the chairman of property developer Hopson Development Holdings Ltd Zhu Meng Yi, who donated US$158mil to education and health. Zhu, who is also known as Chu Mang Yee, has a stock of donation worth 1.1 billion yuan in the past five years.

Ranked third on the list, Huang Rulun, chairman of the Jinyuan Hotel Group has given away 850 million yuan since 2003. Last year, Huang donated US$120mil into education, poverty alleviation and disaster relief.

Giving away via foundation

In Hong Kong, the richest businessman Li Ka-shing is regarded as one of Asia’s most generous philanthropists, donating over US$1bil to date to charity and other various philanthropic causes via his Li Ka Shing Foundation and other private charitable Foundations.

The Li Ka Shing Foundation was ranked top seventh wealthiest foundations with the endowment of US$10.1bil.

Li is the richest person of Chinese descent in the world and the eleventh richest man in the world according to Forbes. Up to March 5 last year, Li’s estimated wealth is US$26.5bil.

His donation in 1981 resulted in the founding of Shantou University, near Chaozhou. In 2002, his donation of US$11.5mil to the higher education institution led to the setting up of the Li Ka Shing Library at the Singapore Management University, which was named in his honour.

Thereafter, Li also made some big donations including US$3mil to the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake disaster, US$128mil to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong in 2005, US$100mil to Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in the National University of Singapore in 2007, C$25mil to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto to found the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and most recently, US$3.85mil to aid relief in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Li was born in Chaozhou, Guangdong, China in 1928. The Li family shifted to Hong Kong in 1940 due to the financial turmoil in China.

The family stayed with Li’s wealthy uncle in Hong Kong that time and the arrogance of Li’s uncle with his immense wealth ignited Li’s determination to make a place for himself in the world.

After Li’s father passed away, he was forced to leave school before the age of 15 to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of his family; he worked at a plastic trading company.

With sheer determination and hard work, Li started his own company, Cheung Kong Industries in 1950. Li developed and expanded his company from a plastics maker to a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong. The company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972.

Today, Li is the chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd and Cheung Kong Holdings. He is now the world’s largest operator of container terminals and the world’s largest health and beauty retailer.

In 2006, Li pledged to donate one-third of his fortune, which is estimated at over US$10bil, to charity and philanthropic projects throughout the world.

Megastar in philanthropy

Besides businessmen, the Chinese Kung Fu movie star Jet Li recently made some headlines in philanthropy with its newly formed One Foundation.

This Beijing-born martial arts champ, who has managed to capture the hearts of both eastern and western martial arts fans, has set a mission to shield billions of disaster stricken victims in Asia.

An unforgettable real-life horror experience has changed him forever. After he was caught up in the devastating tsunami that hit on Dec 26, 2004 when he was on holiday with family in Maldives, he realised that a person’s power and popularity does not help at all when disasters hit.

That’s how Li’s One Foundation was born. On Jan 2, 2005, Li gave away 500,000 yuan for the victims of tsunami and he used another 500,000 yuan to start a foundation.

The One Foundation has its own set of auditors, lawyers and accountants to ensure every cent spent is accountable. It is also managed by a 15-member team.

Li, 45, has taken a year off his acting career to garner contribution towards the fund; since inception, he and his friends have been providing the allocations. The foundation has aided victims in seven natural disasters in Asia, including the Sichuan earthquake and the hurricane in Myanmar.

“I have gone through three steps in my life – martial arts, movies and now, the foundation. This foundation is where my heart is; it is my life, my home, my belief, and my dream. I also need to put China somewhere (in the world of philanthropy),” Li had said.

He has been meeting with many world leaders including Bill Clinton, the princess of Thailand , Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Tony Blair to champion the One Foundation cause. He wants to bring people together for a good cause.

He also roped in over 300 people to help, including some of his friends from the movie world like Jackie Chan and Datuk Michelle Yeoh. Others include businessmen, lawyers, professors and athletes.

“The main focus of the foundation is to provide aid to the people hit by disasters,” he said. The concept behind the foundation is ‘’one person, one dollar, one month.”

This is based on the idea that each person who can, donates one dollar per month and the money will just grow to help others.

Young Asian American Philanthropists

Updated: July 22, 2008 06:41 PM

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Bad Medicine

We have long heard of the so-called “bamboo ceiling” in the field of business — Asian American employees who are held back from career advancement because they are perceived by their white superiors as timid, passive, and lacking the aggressive qualities that white America deems necessary to become a leader. Language skills are also a factor in this barrier to promotion: white executives believe, whether accurately or not, that Asian employees lack the communication abilities to effectively represent the company and work with clients at the highest levels.

Now comes word that our cultural differences may also be a hindrance to advancement in the halls of both medical schools and hospitals during hands-on training for medical students known as clinical clerkships.

As Rex Feng reports in this issue, the Journal of the National Medical Association published a study in October showing that Asian American medical students, among other minorities, reported lower overall grades than whites. According to report co-author Katherine B. Lee, who is also national president of the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association, Asian American medical students may receive lower grades not because of academic ability, but because their culturally based styles of communication come across negatively in a classroom or clerkship environment. The study indicates that white medical students may receive higher grades from observing physicians because they are more assertive than their minority classmates; Asian American students scored lower on assertiveness than their white counterparts.

The study’s findings are distressing, but we should not necessarily have to give up our culturally ingrained behaviors to get ahead in this country, whether it be in medical school, business or any other field. Though we may not be as brash, aggressive, boastful and cutthroat as others, we should not be so quick to give up our cultural traits. We should take pride in our sometimes quiet, patient, respectful ways. And though we may speak with an accent or not be a native English speaker, we can still be highly capable doctors.

We realize that compromise is inevitable in this situation, but we should not be the only ones to adjust our behavior; supervisors should broaden their definition of what a successful doctor or leader is, acknowledging our culturally driven modes of communication and behavior.

Food for Thought

Food is one of the ways we consume different cultures. Even if we can’t find a country on a map, when we eat its cuisine, we presume to know it and its people and way of life a little bit better.

As Eunice Lee reports in this issue, Sorabol Korean BBQ & Asian Noodles is quickly joining Hot Dog on a Stick and Sbarro as a common sight in that most American of dining locales: the shopping mall food court.

With 15 locations in California, Nevada and the Philippines, and plans to expand to Washington, D.C., Seattle and New York City, this family-owned chain is spreading Korean dishes to the hungry, shopped-out mainstream masses and challenging Panda Express in its domination of Asian food court fare.

As the first Korean fast-food chain in the United States, Sorabol is not only bringing Korean cuisine to mainstream consumers — it’s broadening their cultural palate beyond sushi and orange chicken. “People are realizing that there is more to Asian cuisine than Chinese and Japanese,” said CEO Richard Hong, son of the Korean immigrant founders.

What’s more, the company refuses to “Americanize” its menu for the notoriously finicky, white American palate, or tone down dishes that can send even the spiciest-food lovers gasping for water. At Sorabol, you can not only find typical Korean BBQ fare like bulgogi and kalbi, but also traditional dishes like the spicy soup yukejang, as well as dishes that challenge the palate like the spicy tofu stew soon dubu.

What was once a sit-down restaurant and meeting place for Bay Area Koreans has now transformed into a quick and enjoyable bite of Korean culture for all. In these ways, Sorabol is a model of how Asian culture (via its cuisine) can infiltrate mainstream American society without compromising. Like its name, which is an allusion to what was once the flourishing capital of the Shilla Dynasty in Korea, Sorabol may be a harbinger of a modern-day golden age: The day when one’s options at the food court include pho, balut and natto may not be so far away. After all, they say the way to the heart is through one’s stomach.

Asian American Eats

Did you know that in the United States, there are more Chinese restaurants than all the McDonald’s, Burger Kings and KFCs combined?

This may be less surprising to you if you live in the Bay Area, where one can find delicious Asian hole-in-the-walls on practically every block. To help you sort through the overwhelming number of options in the area, we welcome back in this issue one of the only all-Asian restaurant review features in the country — Asian Eats (previously The Picky Eater).

Giving, the Asian Way

In Asian cultures, money is not something spoken about or dealt with in the open. It’s discussed at the family dinner table or whispered about over drinks.

Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise that Asian American philanthropy is somewhat hidden in the community. Unlike the Andrew Carnegies, Warren Buffetts, and the Bill and Melinda Gates — deep-pocketed moguls who are figureheads for philanthropy — Asian American philanthropists are virtually invisible.

But that’s not to say they don’t exist. They do — in family associations in Chinatown alleys, in community center rec rooms, and in kitchens and living rooms in Asian American households across the country.

As Emily Leach reports in this issue, Asian American philanthropic groups based on traditional Asian forms of giving are now hoping to bridge the gap between Western-style philanthropy (large endowments or donations to institutions like universities, museums and libraries) and Asian concepts of philanthropy (small-scale giving between families or relatives, often newly arrived immigrants).

Groups like the Asian Women Giving Circle, modeled after the Korean geh, or shared savings circles where contributors regularly pool their money and then rotate its distribution amongst members, are giving support to those in our community who need it most. According to a June 2007 study by the group, the Asian American Pacific Islander population has grown to comprise 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet 2004 foundation funding to APIs represented just 0.4 percent of all U.S. foundation dollars. That’s less than half of one percent.

We applaud groups like the Asian Women Giving Circle for encouraging giving from the Asian American community to the Asian American community. Many Asian American groups facilitate giving between community members, yet fall far outside the traditional definition of philanthropy and below the radar of the mainstream. We salute these groups who are helping our community’s economic engine run — our way.

In the words of Peggy Saika, president and executive director of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy: “It’s an empowerment track for us. It’s us raising our own money and deciding where that money should go. We must change the culture and the practice of giving in our communities.”

Unified From Top to Bottom

The belief that Asian Americans are a successful group in the United States is no myth. We have an annual household income and education level greater than the national average. We even built an era: the “Information Age.”

Although we have battled adversity time and time again in the form of racism, hatred and negative public sentiment, in addition to social, economic and political inequity, we are still here. We thrive. We are resilient.

But on our way to the top, we should not forget those at the bottom. The rules of American society ensure that success comes easier to some than to others. The story of Chol Soo Lee — a wrongfully imprisoned Korean American man, who at the same time is not innocent — is a vivid illustration of this.

But we are all a part of the same community. We can’t praise our successful heroes and then ignore those who are experiencing difficult times.

For the Asian Americans living in poverty and those who make up the seven percent who are incarcerated in the United States, success is seen in a different light. We should not take our successes for granted. Rather, we should savor every accomplishment and be reminded of stories like Lee’s in hopes to extend our support to those who need it most in our community.

One Asian American organization in Boston, Asian Sisters Participating In Reaching Excellence (ASPIRE), makes sure of that conversion. By empowering the young women of the Asian American community as leaders, we have more control of our community, identities and, most importantly, our destinies.

So let us savor our successes by taking ownership of it as a community but, at the same time, be reminded that we can use them to empower those in need.

Thomas Tseng: When it comes to communicating to Asian-American women, you really have to start by thinking about two distinct segments: immigrant Asian women born outside the U.S. and U.S.-born Asian-Americans or those who are predominantly raised in this country (what we call the “1.5 generation”).

For the former – women who emigrated from all parts of Asia, including mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, India, etc. – linguistic preferences and reference points are firmly embedded in the cultural norms and traditions of their home countries. However, in our research, we've learned that immigrant Asian women also tend to be much more socially and culturally malleable than immigrant Asian males. Many immigrant women arriving in the U.S. enjoy much greater freedom from their traditional roles and often adjust better, and acculturate faster, than their male counterparts. They become more adept at English, take on breadwinning roles, achieve a certain stature outside the home, and often become the de facto cultural navigator for their household – at least until their U.S.-born children come of age. You could say that many jump headfirst into American culture with a relish. Nevertheless, they still adhere firmly to certain beliefs and attitudes from their upbringing.

Those born or raised in the U.S. are completely different. It's a group that grew up in two worlds – the immigrant world inside their parents' household and the American one that they experienced at school, work and other social situations. It's a group that is driven by very similar motivations as other women in the general public – a balance of personal and professional ambitions. It's also a group that is English-fluent, if not completely English-dominant. The type of communications and messaging that will resonate will be those in English – but they will resonate more so if the women's identity and unique cultural experiences are included.

‘Invisible’ Minority More American Than First Glance Suggests

As we prepare to usher in a new year and the newest crop of autos, we asked Thomas Tseng, a principal and co-founder of New American Dimensions, a Los Angeles-based multicultural marketing research organization, to discuss winning in the Asian American market.

Q: Tell us about the Asian American automobile market. Why should automakers care about Asian consumers?
A: The Asian American market, from an automotive perspective, is one of the most lucrative, but “hidden” consumer markets in the U.S. It’s already well established that Asian Americans have the country’s highest per capita income figures in the U.S., with strong purchasing power for upscale, luxury brands and products.
What’s often not as well understood or highlighted is the strong affinity many Asian Americans have for the automobile itself — particularly Japanese or European imports. For many Asian immigrants, among the many symbols that they have “made it” in the U.S. — in addition to homeownership, successful business, children’s higher education, etc. — a luxury automobile is a major emblem. This affinity is passed along to the second generation as well.

Q: How important is in-language marketing?
A: In-language advertising is important for a big chunk of the U.S. Asian market, but I also think it’s overplayed. For many auto manufacturers who want to successfully capitalize on this consumer, it’s important to contend with the 58 percent of the U.S. Asian population who are born outside the U.S. This is where there’s a lot of opportunity right now, it’s a group in their peak spending years — many who are Gen Xers, Baby Boomers and retirees. But when you look more closely at this 58 percent, it’s not as straightforward. First, there is the fact that you have a myriad of language groups — Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. — so which target are you going to go after? Secondly, there’s a chunk of this 58 percent who arrived to the U.S. at a young age. So, culturally and linguistically, they may be more American than their birthplace suggests. To me, the biggest untapped opportunity are the 42 percent of the U.S. Asian market that is U.S. born — and linguistically, they overwhelmingly favor English — so they’re not watching KSCI or reading the World Journal. This is a segment made up largely of Millennials and Gen Xers, and they’re the ones who are increasingly shaping the marketplace.

Q: How can automakers better understand the market?
A: I think there’s a lot of information out there already via public census sources. So that’s the first step: culling together the profile of consumers and using that as a baseline to see where the opportunities are for automotive marketers.
The second step is to conduct some research (I’m obviously biased since that’s what we do) to answer some of those questions that aren’t attainable through census data. This will provide a strategic footing for the company. The final step is deciding whether to hire an (ad) agency or not. I can go a long time on whether Asian ad agencies offer any value or not but will save that for a future discussion. The short answer is: “It depends.”

Q: Where is the market going?
A: As I alluded, I see the market increasingly being shaped by younger consumers (and that’s not to say that there isn’t a major opportunity among the older segments). But in terms of starting trends and shaping attitudes, it’s the younger segments that will increasingly dictate how automakers should respond. There are a lot of macro-trends going on with this segment, too. It’s the D.I.Y. [do-it-yourself] ethos, the integration of car culture with lifestyle, the intersection of music, technology and driving — and numerous others too rich to detail here. And it’s all in a state of constant change, too.

Q: How do companies figure out where the market’s going?
A: Here I’m going to contradict myself a little. Research is a first step, but it’s not going to answer everything. I think more than anything, automakers and auto marketers need to immerse themselves in the culture of the consumers. There are networks of auto affinity groups, for instance (the youth import car culture is one of those), that those in the industry really need to be tracking, because many of the future trends in autos are incubated in these networks. And for the Asian consumer market, these networks are going to look very different than the general market.

Q: What do auto companies need to do if they want to reach the Asian market?
A: The first step is that there needs to be the recognition on the part of auto manufacturers that the U.S. Asian market is a legitimate, viable consumer base. That’s the first step, and it usually doesn’t happen unless there is a consumer advocate within the car companies who recognizes the opportunity. Once that’s been established, then some cultural immersion is required. Research, discussion with the cultural experts, etc., is all part of the due diligence required, even before a manufacturer commits to an advertising communications agency. (Ed. Note: See what Chrysler has done, page 9.)

Q: What do you drive?
A: When I turned in my leased Volvo XC90 this past summer, I wanted an upscale SUV but was seeking something a bit more environmentally friendly (befitting my California liberal sensibilities) and fuel efficient. So that narrowed my choices to the Lexus RX 400h hybrid — sensible, low-maintenance, practical but with all the amenities reflecting my professional background and standing. Believe me, I really wanted a Porsche Cayenne but couldn’t justify it at the end. Plus, my wife was dead set against it. Maybe if they had marketed to me, it would have put me over the tipping point.

Asian American Geniuses

Among the 24 recently announced 2007 MacArthur fellows, we are proud to see a number of Asian Americans, in fields as disparate as dance, chemistry, spider silk biology and neurorobotics (involving the central nervous system and robot technology!).

The fellowships, known colloquially as the “genius grants,” are awarded for creativity, originality and potential for important future contributions to society and include a $500,000 “no strings attached” grant to grease the fellows’ creativity wheels.

Who would have guessed that after first arriving on America’s shores to work as railroad laborers, laundry workers and farmers, Asian Americans would be making inroads in such cutting-edge areas and considered among the most innovative and forward-thinking in the country?

Former MacArthur fellows include writers Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Ved Mehta and Han Ong; composer Bright Sheng; sculptor Sarah Sze; translator Huynh Sanh Thông; ethnomusicologist Sam-Ang Sam; human rights activist Xiao Qiang; public health doctor Jim Kim, and Asian Pacific American Legal Center lawyers Stewart Kwoh and Julie Su.

Among this year’s crop is My Hang Huynh, a chemist at Los Alamos working on making explosives less toxic. Biologist Cheryl Hayashi studies the composition of spider silk and how we can emulate its structure in other materials. Yoky Matsuoka is a pioneer in the coordination of the central nervous system and robotic technology to aid people with physical disabilities. Choreographer Shen Wei combines Eastern and Western influences to create dramatic dance-theater.

As Vivien Hao reports in this issue, the Asian American MacArthur fellows are far from dutiful yes-men: they are risk takers committed to following their hearts wherever they lead, qualities that are sadly not typically associated with or fostered among Asian Americans.

We must encourage each other, and especially our youth, to pursue interests and dreams, no matter what field they may be in. You never know where that spark of curiosity will lead — that kid obsessed with spiders just may grow up to be a genius.

On the Job With Asian American Professionals

Asian American employees are stereotyped as passive, unwilling to participate in organized activities and apathetic about doing what it takes to get promoted. They are the overworked, underpaid, under-respected workhorses who toil away and then cross their fingers when eligible for a promotion. They can’t be bothered, the stereotype goes, with connecting with other Asians in our company or lobbying for more Asians to be hired or put in the pipeline for management positions.

But a closer look shows that Asian Americans are indeed active in professional career development, from the thriving Asian employee networks and leadership programs to professional associations. AsianWeek lists almost 40 of the most prominent Asian employee groups from companies across the United States in a special section in this issue, and it is not a comprehensive list by far.

The American tendency is to organize around play or politics. But this passion among Asian American professionals for career development and engaging with our colleagues is perhaps an extension of our community’s high concern for raising a family and cultivating a stable job. Strong ties to the Asian American community may also play a role, and many of these employee groups have demonstrated a dedication to serving this community, donating time and money to causes like Sichuan earthquake relief, local scholarships for Asian American students and Project Michelle, an effort to increase the number of Asian American bone marrow donors.

Inspired by employee resource groups like the Corporate Asian American Employee Network (CAAEN) and Wells Fargo’s Asian Connection, AsianWeek has even started its own organization—the Fabulous AsianWeek Contributors and Employees (F.A.C.E.) to outreach and network with other Asian American associations, recognize and appreciate employee’s successes, construct and strengthen work relationships, provide services that give back to the community and embrace and share our Asian cultural heritage.

Today in a multicultural and global job market, it is important for Asian Americans to learn to embrace their heritage and identity to further themselves in their professional careers. One way to do this is to join your company’s Asian employee resource group.

Why Asians Speak English

The Beijing Olympics in China reminded the world that Asia is overtaking Western nations in everything from Olympic gold medals to economic growth. But it took test scores from kindergarten through 12th grade students in California to remind us that Asians are also overtaking usage of the English language.

Grace Tzeng reports in this issue that California Standards testing results show Asian students score higher in both English and math than all other students—including white students.

And whereas these kinds of statistics too often feed into the model minority stereotype, they really point out something quite different.

The use of English among Asian Americans reflects a bicultural nature that combines traditional Asian characteristics with modern Western practices.

And it’s not just happening with Asians in America. English is an official language of India and the Philippines, and some estimates say there are more English speakers in China than the entire adult population of the United States.

A 2006 British study found 450 million native English speakers around the world. But as many as a billion people, mostly from China and India, were learning English as their second language.

“Asia, especially India and China, probably holds the key to the long-term future of English as a global language,” the report called “English Next” concluded. (Maybe this is what the LPGA was thinking this week when they required all players to speak English.)

Asians in America are learning English for the same reason. It’s not a matter of trying to become like “honorary whites.” It’s a matter of adopting the most effective means of communication to add to our upbringing in Asian heritage and culture.

New research being conducted by Professor Larry Shinagawa at the University of Maryland proves this point. The Asian Americans that attain the highest levels of achievement—in everything from education to income to housing—are those APAs that exhibit bicultural attributes.

Asian Americans who reflect only modern American traits like individualism and consumerism do not do as well. Conversely, Asian Americans who do not go beyond their Asian ethnic enclaves and old traditions also do not do as well.

The group that excels most, and lays out the road map for future progress, is made up of those combining both cultures—Asian and American.

Asian American Studies Now

Like volcanoes awaking from their dormant state, Asian Americans are again shaking the foundations of educational institutions across America. But this time around, the eruptions are closer to the rising sun.

It’s been a long time since we stood hand in hand with our African American, Native American and Chicano brothers and sisters in the Third World Liberation Front and the fight for ethnic studies. More than 20 years have passed since the last real struggle for dramatic change for people of color in American higher education.

The difficult digestion and, in many cases, outright rejection of establishing an Asian American studies department by both public and private American universities is part of the cultural, social, political and economic context in which Asian Americans live. It’s almost as if these institutions don’t want to understand us, and even perhaps feel more comfortable retaining their stereotypes. Mia Tuan’s book exposes how Asian Americans are labeled as either “Perpetual Foreigners” or “Honorary Whites,” with no middle ground. Well, the reality is that we must be understood as Americans who also have a rich Asian heritage and an important Asian community.

We’re ready for the standard retort — “There isn’t a white studies department, and we aren’t crying about it. Why are you?” — for everything in the American curriculum is already tagged with an invisible label. From (white) history to (white) literature, this lopsided education is sometimes not apparent even to communities of color. It is only through an ethnic studies curriculum that all students (white and colored) are able to realize the real and complete history of America.

As Santi Suthinithet and Lisa Leong report in this issue, Asian American youth on the East Coast are becoming more restless as they hunger to learn a history that includes their own. And why not? Certainly Asian and Pacific Islanders have contributed to building this country from the railroads to the Hawaiian plantations. Today, more than ever, we need to learn from the demonstrated successes and creativity of Asian Pacific Americans to jumpstart our economy and improve our global standing.

Only with a legitimate academic department for Asian American studies will ALL Americans be able to fully understand who we were, who we are and what we can become. Enough lip service: Asian American studies now.

Asian American Heroes

Strutting down his platoon of soldiers, an Army lieutenant flashes a photo in their faces. “This is what the enemy looks like,” he explains with conviction. Amidst the growing sound of snickers, the soldiers turn their heads to a small group of Asians hidden in the ranks. Their eyes dissect their confidence. Their glares doubt their loyalty. They wonder if they are the enemy. The Asians, too, wonder.

Asian American history tells this story time and time again. From Chinese, Filipinos and Japanese in the first half of the 20th century to Vietnamese, Koreans and Middle Easterners in more recent decades, Asian American servicemen and women have stood in the face of questions of allegiance, and at the center of the issues that divide our community into pro- or anti-war, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. Loaded questions linger: How can you be loyal to a country that is not loyal to you? Why don’t you appreciate the freedoms and liberties the U.S. military provides? Why are you willing to die for a country that has probably killed your ancestors? How can you call yourself an American without being patriotic?

These dangerous oversimplifications create animosity within our community, and the unique lives, experiences and circumstances of the individual military servicemen and women are lost.

In hopes of focusing more on the Asian American military experience, Peter Swing profiles in this issue a young Air Force commander stationed in South Carolina, Major Seung Paik. Born in South Korea and raised in Chicago, his successes have paved the way for aspiring Asian American military officers to come. In the same light, but in an extremely different time period, Emil Guillermo discusses his thoughts on S. 1315 and why the benefits of Filipino War veterans haven’t already been paid.

In the spirit of the Memorial Day holiday, let us be reminded of the courage that these men and women endure during difficult times and adversity. We acknowledge their contributions and honor their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” — even when it means that they themselves may be questioned.

The Asian Women Giving Circle

New York City women ‘geh-t’ together to give big

The smallest piece of the pie, the least amount of visibility and little financial support are all terms that describe the Asian Pacific Islander nonprofit sector — but Hali Lee and her organization, the Asian Women Giving Circle, are working to change that.

Lee modeled the Giving Circle after the Korean geh, or shared savings circles where members (all women in Lee’s case) raise funds from their contacts and their own wallets for grant-making purposes. “Generally they’re social groups and you have fun,” said Lee, adding that her parents were in a geh in Kansas City and that she was in a geh in New York City. “You get together once a month for dinner or lunch, and then you put some money into a pot. A geh is a way to get seed money to start a business. I took the idea of a geh and added a philanthropic twist.”

In two years, the 20 women of New York City’s Asian Women Giving Circle have raised $130,000 for local Asian women who use the arts to further a social justice goal. More than 100 people put money into the pot last year, and now in their third cycle, they hope to see the same success.

The Asian Women Giving Circle is one of very few Asian American philanthropic groups and the only pan-Asian, all-women philanthropic group in the nation. “And I think one day we can grow to be a national Asian women organization,” Lee said.

Asian Americans are just beginning to flex their philanthropic muscle, fulfilling needs in the community left from the gap in national funding. According to a June 2007 study by the group, the Asian American Pacific Islander population has grown to comprise 4.5 percent of the U.S. population, yet 2004 foundation funding to APIs represented just 0.4 percent of all U.S. foundation dollars.

Asian American nonprofits and agencies suffer more acutely from lack of funding than other groups. For example, local AAPI-led organizations that stepped in to provide culturally competent services following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, particularly to the Vietnamese community, continue to have ongoing struggles to access funding, according to a recent study by Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.

With less than 1 percent of all national philanthropic dollars going to Asian American Pacific Islander organizations, small local groups of Asian American donors like the Asian Women Giving Circle have a great impact on the fiscal health of the community.

“Really, it’s an empowerment track for us. It’s us raising our own money and deciding where that money should go,” said Peggy Saika, president/executive director of AAPIP, in a video about the group’s giving circle work on YouTube. “We must change the culture and the practice of giving in our communities.”

According to Jessica Chao, a consultant in program and institutional management planning and design for private foundations and nonprofits, “The most frequent answer to questions about why Asian Americans have given time or money is that giving is done out of a sense of duty and obligation to one’s family, community and society.” Informal giving is more related to close family and social circles for Asian Americans, Chao said.

Though giving circles are on the rise across the country, there is still no central fund for Asian Americans, and Asian American donors lack visibility. Part of this is because most Asian American donations — instead of going to high-visibility causes like museums or libraries — tend to help new immigrants transition successfully to living in the United States. Giving also stays insular within the specific ethnic community that the donor participates in most actively, such as Vietnamese or Chinese; pan-Asian American funds are rare.

Besides supporting Asian American women in the arts, Lee said one of the main impetuses behind the group was raising the visibility of Asian women doing philanthropic work. “Of the stereotypical images of women in the media, there is not one of being philanthropic and doing good,” Lee said. “Equally important to me is raising the visibility of Asian American women giving together.”

More information on the Asian Women Giving Circle is available at www.asianwomengivingcircle.org.

More information on AAPIP is available at www.aapip.org.

To Our Readers

AsianWeek has played a long and significant role in helping develop Asian Pacific America, from publishing the first 1980 U.S. Census data on Asian and Pacific Islanders Americans to co-publishing the most comprehensive textbook analyzing 2000 Census data with UCLA.

AsianWeek has also changed itself to keep up with the rapidly evolving Asian American community. This includes the relaunching of AsianWeek.com, as the largest Asian American news site, using the newest delivery tools for electronic media. We also have worked to bring together the increasingly diverse segments of the Asian Pacific American community, organizing events like the Asian Heritage Street Celebration and community-wide campaigns like the San Francisco Hep B Free initiative. Our news focus has shifted in turn to reflect the growing focus of Asian Pacific Americans on their own career as well as their professional and business development. We are also producing more special newspaper sections around issues as diverse as heritage, health issues and car reviews.

The economy and the news business have experienced their own changes. There are fewer major newspapers, fewer newspaper readers and fewer newspaper advertisers than ever before. A faltering economy has accelerated the decline. Meanwhile, Asian Pacific Americans have led the way in the digital revolution, migrating away from print media and into receiving their news and information electronically.

To reflect these changing times, AsianWeek will cease regular newspaper publication immediately. We will continue to publish online and in special newspaper editions. Electronic versions of AsianWeek articles will be available free via email. We will also be more active than ever in the community, helping Asian Pacific America to grow, evolve and reach its full potential. We appreciate the support the community has given us over the last three decades and look forward to giving back to the community for many decades to come.

James Fang Ted Fang
President Editor and Publisher

We Can Help Ourselves

The notion that Chinese Americans — the largest Asian minority group in the nation, representing approximately 25 percent of our community — are a homogeneous and monolithic entity has now been shattered thanks to a recently released study entitled, A Portrait of Chinese Americans.

Conducted by Dr. Larry Shinagawa, principal investigator and director of the University of Maryland’s Asian American Studies Program, the study is vital in that it portrays the Chinese American community as diverse and bimodal in many of their socioeconomic characteristics.

Though Chinese Americans possess a shared ancestry, members belong to both sides of the spectrum — in terms of their residential pattern (living uptown vs. downtown), education (college degree vs. less than a high school degree), industry (food service vs. scientific/ management), income (poor vs. rich) and generation (foreign raised vs. U.S. raised).

This discrepancy was clearly reflected in the attendees of the Dec. 3 press conference, in which the university and Organization of Chinese Americans held to announce the detailed report. The audience ranged from employees of local Chinatown non-profits to real estate professionals and employees of large corporations and pharmaceutical companies.

Despite these social differences, the Chinese American community remains strong to our cultural values and roots, typically acting as one united family and often partnering and standing up for one another.

Gazing Into A Post-Ethnic Future

Features of the Korean Church that can Contribute to the Ecumenical Movement in the 21st Century 

Rev. Dr. Byung-Joon Chung 

The term, "the most regional is the most universal" probably best describes the methodology of this paper. Being regional without acquiring a universality can easily fall prey to provincialism. On the other hand, universality that cannot obtain regional consent can become a hegemonic ideology. In this respect, this paper seeks to identify the regional features of the Korean church that can be considered as universal in nature and ecumenical in scope.  

1. The Korean Church has a strong local-centeredness in its orientation. It is difficult for the Korean Church to engage in ecumenism through a strong centralized institution. The experiences of the Korean Church are different from the Western churches, who have a history of being established traditions within a given geographical area. The local church in Korea functions simultaneously as a worship community, a missionary body and an educational community. Although this feature of the local church does not seem ecumenical their dynamic energy can be a powerful strength when utilized ecumenically. Therefore, it is important for the ecumenical leaders and activists, both inside and outside of Korea, to find creative ways of guiding this energy in an ecumenical direction.

2. The Korean Christians are deeply committed and strongly devoted to their local church community. They naturally accept that giving weekly offerings, faithful tithing, and contributing financially to the work of the local church is a Christian duty that they must perform and also a token of their faith in God. However, their devotion is narrowly confined to their local church. One of the ecumenical tasks that we face is to help the Christians broaden their sense of duty so that it encompasses the ecumenical church, spiritually and financially.  

3. The missionary passion of the Korean Church can become a positive resource for revitalizing the ecumenical movement if it can be directed appropriately. Most Korean Christians learn early that sending missionaries to complete the Great Commission of Jesus Christ is their responsibility. As a result, their passion for mission is strong but sometimes results in triumphalistic enthusiasm. The Korean Protestant churches have faced intense criticism from society since last year's hostage crisis in Afghanistan. Many Korean churches are rethinking how to do mission.  

There are some positive elements for the ecumenical movement coming from Korean mission work. For instance, there is a Korean missionary working with the homeless in Poland who had originally gone to work with Polish workers for the Daewoo automobile factory. Another missionary, Yang, from the Hapdong Presbyterian Church is doing excellent work with Yugoslavian refugees in Greece. In addition, many Korean missionaries are getting involved in diaconal work, regardless of their theological colour.  

We should open up new ways that local Korean churches can experience various ecumenical mission fields and open their eyes to new possibilities. In this respect, many case studies on mission fields and experience enlargement through ecumenical exchange is needed.  

4. The Korean Church has a strong diaconal tradition. During the 1970s and 80s the Urban Rural Mission bore witness to social justice under the severe oppression of the authoritarian military governments. This tradition was succeeded by the Minjung Church Movement and they continue to engage in mission work for the unemployed and casual workers, homeless, migrant workers, and international wives of Korean men. The Youngdeungpo UIM currently operates the Asia URM Diaconia Training Centre so that it can share such experiences.

Last December a tanker accident caused great damage because of the oil that leaked out from its tanks. In order to remove the oil dregs 1.3 million people volunteered from all over the country. The NCCK and the Christian Council of Korea, CCK, worked together to organize a Korean Church Service Team that involved the churches and became a main contributor to the clean up process.  

The Korean churches can overcome their theological differences in diaconal work. In this respect, the saying, "Doctrine divides, service unites" is still useful for the ecumenical movement in Korea.  

5. The experience of inter-faith cooperation in Korea can be useful for the wider ecumenical movement. Christianity in Korea has grown to become a major religion in spite of its relatively short history, 225 years for Roman Catholicism and 125 for Protestantism. With the passage of time Korean Christians have engaged in various forms of inter-faith dialogue and have learned to coexist with people of other religions in their family, among friends and as neighbours. Although the term "inter-faith" dialogue may not be used the Christian's life style is crucial in the expansion of Christianity in Korea. Throughout its history Korean Christians accepted persecution in humility while bravely witnessing to their faith to family and neighbours, particularly through their moral examples.  

In 1919, the Korean Church was a prominent leader of the March First Independence Movement in which the Chondogyo and Buddhists participated. This movement was an act of protest against the inhumane and oppressive policies of the Japanese colonial government. As a result of its leadership Korean Christianity gained a costly respect from the Korean people as a religion of the Korean people. Korean Christianity has peacefully co-existed with other religions. It is only in recent times that Korean Protestantism has been criticised as being exclusivists.

On 25 October the Deogsu Church, a Buddhist temple and a Catholic church jointly hosted a charity event. The church completely washed away the negative image that people had and gained the trust of its neighbours through her 25 years of diaconal work. The charity event clearly shows that inter-faith cooperation in action is more effective than mere inter-faith dialogue. It also provides a good opportunity for Christians to open themselves to other religions without losing their Christian identity.  

6. The newly emerging ecumenical movement in Korea paves a path for overcoming the dichotomy between the evangelicals and ecumenicals. Within the Korean Church there has been a long standing rivalry between the pro-WCC-NCC line and the anti-WCC-NCC one. This division was structuralized and influenced their respective attitudes toward theology, political power, social issues, reunification and the foreign policies of the United States. However, the recently newly emerging ecumenical movement has reached beyond this dichotomy and discord.  

In 1998 the Korean National Association of Christian Pastors (KACP) was organised under the motto, "Unity, Reform, Diaconia." The greatest contribution of this organization is twofold. First, it called for the institutional union of the KNCC and the CCK. The KACP has proposed that the union between KNCC and CCK be one in which a roof is put over the two bodies uniting them under it but allowing them the freedom to work independently of each other. Presently, discussions are still continuing as to the feasibility of this model. Second, it guided the conservative churches to correct their negative attitude toward the ecumenical movement. The members of the KACP come from 15 different denominations, eleven of which are conservative. However, the members of the KACP have managed to cast away most, if not all, of their misgivings about the ecumenical movement.  

The above six features of the Korean Church can be beneficial to the ecumenical movement in the 21st century. Of course, we need to identify a practical and specific methodology for the convergence of the regional in Korea with the universal and ecumenical, a task yet to be completed.

Korean immigrant finds American dream alive and well
Yong Shin, a ninth-degree black belt, went from living on the streets to being a successful entrepreneur
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers CORRECT FORM—Yong Shin, right, gently spars with Logan Farrell, 9, during a white-belt class earlier this month at Shin's Tae Ryong Taekwondo School in Camarillo.

But his dream of success would prove more daunting than he could have imagined: The young immigrant lived in a cardboard box for months after arriving in Los Angeles.

A minister who discovered Shin living behind his Koreatown church found him a home and a job. But Shin, who could not speak English, knew working for minimum wage in a sewing factory would not put him on the path to his dream—teaching tae kwon do in his own studio as he'd done in Korea.

Determined to achieve his goal, Shin took on two additional jobs, leaving him with only four hours a day for sleep. To keep expenses low, he ate one meal a day—a hamburger—except when his church served food after Sunday services.

Two and a half years later, with nearly $5,000 saved, Shin went to a bank for a business loan but was turned down. In Korea he'd owned a successful business, but in America he had no credit history. Shin confided his problem to a church member, who loaned him $3,000 and co-signed on a loan at the very bank that had rejected him earlier.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Korean Churches

More than evangelical and ethnic: the ecological factor in Chinese conversion to Christianity in the United States

Sociology of Religion,  Summer, 2006  by Yuting Wang,  Fenggang Yang

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SnapDragon consultants, a market research firm, published this last year, but it’s new to me so here goes: Ten Things Every Brand Should Know About Asian-American Youth (pdf). Very interesting stuff, I wonder if this would change the way Asian American churches would present their programs to youth today. It is, after all, a study for marketing purposes. And I have to wonder if this is already dated since it’s been almost two years this has been published.

1. Many Asian-American youth feel excluded and misunderstood by most brands. It’s made worse by the fact that they see advertisers actively wooing the African-American and Hispanic markets.
2. Mixed race kids are proudly identifying as Hapa, a once derogatory word in Hawaiian to mean “half.” Hapa is also slang for marijuana in Japanese (spelled Happa). Hapa is supplanting terms like Amerasian, biracial, and blasian.
3. Asian-American youth are secret fans of “easy listening” adult contemporary music. Lite FM is a hidden passion.
4. There’s a “hero gap” among Asian-American kids, which is being filled for many by activists from other cultures. Martin Luther King is a role model and hero to many young Asian-Americans.
5. Most Asian-American kids refer to white people as “white people” the same way African-Americans do
6. Underage gambling is huge. The “new” American poker obsession is nothing new to Asian-American kids and gambling has a long history in Asian culture. Many students Rigg spoke with are avid online gamblers and cardplayers. Many organize private online poker tournaments.
7. Asian-American kids want an end to the hyper-nerdy images of themselves on TV and want to see more punked-out skater and graffiti DJ images which reflect a different energy. The feeling is: Enough with the math geeks, future doctors and violinists. Asian-American kids crave street credibility—not just academic accolades.
8. Asian-American kids universally hate the question: Where are you from—especially since the answers are usually something like “Westchester” or “Boston.”
9. All things Korean are hot and getting hotter. Fashion. Foods. DJs. Online communities. Korea is the new Japan.
10. The 15 minutes of seemingly benign American Idol fame for William Hung had a surprisingly negative effect on Asian-American students. There’s a feeling that Hung perpetuated the worst stereotypes about Asian people and gave non-Asians permission to indulge in two years of racial stereotyping and mocking.

Between Two Worlds

Pulled by the demands of their cultures and college life, Asian American students face some particular challenges. UC Davis is taking steps to help these students succeed.

By Susanne Rockwell

Even before she was born, it was decided that Theresa Montemayor was going to be a doctor. In fact, her Filipina mother decided for all five of her children that they would be physicians. When Montemayor enrolled at UC Davis in the late ’70s, she was on the pre-med track—and soon struggling in her science classes.

“I hated college,” Montemayor remembers. “I’ll never forget getting advice about changing majors from a chemistry professor who assumed it would be easy for me not to be pre-med. He just didn’t understand that for 18 years I was told I was going to be a doctor. My parents told me this, and all my relatives knew that was what I would be. When I told my parents I was doing poorly, their only answer was ‘Just study harder.’”

Without her parents’ knowledge, Montemayor started taking classes in an area in which she excelled: sociology. When she finally told her parents that she wasn’t going to graduate with a biology degree and go on to medical school, her mother threatened to send her to the Philippines for medical school.

As a face-saving move, Montemayor created her own health major to graduate in 1979 with a science-oriented UC Davis degree, and she went on to a successful career in higher education serving as associate director of the UC Davis Student Programs and Activities Center. To this day, she remembers how miserable she felt about that chemistry course and her failure to fulfill her mother’s dream. But what she remembers most vividly is how she found the strength to chart her own path without alienating her family.

Many UC Davis students—especially the children of immigrants and, even more specifically, the children of Asian immigrants—can tell you their own version of Montemayor’s story. Having been at the top of their high school class, they come to Davis to seek the college grail: education aimed at careers in medicine, engineering, business or, as a “last fallback,” law. Within the first year, many change direction, triggering a crisis that’s not just about career but about family relations and remaining true to both self and cultural values.

To be sure, to be Asian American means as many different things as there are individuals. More than 40 ethnicities qualify as “Asian American,” from Pacific Islander to Pakistani. Students identify somewhat with the overarching category of “Asian American” but identify more strongly with their particular ethnic group, such as Chinese-Vietnamese, Thai or Korean. “There’s no natural affinity, necessarily, across this group,” says Wendy Ho, chair of the Asian American Studies Program. The wide range of economic backgrounds also makes generalizations difficult, as does the varying number of generations that their families have lived here. Family politics and English-speaking abilities, geography and even the diversity of cultures—or lack thereof—in their home communities and high schools all affect students coming to UC Davis.

Nevertheless, faculty and staff working with students do find many common issues and goals within the broader Asian American community.

When Asian American students come to Davis they bring cultural values, communication styles, immigration histories and, above all, extremely strong family ties. A happy college experience for Asian American students often means pleasing their mother and father—but this does not always make for honest communication. Parents are both the all-important emotional support for students entering adulthood and, for many, a major source of stress as the students strive to uphold family expectations of success. Ironically, the emotional closeness in Asian families can be a barrier to students’ adjustment to college life. Students who go home every weekend find it difficult to participate in extracurricular activities like sports, clubs, service groups or other student associations—and miss out on what many Davis educators say are the biggest learning opportunities in college.

Asian American students also struggle with career goals. They want to please their parents while sometimes feeling they have no choice in what they really want to do in life. Some students are pressured by poor parents who want their children to realize the American material dreams that have escaped them. Students may want to change career goals, but they may have been so narrowly focused that they’re unaware of the alternatives.

The academic setting adds other challenges. Some Asian Americans come with poor study habits but refuse to seek help because of their self-reliant culture and fear of looking like a failure. Others must traverse the dramatically different cultures of home and university. Students with a traditional Asian upbringing are often unprepared for a university culture that emphasizes individualism, forthrightness and speaking up in a group. The Asian reserve can affect classroom success and has larger implications for creating future leaders, a major goal of the UC system.

Fortunately, unlike 25 years ago when Montemayor struggled, UC Davis now has people and programs targeted to help this growing student population, one that has now reached 37 percent of UC Davis undergraduates. The campus recognizes that Asian American students experience specific challenges in college related to their cultural heritage and identity. Throughout UC Davis academic and student support units, resources have been added to help students figure out what they want to do when they “grow up” and how to successfully achieve those goals.

The past 18 months saw the addition of an Asian American retention coordinator, who is also an English-as-a-second-language writing specialist, and a student affairs officer for Asian American students. Asian American studies became a full-fledged major in 2000 and is considered by its division dean to be one of the strongest interdisciplinary programs on campus. This follows nearly a decade of enrollment growth in the program; students from all majors have been drawn to classes that help them understand their heritage and their communities through the study of psychology, history, literature, sociology and theatre. And the Counseling Center, with five of its 15 psychologists now Asian American, offers intensive career counseling workshops each quarter as well as programs that improve student communication skills.

Hieu Dovan, the clinical director and an immigrant from Vietnam, hears in his counseling sessions about the communication difficulties between students and parents. He concludes that many Asian American parents are not giving their children the emotional support they need during the hard times of college because they want to hear only that their children are doing well. Even when their children are happy, parents may not know it.

“Asian daughters, for instance, don’t share certain intimate news with their parents,” Dovan says. “They could be very happy with a boyfriend, but their parents will never know it, because the parents believe their daughter is not supposed to have a boyfriend; she is supposed to just study.”
According to campus statistics, the people least likely to visit the Counseling Center to share their problems are Asian men—and Asian women aren’t far behind. Dovan attributes the phenomenon to issues of self-reliance and shame in Asian cultures.

The Counseling Center has reached out to Asian American students through the career counseling program, which Dovan says students view as less threatening. Each quarter, 40–50 students—a healthy proportion of them Asian American—sign up for the workshops to learn how to look at career choices through several lenses: cultural values, financial security, passion for the field, parental approval, skill level and future personal growth. The group setting is even more effective, Dovan says, because students realize others are struggling with similar issues.

“They come in assuming there’s only one criterion in choosing a major, or they are looking for the career with the most amount of money and financial security. They think they have no choice because of their parents’ cultural values,” Dovan says. “After attending the workshops, they realize there are different ways to get to a decision.”

Even though students may remain committed to their original career choice, they may be more comfortable with the decision, says Dovan, “because they feel they are the ones who made it.”

Anita Poon, the first student services officer for Asian American studies, has the responsibility of guiding students toward “successful” careers. It’s daunting, she acknowledges. “In Asian American families, ‘success’ is defined for you by your family. It all falls under the American dream: nice home, picket fence, 2.2 kids and really nice cars—things most parents haven’t achieved, but they still have hope, as long as they see their children pursuing opportunities that they didn’t have.”

Poon believes this attitude leads to career choices that are narrowly based on financial gain. She cites a study on Asian immigrant “entrepreneurial” children by UC San Diego ethnic-studies sociologist Lisa Sun-Hee Park. That study found that Chinese and Korean American students defined success and happiness as repayment of their obligation to their immigrant parents through material gifts. Park also determined that the students believed no room existed for personal happiness while they pursued “repayment fantasies” to honor their parents’ sacrifices.

In an interview for this story with two dozen UC Davis Asian American students, a few admitted they have those same fantasies.

“My dad would like a new Lexus, and I plan to save my money to buy him one to honor the sacrifices he’s made for my education,” said one student.

Most of the students acknowledged that their parents are supportive of their emotional needs but still want to direct their future.

“My parents said, ‘Whatever makes you happy, we’ll support you. But it would be nice if you went here and majored in this…,’” one student explained.

Some students, especially those from the poorer school districts in California, find going to the university a lot more difficult academically than they expected. Of the Asian American students at UC Davis, 16 percent were on academic probation after fall 2002, with certain groups especially having problems.

Susanna Lee, who was hired to work with Asian American students at the Learning Skills Center, says these students, like most on academic probation, have not learned how to study or manage their time—and they are afraid to ask for help. More importantly, Lee believes the students are having problems because they are in the wrong major.

The first quarter Lee was here, in winter 2002, she sent more than 500 e-mails offering help to Asian American students on academic probation.

“Not one replied to me,” says Lee, a Korean-born American. “So that’s when I went out to the classes where there are Asian Americans—Asian history and Asian American studies classes—and started talking to students about how I can help them.” She has found that recommendations from other students are the most effective way to attract Asian students to her program.

The problem of too-limited career aspirations is tackled head on in the Division of Biological Sciences, where Asian Americans constitute nearly half of the program. Ellen Tani, assistant dean for undergraduate academic programs, spends much of her time helping students broaden their horizons beyond medical school.

“For instance, we tell our students if they want to affect society, one career to consider is teaching K-12,” says Tani ’75, M.A. ’77, a Japanese American who graduated from UC Davis with a science degree herself. “There is always the issue of money, but I’ve had students turn down graduate school to teach because they have a love of science, and the rewards of teaching are so great.” The Division of Biological Sciences has developed a teaching internship program that sends its students into local elementary schools to help with science classes.

Especially in the last decade, Asian American students are making noticeable progress in expanding their majors beyond engineering and biological science to those in the agricultural, environmental and social sciences as well as the humanities and arts. In fact, the College of Letters and Science, by far the largest college at UC Davis, has 50 percent more Asian American student majors than does Biological Sciences, and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the second largest college, draws more Asian American majors than does the College of Engineering.

Considering Asian American studies has offered a major for only three years, it has done well, attracting about 100 participants so far, and at least 130 more students minor in the subject. Four students from the program graduated last year, 25 will be graduating this year, and nearly 50 are expected to be handed their diplomas in 2004.

According to program chair Ho, the program’s faculty fully understand they must address the career question Asian American parents ask. That is, what does one do with an Asian American studies major?

“We’ve been rethinking what our curriculum should look like in the 21st century,” Ho says. She points to career possibilities in business, public-interest law, international business, university teaching, politics and public service. Moreover, Asian American studies aims to produce critical thinkers with a breadth of knowledge and an understanding of how to solve problems in the real world.

Asian American studies faculty members have used their own experiences and scholarship to create a social and academic “space” for students to learn to succeed in multiple worlds.

One of these professors, Stan Sue, has coined a term for that success: “cultural competency.” He was hired away from UCLA in 1996 to chair the Asian American Studies Program for five years. Just awarded the UC Davis Prize for Distinguished Teaching and Scholarly Achievement, Sue is a national pioneer in helping therapists learn to deal effectively with cultural differences and helping ethnic groups to overcome shame and stigma over mental-health problems. Since arriving at UC Davis, Sue has focused on teaching students how to cross their own cultural borders to better understand race, ethnicity and prejudice.

“We live in one of the most multi-ethnic societies in the world,” Sue says. “Being effective as human beings means being able to deal with different people well.”

For some Asian American freshmen from fairly homogenous communities, coming to UC Davis is a shock. The children of Southeast Asian immigrants, especially, are torn between their family obligations as interpreters and caretakers and a demanding university world, according to Professor Bill Hing, who teaches constitutional law and immigrant rights at the UC Davis School of Law and Asian American history to undergraduates. Unable to juggle the different loyalties expected from two cultures, many students don’t form close bonds with the campus. Hing says often it’s because they leave each Friday night to go home to their families for the weekend. Some drop out.

One way Hing has found to solve that tension between family and the university is to encourage students to work in their home community through internships that he sponsors. Parents can see the university is teaching students how to fulfill their important civic duties at home. This year one Cambodian student, Sokheem Sy, worked with her former high school in Stockton to develop an after-school program based on a similar one in Merced. Another student, Kristy Saelor, created a language class for 8- to 10-year-old Mien children in Fairfield, to be delivered through her community church. Still other UC Davis students are going to high schools to help younger Asian American students be better prepared for college.

Nolan Zane, UC Davis professor of psychology and Asian American studies, believes that acknowledging that cultural differences exist is the first step in helping Asian Americans learn to live in their two worlds. For example, he addresses a major cultural concern, “loss of face”—that is, how people regard you and, by extension, your family—in his psychology and Asian American studies classes. Zane’s studies of white and Asian American personalities have found that while both groups are fairly similar on most of the personality measures such as stress, self-concept, anxiety and loss of control, Asian Americans have much higher scores about concerns over loss of face.

“Loss of face brings shame, not just to oneself, but to one’s family,” Zane says. Zane expects his students to speak up and give presentations in class, but he also gives them alternatives to this more Western-oriented style of learning. For instance, in pre-exam study sessions, students can fill in cards with their questions and hand them in anonymously. He also teaches a new seminar—community grant writing in Asian American studies—that emphasizes teamwork at the beginning of the quarter but by the end requires each student to leave the security of the group to make individual presentations.

“Asian Americans come from a more collectivistic tradition and are taught to be reserved and not put themselves out there in public,” Zane explains. “But many of these students will have to promote themselves and be articulate in front of groups, and they need to become more proficient at doing it.”

It’s clear that public speaking comes naturally to some Asian American students. Many are increasingly taking on leadership roles at UC Davis: In the past 10 years, four student body presidents have been Asian American, including Peter Nguyen, Ashish Kurani, Phong La and Chia-Saun Lai. The editor of the California Aggie this past year, Fitz Vo, is Vietnamese American. And six of the 20 student assistants to the chancellor over the past decade have been Asian American.

Student Nicole Kyauk points to the Asian Pacific Islander Leadership Program, which she directed this past year, as instrumental in teaching many students about how to participate at UC Davis. The annual leadership retreat helps students gain a sense of belonging and community while they reflect on personal experiences to gain a better understanding of their values and strengths.

Pursuing a double major in communications and sociology, Kyauk said the idea of exploring her potential didn’t begin until her second year of college. During her first year, she returned home to San Leandro most weekends to be with her family.

“I wasn’t actively involved with the UC Davis community,” Kyauk admits, but she began thinking about her future. “I wanted to use college as an opportunity to find myself and challenge myself as a leader. I learned ‘you don’t find yourself, you become yourself.’”

Kyauk says that UC Davis is a friendly college community where students have many opportunities to find support and take leadership roles—whether through sororities and fraternities, the Cross-Cultural Center, religious affiliations or student government.

Rex Wang, a sophomore majoring in computer science, says he found a place for growth and acceptance with the Asian American Christian Fellowship.

“I like the friendliness and the fact that it offers an open environment where people are not as afraid to speak out and show their emotions. The AACF is like another family,” Wang explains.

Another believer in extracurricular activities is Theresa Montemayor, the once-miserable undergraduate at UC Davis, who is now associate director of the Student Programs and Activities Center.

“I tell students most of the growing at college is done outside the classroom in athletics, student organizations, internships,” Montemayor says. “You find courage within yourself and start acknowledging that a big part of your community of friends is going through the same growth pains.”

Third-year student Anita Ma of Alamo says her sorority, which is mostly white, has helped her form close friendships and connect to college life. Feeling comfortable and accepted has allowed Ma to confront her own career dilemma and the issues that accompany it. With the help of her parents, she has a new-generation happy ending to tell. The daughter of a restaurant owner and a retired machinist from China, Ma says her parents were strict with her in high school, and she didn’t share with them much about her feelings.

“Since I’ve come here I’ve dug deeper into my past to learn where my parents are at, and I think more about it myself,” Ma says. She still goes home often on the weekends and talks to her parents every day, but she’s learned to communicate with them about her problems, including a poorer academic performance than she’d hoped for.

“I started in the science field as pre-med, but now I’m pre-pharmacy,” Ma says. She realized that while her grades weren’t high enough for medical school she has a real passion for science. She has found an alternative she is happy with—a career in a medical field that is well respected and, at the same time, will allow her the flexibility to raise a family.

“I told my parents I know what I want to do now, and they said, ‘If you just try hard, that’s fine with us.’”

Susanne Rockwell ’74, M.A. ’96, covers the humanities, arts and cultural studies for the campus. Photography by Debbie Aldridge/UC Davis Mediaworks.

Our student models are:
Christina Lynes, Anglo, Chinese, Japanese and Korean
Alicia Cheung, Chinese and Malaysian
Erik Maki, Japanese American
Mike Billena, Filipino
Michelle Pao, Mongolian and Chinese
Rex Wang, Chinese
Nicole Kyauk, Chinese
Wileen Rungsiridacha, Thai

Jennifer 8. Lee (Chinese name: 李競; pinyin: Lǐ Jìng) is a New York Times reporter for the Metro section.

Citing the buzzed-about article in which she coined the term 'man-dates', NPR referred to her as a "conceptual scoop artist"^[1]. In response, she explained that "it literally is, kind of, stories that people talk about, [as in,] 'Hey, did you hear that story about cell phones and flirting? That was really awesome.'"

Lee's parents did not give her any middle name.^{[citation needed]} Jennifer added the number eight to her own name while she was a teenager because of the prevalence of her first name.

Ignite the Fire of Truth to the English Speaking Young Adults

By   Jena Park
ChristianityDaily Reporter

▲Pastor Young H. Hwang preparing for the gathering

Multi-Cultural Context of Korean-American Families

By   Sophia Park
ChristianityDaily Columnist

▲Dr. Sophia Park

Korean-Americans are among the many cultural and ethnic groups who have come to America to share in the slice of opportunity it offers. The leading motivation for most Korean parents has been to provide further educational opportunities for their children. The hope and determination they have for their children to “succeed” have provided the parents enough strength to tolerate suffering brought on by injustice in systems and discrimination by people in America. However, another “problem,” and a significant one that many immigrant families face has been the cultural conflict with their children in the home. This is because within one family exists multi-cultural realities and practices.

A “typical” Korean-American family consists of 1st generation parents, and for many, grandparents as well, and 1.5 or 2nd generation children. Each generation lives in different cultural realities - Korean immigrant and dominant western - and practices from their own cultural values and systems. Parents rear and expect from their children according to their Korean values while the children think, act, and expect from parents from their western values they were raised in. The gap that causes division between the parents/grandchildren and the children in Korean-American families is more than the generational gap; it is a cultural one. Communicating through the differences in cultural values and nuances becomes difficult or I dare say, impossible. Language and cultural differences as well as inadequate awareness of each other’s cultures prevent the necessary inter-cultural dialogue between parents and children as well as between Korean-Americans and the larger American society. The result has been that while living in the midst of people, many are isolated because they are not in relationship with family nor with the outer society. Due to the lack of cultural awareness, family relationships are divided and disconnected.

This is the reality that I encounter every day in my counseling practice. I have seen many Korean-American parents and children, split apart emotionally, and unable to enter into relationship with each other. Each family’s story is different and their “problems” are also different. But the commonality among many Korean-American families is that many are disconnected from each other within their families and want to reconnect. In a family setting where members are not in relationship with each other, there is a need to reconnect back into “family relationships.” How do parents and children living in different cultural realities connect back into relationship with each other?

The task of reconnecting and reconciling is huge and at times overwhelming. However, reconnecting families is necessary, desperately desired, and in most cases, possible. In the next series of articles I intend to incorporate theories of family relationships, realities of Korean-American families living in bi-cultural settings, and my counseling experience with them in hopes to bring to light the difficulties families are facing, and awareness and education for those who feel “caught” in similar situations as the above.

Breaking down cultural barriers

Asian immigrants have for decades been viewed as the “model minority” in American society, an industrious, hard-working, highly educated group of successful professionals and business entrepreneurs who have embraced with gusto the promises of the American Dream.

It's a stereotype which, like all stereotypes, contains a kernel of truth but which unfairly overshadows the fact that Asian immigrants have many of the same health and social problems that beset virtually all groups in the larger society.

If there is a difference, it is perhaps that many Asian immigrants don't avail themselves to the health and social service agencies and programs that can help them.

In the North Penn area, which has a large population of Korean and Asian Indian immigrant families, health and social service professionals wondered why so few members of these communities were among the clients they assisted.

The result is a more than 80-page report compiled by Family Services of Montgomery County and funded by the North Penn Community Health Foundation titled “Koreans and Asian Indians in the North Penn Area.”

Authored by Larry Fiebert, associate executive director of Family Services of Montgomery County, the “needs assessment report” attempts to answer the question of what the network of health and social service agencies in the North Penn area know and understand about the needs of Koreans and Indians in the community, and what these agencies can do to improve their response to those needs.

“There was a recognition that the social service network wasn't prepared, for example, if someone were to call speaking a different language,” Fiebert said. “We need to improve and make our services culturally accessible.”

The report sought to identify cultural attitudes and perceptions that might cause reluctance among members of the Korean and Indian communities to seek assistance.

“For example, if you have a young Indian couple who believe they could benefit from marriage counseling,” Fiebert said, “they might fear that the marriage counselor will push them into a divorce. They see that many Americans divorce, but maybe they don't want a divorce. They need to understand that the counselor is going to work with them to resolve their marriage issues and don't have to be frightened that counseling is going to result in divorce.”

Another example would be the need for a health care provider to understand that in some cultures women would be reluctant to be examined by a male gynecologist, he said.

The report indicates that, between 1990 and 2000, the overall Asian population in the North Penn area more than doubled, with a growth rate that far surpassed that of other groups, more than 10 times that of the white population.

Considered as a whole, Asians now comprise almost 7 percent of the region's population, and within that group, according to the 2000 census, there were 9,482 Koreans and 8,658 Indians living in Montgomery County, a significant number of them in the North Penn area.

Fiebert interviewed 40 male and female members of the North Penn Korean and Indian communities. They included eight individuals who worked in social service fields, six health care professionals, six church pastors or temple priests, six engineers or scientists, three educators, three retired persons, three business owners, and one martial arts instructor, student, discrimination consultant, lawyer and Realtor.

Based on the interviews, the report identified 14 basic “problem areas or unmet need themes:”

* Concerns of the elderly

* Mental health issues

* Domestic violence and child abuse

* Discrimination, lack of power and lack of trust

* Health and medical issues

* Health insurance issues

* Immigration concerns

* Intragroup conflict

* Lack of awareness of community services

* Language issues

* Generational conflict

* Poverty

* Substance abuse and addiction problems

* Transportation problems

The three key themes among Koreans were concerns of the elderly, language issues and mental health issues.

The three key themes among Indians were concerns of the elderly, mental health issues and domestic violence issues.

Members of the Indian community will meet to continue their discussion of Fiebert's report at 1 p.m. today at the North Penn Community Health Foundation, 2506 N. Broad St. Colmar. Members of the Korean community will meet there at 7 p.m. Monday.

Sanjeev Jindal of Harleysville is vice president of the Bharatiya Temple in Montgomery Township, a religious and cultural center for the region's Indian community. He worked closely with Fiebert over the two years in which the study was compiled.

He expects 30 or 40 members of the Indian community will attend Sunday's discussion.

“I think the report has been well received in the community,” said Jindal, a chemical engineer with Merck. “We are going to tackle four areas: women's issues, youth issues, elderly issues and abuse. So we hope that, with those 30 or 40 people, we will divide and conquer these action items.”

Fiebert is quick to point out that a needs assessment, by its nature, focuses on problems within a specific population. Therefore, one shouldn't think that the Korean and Indian communities are deeply troubled with a multitude of problems. The communities have many strengths as well as problems and challenges, he stressed.

Teachers learn students' Korean culture

Cypress teachers take a workshop on how to help Korean students, the district's fastest growing student population.

Cypress Some Korean students avoid making eye contact. They call out "teacher," instead of names. And children will often nod instead of saying they don't understand.

These are all considered ways of respecting teachers in Korean culture. But sometimes, teachers and school staff misunderstand these students, thinking they are being impolite instead.

On Monday, about 200 educators learned about such cultural differences among their Korean students in a workshop meant to help them teach the fastest growing student group in Cypress School District.

At least 15 percent of the district's 4,100 students spoke Korean in the district last year, according to state data. Ten years earlier, only about 5 percent of students were Korean speakers.

"There are a lot of things I'm doing that I shouldn't be," said Julie Bizio, a second-grade teacher at Luther Elementary in La Palma, the city with Orange County's largest concentration of Koreans. "It's an eye opener."

The workshop idea came from Luther Principal M.J. Beatty, who read about a similar program in Irvine. She found out about the Korea Academy for Educators, which does training on Korean culture. Coincidentally, the academy was expanding its training program, funded by a research institute in Korea. The group agreed to pay for and conduct a training session for all Cypress teachers.

Bizio said she was struck to learn that she should avoid writing children's name in red because it signifies death in the Korean culture. She said she will think twice before snapping back at students, asking if they want her to call them "students" when they call her "teacher."

"I hate them calling me 'teacher,' but maybe I shouldn't," Bizio said.

Fourth-grade teacher Judie Braddon said she should add more oral reports and debates into her class at Luther because some Korean students often don't learn to defend their opinions, which can be considered rude. But in the United States, those skills are necessary to succeed in school.

Korean parents helped out with the training by donating money for traditional refreshments, including rice cakes, kimbap rolls, fried dumplings and soft drinks. Seven mothers, along with five girls, wore "hanbok," or traditional dresses, as they sung "Arirang" – the most famous Korean folk song.

"We're very excited about it because more teachers will know about our culture and have more understanding about the behavior," said Jessica Lee, who has a daughter at Luther. "I think it's a great idea."

Many Korean parents have gravitated to the Cypress and La Palma area often because of the schools. Sarah Kim, who has lived in the United States for about 10 years ago, said her family decided to move to Cypress from San Diego when her husband got a new job about three years ago. Now, her life is centered on her two children's school and home, which she prefers to hectic city life.

"It feels very comfortable," Kim said, about the teacher training. "They can do something. This is the first step."

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A Vietnamese Journey Toward the American Dream

New America Media, Commentary, Andrew Lam , Posted: Nov 24, 2008

Editor's note: This essay by NAM contributing writer Andrew Lam is excerpted from a longer piece in the anthology "Thirty Years After," to be published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in spring 2009.

When I think of the Vietnamese narrative in California I think of my mother's ancestral altar. In her suburban home on the outskirts of San Jose with a pool shimmering in the backyard, my mother prays. Every morning, she climbs a chair and piously lights a few joss sticks for the ancestral altar on top of the living room's bookcase and mumbles her solemn prayers to the dead.

Black-and-white photos of grandpa and grandma and uncles stare out benevolently to the world of the living on the top shelf. On the shelves below, by contrast, stand my father's MBA diploma, my older siblings' engineering and business degrees, my own degree in biochemistry, our combined sports trophies, and, last but not least, the latest installments of my own unending quest for self-reinvention—plaques and obelisks, shaped crystals and framed certificates—my journalism awards.

What my mother's altar and the shelves carrying their various knickknacks underneath seek to tell is the typical Vietnamese American transition, one where old world fatalism finally meets new world optimism, the American dream. After all, praying to the dead is a cyclical, Confucian habit — something to keep a Vietnamese connected to her community, her tradition, her sense of identity. Getting awards and degrees, on the other hand, is an American tendency, a proposition of ascendancy, one where one looks toward the future and deems it optimistic and bright. Oftentimes to be Vietnamese American, one lurks between these two opposite ideas, negotiating, that is, between night and day.

Many Vietnamese-American immigrants, when they talk about their own lives, will tell you how drastically different they were before and after they left Vietnam. "Before I left, I couldn't possibly imagine what my life in America would be like." This sentence I often hear from my relatives and friends when they talk about the past.


Gate of Little Saigon in Westminster, California

Day and night. Trung Tran, the rice farmer's son from Quang Nam province, for instance, the one who brought only seven oranges with him onto a crowded boat thinking that they should last him the whole journey across the Pacific — "How big is the ocean anyway?" — had escaped to San Francisco. And instead of helping the old man plant next season's crop he returned to Vietnam three decades later to design glassy high-rises, the kind Vietnam had never seen before.

What transformed in the Vietnamese refugee psyche was a simple yet potent idea of progression. In the Golden State, where dreams do have a penchant to come true, he grows ambitious. He sees, for instance, his own restaurant in the "for rent" sign on a dilapidated store in a run-down neighborhood. He sees his kids graduating from top colleges. He imagines his own home with a pool in the back in five years’ time — all things that are impossible back home.

A cliché to native-borns, the American dream nevertheless seduces the traditionally sedentary Vietnamese to travel halfway around the world. It's the American dream and in that kissed him hard, tongued him, in fact, the morning he awakes to find, to his own amazement, that he can readily pronounce "mortgage," "escrow," "aerobic," "tax shelter," "GPA," "MBA," "MD," "BMW," "overtime," "stock options." Gone is the cyclical nature of his provincial thinking, and lost is his land-bound mentality.

And why not? The American dream has over time chased away the Vietnamese nightmare. And compared to the bloody battlefields, the malaria-infested new economic zone and communist gulags, the squalid refugee camps scattered across Southeast Asia, the murders and rapes and starving and drowning on the high seas, California is still paradise.

The drama of the initial expulsion is replaced over the years by the jubilation of a newfound status and wealth. A community that initially saw itself as living in exile, as survivors of some historical tragedy — we were, after all, a people defeated in a civil war and forced to flee — slowly changed its self-assessment. It began to see itself as an immigrant community. It began to see America as home. It reorganized and grew prosperous. Soon enough houses are bought, jobs are had, children are born, old folks are buried, businesses and malls are opened, community newspapers are printed, and economic and political organizations are formed. That is to say, ours is a community whose roots are burrowing, slowly but surely and deeply, into the American loam.

There are now politicians, writers, lawyers, judges, journalists of Vietnamese ancestry in California. Pick up a Vietnamese yellow pages phone book in Santa Clara or Orange County these days and you will be astounded at how organized the community really is. The new arrival may not need to speak English at all (though of course, he should learn it) — he just needs to pick up the yellow pages, full of businesses that cater to an immigrant's every need: from law to dentist’s offices, from restaurants to computer programming training centers, from private schools to car rental to real estate services, from funeral services to wedding planning, from cosmetic surgery to travel services, he has an array of choices at his beck and call. Even when the economy is shaky, there is a kind of dynamic that seems unstoppable within the community.

The pangs of longing are thus dulled by the necessities of living and by the glory of newfound status and wealth. And the refugee-turned-immigrant (a psychological transition) turned naturalized U.S. citizen (more or less a transition of convenience) finds that the insistence of memories insists a little less as he zooms down the freeway toward a glorious chimerical cityscape to work each morning.

Vietnamese translation: Người Việt hải ngoại và California


Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora.

A Portrait of Chinese America: New Study Suggests Economic Glass Ceiling May Still Exist

An economic glass ceiling may still exist for many Chinese Americans who are climbing the income ladder, according to a broad-based social and economic study published this month by the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA).

Although Chinese Americans are more educated — the proportion of Chinese Americans 25 years and older who have earned a college degree (51.7 percent) dwarfs that of the general population (27 percent) — and the median household income for Chinese American families also outpaces that of the general population ($62,705 in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars compared to $48,451), Chinese Americans consistently trail behind their non-Hispanic white counterparts in every pay grade category. For example, among workers who have earned a bachelor’s degree, the median income for Chinese Americans was $55,571, compared to $62,185 for non-Hispanic whites.

“Contrary to popular beliefs, Chinese Americans often face extra barriers to economic success, despite their educational achievements,” said Larry H. Shinigawa, American Studies professor at the University of Maryland.

Controlling for gender and industry of occupation skews the data slightly. Chinese American women who have completed at least some college have a higher median income than non-Hispanic white women. Chinese American workers display slightly higher median incomes in financial, computer and engineering occupations, while trailing further behind, up to 44 percent, in legal and medical fields.

The overall data imply that, regardless of occupation, and given the same educational level, Chinese Americans earn higher than the national median income but lag behind their non-Hispanic white counterparts.

“Time and hard work simply haven’t been enough for Chinese Americans to fully enter into mainstream social and professional circles,” Shinigawa said. “I suspect there are many reasons such as language barriers or simply the difficulties that go along with being identified as an ‘outsider.’ In the long run, increasing mentoring efforts and leadership opportunities can enhance the Chinese American community. You need a pipeline, a network to help young professionals rise to their potential, and increase Chinese American participation in top positions.”

The study paints an intricately detailed sketch of Chinese Americans in the United States today, on topics as diverse as education, voter participation, marriage and citizenship.

An important overarching finding of the study was that Chinese Americans, frequently relegated to a singular ethnic group, are actually quite diverse. Factors such as country of origin, generation, language ability, degree of naturalization and immigration period were all found to affect the socioeconomic profile of Chinese American subgroups — in some cases to a drastic degree, such as household income.

“[This study] surely demonstrates the need to stop treating Chinese Americans as a monolithic group,” said Shinigawa. “Different segments of the population have very different needs.”

Socioeconomic stratification in the Chinese American community was found to be pronounced. Instead of following a bell curve typical of “normalized” population studies, statistics showed split distribution in personal income, residential pattern and education. Younger, later generations who were well educated and upwardly mobile formed a socioeconomic profile vastly different from older, multilingual immigrant generations. This “bimodal” society made a strong case for the level of diversity to be found within the Chinese American ethnic group.

“It makes for a rather bipolar picture of wealth and poverty, high and low education levels, white and blue collars,” Shinagawa said. “It’s a pattern you expect to see after a wave of immigration. But in this case, the long-term settled population has yet to achieve full equal treatment.”

Other interesting findings were that Chinese Americans accounted for 24.3 percent of Asian Americans in the United States, making them the largest ethnic subgroup; 59.5 percent claim mainland China as their country of origin, with 15.9 percent from Taiwan, 15.3 percent from the Chinese diaspora and 9.4 percent from Hong Kong; an estimated 70.2 percent of Chinese Americans are U.S. citizens.

Another interesting find is that 53.8 percent of all Chinese Americans lived in either California or New York, giving the two states the nation’s highest Chinese American populations. Chinese Americans are more likely to be married than the general population and have a lower divorce rate. Slightly more than one in 10 Chinese Americans has a multiracial background.

The study — a joint venture between OCA, a national Asian Pacific American advocacy organization, and the University of Maryland, College Park — was a comprehensive analysis of U.S. government census data.

Sabastian Huynh

Sabastian was born in Vietnam, in 1970, and came to the United States when he was three years old in 1973. With three American step fathers, he never knew is biological father until 33 years later. Growing up Sabastian struggled with his identity, whether he was Asian? Mexican? Black? or American? This idenity crisis and with serious anger issues, Sabastian landed himself in prison at the age of 19. There he was facing a sixty-six years-to-life sentence in 1989. God intervened, and on July 29, 1990 Sabastian accepted Jesus Christ as his LORD and Savior.

Today, Sabastian is happily married to his wife, Donna, and has three boys (Kaleb, Joshua and Seth). Currently, he serves as the Cause Circle Pastor at Newsong Church in Irvine, CA. In the past, Sabastian also served in other inner city missionaries in Watts, South Central LA and in South Dallas. Impacting the world through Newsong, he has the privilege of mobilizing over 2700 adults for the Cause Circle ministry.

Alan Nguyen

Pastor Alan Nguyen (Tung Nguyen) has a wonderful family - a wife and two kids. He and his family have been serving God whole heartedly for the past 8 years.

Prior to dedicating his life to God, Pastor Alan was an established professional with Engineering Degrees in Computer Science & Information Technology and was working as a Technical Operation Manager with a high-tech company in Silicon Valley, CA.

Pastor Alan started out his ministry by working part-time with the youth group in Sacramento, CA for three years while attending seminary school. In 2004, he accepted his first full-time pastoral position as a youth pastor for the Vietnamese Alliance Church in Washington D.C. His interesting style of teaching, with humor, dedication, and a heart for the Lord has helped the youth group grow from the ground up in quantity and quality. Pastor Alan has recently finished his Masters Degree in Christian Ministry from the Alliance Divinity School of Anaheim, CA and continues to serve God today.

Speaker: Pastor Dan Hyun

Pastor Dan Hyun was raised in the greater Philadelphia area, receiving his degree in speech communication from Penn State University with the intention of pursuing a career in law. Through many personal challenges, Dan began to comprehend the radical nature of God's love and grace for the first time and sensing that God wanted to use his life to share this same gospel with others, he felt a call in his heart to serve the Lord in fulltime ministry. He received his Masters in Divinity from Biblical Theological Seminary and has served with churches in the Philadelphia and Baltimore metro areas for the past decade. He is currently planting a new church in Baltimore, The Village is specifically focused on sharing the Gospel with this emerging generation.

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Speaker: Pastor Bao (Daniel) Tran

Pastor Daniel was called into ministry at 16 years of age. Beginning in 1988, he carried the Gospel of Christ weekly to rural areas of the Vietnam highlands. By God’s grace, he left Vietnam in 1995 and joined an International Mission Ship, a Korean ministry that reaches out to Asian Countries and Pacific Islands. His wife and son later joined him in ministry before the entire family came to the United States. Since 1999, he served in different churches in the Washington D.C area until he clearly received God's call to settle in Mobile AL. He is now serving as a senior pastor of the Vietnamese Obedience Baptist Church formerly a mission of Hollinger Island Baptist Church in Mobile, Al. His congregation has grown to 80-100 active members worshiping every Sunday in a town that has about 3000 Vietnamese residents. He is also serving as the President of Vietnamese Baptist Churches in the Southeastern Region.

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Speaker: Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko

Jennifer hails from Chicago, IL where her husband Michael and her serve as lay leaders at River City Community Church - a multiethnic church committed to worship, reconciliation, and community development. She is the interim National Asian American Ministries Coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. InterVarsity is a college ministry committed to seeing "Students & Faculty transformed, Campuses Renewed, & World Changers Developed." For the past ten years with InterVarsity she's live in diverse places - from NYC to Madison, WI, spoken to student groups around the country, planned conferences, and created/led training modules with a particular emphasis for developing ethnic minorities & cross-cultural teams. Considering she entered Cornell University vowing to "have nothing to do with organized religion," she considers this ironic or God's sense of humor and grace.

Christianity in China

Sons of heaven

Oct 2nd 2008 | BEIJING AND SHANGHAI
From The Economist print edition

Inside China’s fastest-growing non-governmental organisation

EPAJesus loves you

ZHAO XIAO, a former Communist Party official and convert to Christianity, smiles over a cup of tea and says he thinks there are up to 130m Christians in China. This is far larger than previous estimates. The government says there are 21m (16m Protestants, 5m Catholics). Unofficial figures, such as one given by the Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in Massachusetts, put the number at about 70m. But Mr Zhao is not alone in his reckoning. A study of China by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, an American think-tank, says indirect survey evidence suggests many unaffiliated Christians are not in the official figures. And according to China Aid Association (CAA), a Texas-based lobby group, the director of the government body which supervises all religions in China said privately that the figure was indeed as much as 130m in early 2008.

If so, it would mean China contains more Christians than Communists (party membership is 74m) and there may be more active Christians in China than in any other country. In 1949, when the Communists took power, less than 1% of the population had been baptised, most of them Catholics. Now the largest, fastest-growing number of Christians belong to Protestant “house churches”.

In a suburb of Shanghai, off Haining Road, neighbours peer warily across the hallway as visitors file into a living room, bringing the number to 25, the maximum gathering allowed by law without official permission. Inside, young urban professionals sit on sofas and folding chairs. A young woman in a Che Guevara T-shirt blesses the group and a man projects material downloaded from the internet from his laptop onto the wall. Heads turn towards the display and sing along: “Glory, Glory Glory; Holy, Holy, Holy; God is near to each one of us.” It is Sunday morning, and worship is beginning in one of thousands of house churches across China.

House churches are small congregations who meet privately—usually in apartments—to worship away from the gaze of the Communist Party. In the 1950s, the Catholic and main Protestant churches were turned into branches of the religious-affairs administration. House churches have an unclear status, neither banned nor fully approved of. As long as they avoid neighbourly confrontation and keep their congregations below a certain size (usually about 25), the Protestant ones are mostly tolerated, grudgingly. Catholic ones are kept under closer scrutiny, reflecting China’s tense relationship with the Vatican.

Private meetings in the houses of the faithful were features of the early Christian church, then seeking to escape Roman imperial persecution. Paradoxically, the need to keep congregations small helped spread the faith. That happens in China now. The party, worried about the spread of a rival ideology, faces a difficult choice: by keeping house churches small, it ensures that no one church is large enough to threaten the local party chief. But the price is that the number of churches is increasing.

The church in Shanghai is barely two years old but already has two offspring, one for workers in a multinational company, the other for migrant labourers. As well as spreading the Word, the proliferation of churches provides a measure of defence against intimidation. One pastor told the Far Eastern Economic Review last year that if the head of one house church was arrested, “the congregation would just split up and might break into five, six or even ten new house churches.”

Abundant church-creation is a blessing and a curse for the house-church movement, too. The smiling Mr Zhao says finance is no problem. “We don’t have salaries to pay or churches to build.” But “management quality” is hard to maintain. Churches can get hold of Bibles or download hymn books from the internet. They cannot so easily find experienced pastors. “In China”, says one, “the two-year-old Christian teaches the one-year-old.”

Because most Protestant house churches are non-denominational (that is, not affiliated with Lutherans, Methodists and so on), they have no fixed liturgy or tradition. Their services are like Bible-study classes. This puts a heavy burden on the pastor. One of the Shanghai congregation who has visited a lot of house churches sighs with relief that “this pastor knows what he is talking about.”

Still, the teething troubles of the church are minor compared with the vast rise in the number of Christians. After the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 many disenchanted democrats turned to Christianity: six of the 30 or so student leaders of the protests became Christians. China’s new house churches have the zeal of converts: many members bring their families and co-workers. One Confucian Chinese says with a rueful smile that most of the pretty girls at university were Christians–and would date only other Christians.

Holier and trendier than thou

Christianity also follows Chinese migration. Many Christians studied in America, converted there and brought their new faith home. Several of the congregation of the Shanghai house church studied abroad, as did Mr Zhao. In 2000, says one Beijing writer and convert, most believers were in the countryside. After 2000 they brought their faith into the cities, spreading Christianity among intellectuals.

All this amounts to something that Europeans, at least, may find surprising. In much of Christianity’s former heartland, religion is associated with tradition and ritual. In China, it is associated with modernity, business and science. “We are first-generation Christians and first-generation businessmen,” says one house-church pastor. In a widely debated article in 2006, Mr Zhao wrote that “the market economy discourages idleness. [But] it cannot discourage people from lying or causing harm. A strong faith discourages dishonesty and injury.” Christianity and the market economy, in his view, go hand in hand.

So far, Christianity’s spread has been largely a private matter for individual believers. The big question is whether it can remain private. The extent of its growth and the number of its adherents would suggest not. But at the moment, both Christians and Communists seem willing to let a certain ambiguity linger a while longer.

“Christians are willing to stay within the system,” says Mr Zhao. “Christianity is also the basis for good citizenship in China.” Most Christians say that theirs is not a political organisation and they are not seeking to challenge the party. But they also say clashes with public policy are inevitable: no Christian, one argues, should accept the one-child policy, for example.

Formally, the Communist Party forbids members to hold a religious belief, and the churches say they suffer official harassment. The president of the Beijing house-church alliance, Zhang Mingxuan, was thrown out of the capital before the Olympic games and told he was unwelcome when he returned. In early June, the state government of Henan arrested half a dozen house-church members on charges of illegally sending charitable donations to Sichuan earthquake victims. CAA claims harassment of house churches is rising.

In fact, the state’s attitude seems ambivalent. In December 2007, President Hu Jintao held a meeting with religious leaders and told them that “the knowledge of religious people must be harnessed to build a prosperous society.” The truth is that Christians and Communists are circling each other warily. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Christianity will have a political impact one day. “If you want to know what China will be like in the future,” concludes Mr Zhao, “you have to consider the future of Christianity in China.”

Okura Mental Health Leadership Foundation

The Okura Mental Health Leadership was created through the vision of Mr. Pat and Mrs. Lilly Okura. Following Mr. Okura's distinguished career at the National Institute of Mental Health, they recognized the need to educate promising Asian American and Pacific Islander mental health professions in how mental health services and policies are developed and shaped. The Okura Mental Health Leadership Foundation, Inc. was founded on October 1, 1988, and is incorporated in the State of Maryland as a non-profit, tax-exempt public foundation.

The mission of the foundation is to foster and promote education, research and services in the areas of mental health and human services. It is also to foster and promote leadership by providing fellowships, scholarships, stipends and grants for promising Asian Pacific American professionals, students and relevant and related organizations. The foundations seeks to support and conduct activities, meetings, conferences, symposiums, publications and related activities to a) stimulate Asian Pacific Americans to enter the mental health and human service fields and b) pursue and assume national and international leadership roles. The Okura Mental Health Leadership Foundation, Inc. is organized exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes. It makes grants available to individuals and organizations that carry out the mission.

Activities

The Okura Mental Health Leadership Foundation conducts annual leadership seminars called "Week in Washington" to provide young, promising Asian Pacific American leaders in the fields of mental health and human services to learn, experience and build on knowledge needed to be a leader in their respective communities locally and nationally. Over seventy individuals to date have benefited from this opportunity to spend a week in Washington, D.C., attending meetings with members of Congress, national leaders in areas of health and human services, administrators, of national organizations, and other national leaders or role models. Okura Fellows participate in an Alumni Association to continue their group activities. Many stay in contact with each other informally or through other professional networks. Many of the Fellows have attained advancements in their chosen fields and have furthered their endeavors by their leadership training provided by the Okura Foundation.

In addition to the annual "Week in Washington" leadership seminar, the Okura Foundation created a White House Fellowship in 1995. These White House Interns have worked under the supervision of the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. They are given an invaluable opportunity to represent Asian and Pacific Islander communities and to learn how community issues and concerns can result in federal, state, and local policy.

The "Week in Washington" leadership seminars and the White House Fellow Program have been successful due to the support and encouragement of many dedicated contributors to the Foundation.

To find out more about the Okura Mental Health Foundation and/or how to apply to become a Fellow, please contact Mr. Pat and Mrs. Lilly Okura, 6303 Friendship Court, Bethseda, Maryland 20817.

Asian American LEAD

Grant History

Asian American Leadership, Empowerment, and Development for Youth and Families (AALEAD) promotes the well-being of Asian American youth and families through education, leadership development, and community building.

How many churches?

After the first report on 4th November, I was too tired to write anything. Every night, after the training and healing sessions, I was just too exhausted. However, now the training and rallies are over, it’s time to give thanks to God. Like all the people, during the last five days, who were healed and later testified, I want to testify to the glory of God too.

At the end of the whole event, my impression of Full Gospel Assembly has become very positive. After spending time to fellowship with Elder Wong Ah Chiew, Pastor Tan Eing Lock and Pastor Jessica Leong, I learned that this church is a very evangelistic and magnanimous one. The reason why this church is among the fastest growing in Malaysia is because the leadership emphasizes much on soul winning. The members are regularly encouraged to invite unsaved friends and loved ones to come to church. This has become an expectation and culture of the church. When the mother church becomes too crowded, the leadership sends out ministers to set up preaching points and subsequently these become satellite churches.

Apart from establishing satellite churches in Malaysia, the leadership also allows former leaders, who come from FGA, to establish their independent churches, using the ‘FGA’ name. Therefore, FGA churches, especially in Australia and New Zealand, may not be officially linked with the mother church but they are so proud of FGA that they choose to affiliate with the mother church by association.

The Chinese Church in FGA mother church is one of fast growing Chinese congregations in Malaysia with 700 to 800 adherents. Among this congregation are many young people. That, in itself, is a unique aspect because not many Chinese churches could attract younger people.

Every night, after the training session, the trained believers showed great enthusiasm in healing the infirm. Night after night, the number of people healed became more and more. This was the result of the increased faith of the trainees. During the breaks, I overheard many participants discussed excitedly about the ‘new’ teaching that they had received. They did not know that they could exercise the ‘kingly authority’ to heal the infirm - especially healing those who are unbelievers so as to prove that Jesus is the living God.

On Friday, the large auditorium on the 5th floor was packed with participants and the guests they invited. Quite a few of these came in wheelchairs. My team, which consisted of my wife, Grace and my father-in-law, Brother Ong, was impressed by the attendance. The atmosphere in the sanctuary was that of great expectancy. God was gracious to allow my Mandarin to flow with exceptional ease. Being an English-educated person, I had often feared that my Chinese language would fail me, especially during preaching.

During the altar call for salvation, more than fifty people came forth to accept Christ. This was to be repeated at the next two healing rallies. The number of people healed during the healing sessions was also remarkable. We were overjoyed when we saw many elderly people, with arthritic pain in their joints, received their healings. To prove that they had been healed, some kicked their legs, swung their arms and even danced vigorously.

The healing rally, on Saturday, was a combined service with the regular FGA Chinese Youth Church’s service. This younger generation of worshippers, with their rowdier and fast songs, created a different worship atmosphere. The young people did not remain at their seats but gathered up front and worshipped with much action. Some jumped, some danced, some waved, some whooped, and some simply knelt and praised God. The welcome was also different because there was not just the usual applause but screaming too.

As in the first rally, about fifty people came forth to shake my hands as I welcomed them to accept Christ. The healing session was as expected – the faith of the trained believers was extended and the infirm received their miracles. The trainees then quickly ushered them up the stage for testimonies. Everybody applauded and cheered as one by one, the healed people gave glory to God for their miracles.

There were some of the more exceptional miracles, apart from those healed of headache, neck pain, back pain, stomach ache and pain in the joints. An elderly man took out his hearing aid because he had no need for it any more. He proclaimed loudly that he could hear clearly and had been healed. An elderly lady also had her impaired ear opened and could hear clearly. Another man, who suffered from stroke, got up from his wheel chair and began to walk. He then pushed his own wheel chair to the amusement of the crowd. An elderly woman with pain in her eyes was healed. The tearing also stopped immediately. A young lady testified in tears, that her broken leg was healed and she put her crutches away.

There were too many miracles to report here. All we can say is “Praise the Lord for all these healings”. Apart from many who were healed, we are more excited with the 200 newly trained Mandarin-speaking Elijah Challengers who are able to share the Gospel by showing the power of God to heal. My earnest desire is for some of these trained participants to go to mainland China and conduct their own Elijah Challenge training and healing rallies. May this become a reality soon! Praise the Lord and all glory to His name!

Reported by
Reverend Albert Kang
Coordinator
Elijah Challenge Asia

11 November 2008

Jet Li, seller of ´crazy´ dreams

Source: CRI

11-07-2008 09:17

On November 2, international movie star Jet Li confirmed that he would take no more lead roles in movies until his One Foundation is firmly on track. Supporting roles that require him on set for couple of weeks will be acceptable. For the time being making movies will become a hobby, while the One Foundation will be his life, he said firmly.

Movie star Jet Li, also the initiator of the Red Cross Society of China Jet Li One Foundation Project, gives a speech at the 2008 Global Philanthropy Forum in  Beijing on October 31, 2008. [Photo: ent.sina.com.cn]

What is up with Mr. Li? What sense does it make for a movie star of his status to give up his career? That's what a lot of other people may be thinking. But they are wrong--it makes a lot of sense. Mr. Li wants to take on the serious responsibility of enhancing philanthropic awareness throughout the world, and especially in his mother land. This represents a major development in social reform--one of the hardest challenges in society is to create a shift in the public mindset.

With his great initiative, extensive network of social connections, and communication skills, Jet Li seems to be the ideal man for the job.

Mr. Li's words are emphatic and touching. At the two-day China Global Philanthropy Forum he described himself as "the world's biggest beggar and its craziest man". As to the "beggar" part, he said he is dedicated to begging everyone on this planet to wake up and show the natural-born kindness buried in their hearts. As for the "crazy" part, he would use any possible means to reach out to everyone and convince them, he said.

When big names such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair pay tribute to Mr. Li, real credibility is added to the movie star's plans.

Mr. Li does not talk like a saint. He relates all his motives to personal experiences, especially to the death of his mother.

"My mother was hospitalized for terminal cancer in 2000 when I was shooting a film in France. I flew back to Beijing immediately after I was informed by my older sister. I criticized her for not telling me earlier, but she said that my mother had forbidden her, as she knew I had always been afraid of seeing dead people. At the time I was 37 years old, but in my mother's eyes I was still a small child. Standing by my mother's bed, I told her that I was back. A whole day passed but mother did not say a word to me. Finally I asked if she had anything to say to me. Slowly drawing a breath, she said, 'It is just a matter of a breath.' She said no more afterwards. Her words made me think hard for a long time.

After that, I made a promise to her that I would dedicate the rest of my life to all the mothers in this world and the entire human race. Yes, human life is a just a matter of a breath. Years later, a narrow escape from the Asian tsunami again caused me to think about life. Life is such a fragile thing that misfortune can strike any of us, no matter who we are. We should constantly care for and help each other. It has become my dream, as one who grew up on the very land of Beijing, to promote this idea." His words even moved some listeners to tears.

Mr. Li described his One Foundation as a platform to optimize philanthropic resources, rather than an organization dedicated to addressing problems in one particular area. The foundation will enhance the sense of philanthropy throughout society and provide opportunities to specialists from different fields to join hands and make the world a better place. This will certainly promote the development of China's social sector, which, still in its infancy, urgently needs support and guidance.

Mr. Li's actions speak even louder than his words. After the devastating earthquake that hit Sichuan Province in May, the One Foundation helped to ensure that hundreds of thousands of dollars were used effectively. Mr. Li rushed to the quake-stricken areas again and again to supervise his staff's work and console victims.

This is a major change for the actor's image. In the mid-1990s when Jet Li established himself as an A-list star in Asia, he made very few public appearances. In a rare interview at the time, he said that movies were his whole life and he had no interest in appearing in commercials. A lot of people might have supposed him very shy.

In late 1990s he began to be seen in TV commercials, but not often. During those years, he gave many more interviews and began to talk about his family, his films and his first failed marriage. He answered questions directly and honestly. Once he had developed his charity idea, he missed no opportunity to promote it. Now he is constantly in the spotlight. His interviews and speeches are to be found everywhere. The action star has truly become a public figure.

Certainly there is a long way for Mr. Li to go. He says that he expects to devote 20 or 30 years to changing people's attitudes to charity. There remains the question whether people will want to buy what he has to sell. Let us wait, hope, and see.

Editor:Zheng Limin

Korean American Churches Hurt by Ailing Economy

Korea Daily, news report, Posted: Nov 02, 2008

LOS ANGELES -- Experiencing a huge reduction in donations, Korean American churches, big and small, are tightening their belts and readying for seven lean years, reports Korea Daily. According to its survey, most Korean American churches in the Los Angeles area have already slashed their 2009 budget and frozen new spending plans. Some churches have taken more extreme measures. They’ve cut the salaries of pastors and staff, temporarily halted expansion construction and even asked clergy to work without pay for a month. An anonymous official with a Korean American mega church told the newspaper that the donation to his church has been reduced by 15 percent, although the congregation continues to grow. An unnamed reverend of a medium size church said that although his church always used to increase its budget by ten percent every year, he has decided not to do that for the coming year because many members of his congregation are suffering from the current economic downturn.

One Faith, Many Cultures: Orange Korean Christian Reformed Church, Fulerton, California

by Howard D. Vanderwell
Issue #67

Imagine listening to a conversation in which people identify themselves by numbers. One person says, "I'm a 1." "I'm a 2," says another. Someone else chimes in, "I'm a 1.5"; still another claims to be a 1.2, Everyone laughs.

What are they talking about? Korean Americans have devised a numerical way of identifying themselves according to the generation they belong to. A first generation Korean immigrant who was born and educated in Korea and came to North America as an adult is considered a 1. Someone who was born in Korea but was educated in North America is a 1.5. A 2 was born and educated in the United States.

Now imagine worshiping together with a cross-section of all those groups. Some speak only Korean; others speak both languages fluently. Along with these are worshipers for whom Korean is no longer their first language. The Korean immigration started exactly 100 years ago, but it was not until the 1970s that the community started to see a massive influx of immigrants, students, and business people from Korea. Thousands of Korean immigrants come to North America each year. Over 3,000 Korean congregations in North America face the daunting task of maintaining unity among their people, honoring their identity and heritage while ministering to those who perhaps have never set foot in Korea. All are shaped by the Korean culture, which honors tradition and respect for elders. Anyone who visits these churches will be welcomed warmly, and will gain a new appreciation for the intensity of their commitment to be faithful Christians while generational transitions are underway.

Waves of Immigrants

One such church is Orange Korean Christian Reformed Church (OKCRC) in Fullerton, California. This congregation worships in a building they purchased twenty years ago from the Evangelical Free congregation that Pastor Chuck Swindoll was serving at the time. During its twenty-five- year history, the congregation has been fed by waves of Korean immigrants who came to seek new opportunities and continue living out their Christian faith. Their roots are in the Korean Presbyterian Church.

Senior pastor II Yong Kang is deeply committed to the life of this congregation and to the Korean community. He's intensely concerned about reaching Is, 1.5s, and 2s. Kang, Orange Korean's fifth pastor, has a fascinating story that includes mission work in Saudi Arabia before threatening circumstances forced him to leave. Next he spent some years doing church planting in the Los Angeles area; he has been with this congregation since 1997.

My visit to Orange Korean took place in the context of a weekend worship conference led by several Korean leaders and members of the staff of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Korean pastors and leaders came from as far away as Alaska and Ohio. All were eager to connect with a close-knit community and to discuss issues that raise important questions about introducing change.

Different Services, Different Styles

As part of the worship conference, Calvin Theological Seminary President Neal Plantinga was "re-installed" in a moving service during the 9:30 service (see box, p. 27). That Sunday morning, as always, worshipers arrived carrying both their Bibles and their hymnals (for a review of a new Korean-English hymnal, see p. 28). The service was conducted in Korean with interpretation for English speakers. All song and Scripture texts were projected in both languages on a large screen. The worship was lively, passionate, and contemporary in style. A praise team of eleven musicians, including vocalists, organist, piano, keyboard, and guitars led us in worship. A thirty-five-member choir also sang.

Pastor Kang sets the tone and theme for three of the four services by selecting the Scripture passage, sermon theme, and songs. The choral director selects choir music and places it in the order of worship. The first and third services follow a traditional pattern; more planning is invested in the 9:30 contemporary service. The English-language afternoon service for 2s is led by another pastor.

A Vigorous Ministry of Prayer

Korean Christians are deeply committed to the ministry of prayer. Orange Korean Church reflects this strong heritage in its daily schedule of prayer meetings. Each morning at 5:30, six days a week, as well as on Wednesday and Friday evenings, seventy to eighty people spend an hour in prayer. These meetings begin with a few songs and a brief message. Some of those who attend are members of other congregations who live nearby, and some members of Orange Korean attend daily prayer meetings at other congregations.

Most thrilling and moving during my visit was the offering of prayer for Neal Plantinga during the Sunday morning service. Dr. Plantinga preached at the 9:30 service in what was billed as a "repeat" of his inauguration as the President of Calvin Seminary for the Korean community. During the prayers with the laying on of hands, Dr. Plantinga knelt before the congregation. The pastors present placed their hands on him, and then Pastor Kang invited the congregation to pray first. Immediately the whole congregation erupted in vigorous audible prayer, After that, Pastor Kang prayed in Korean, followed by Evangelist Orlando Alfaro, who prayed in Spanish with the same fervor. The prayer was concluded by Regional Director of Christian Reformed Home Missions Peter Holwerda, who prayed in English. Even though these prayers were spoken in three languages, everyone could feel and understand that they were asking the same Lord for an outpouring of the Sung RyungNun, Espilitu Santo—Holy Spirit— on Dr. Plantinga and his ministry.

Challenges and Opportunities

The challenges and opportunities the church faces as a Korean-American Christian Reformed church are similar to most churches, though perhaps more intense: a disturbing exodus of the second generation from the church, education for the younger generation, acculturation and adjustment for the first generation, language and family issues, and so on. According to Pastor Kang, the Korean churches are dealing energetically with these issues:

• Language. OKCRC conducts three worship services in Korean and one in English. Sunday school uses English, but youth and college-age groups include both English and Korean speakers. As it deals with generational transition, OKCRC faces large language questions. Should it focus energy on teaching and learning Korean? What about generation 1? 1.5? 2? Members have different convictions about this matter.
• Worship styles. Two of the Sunday morning services reflect traditional Korean style, the third is contemporary. The afternoon English-language service has a style all its own. High-tech equipment is very obvious in the sanctuary. So is the organ and a choir. It appears that the variety of styles used in worship contributes to the congregation's success in reaching multiple groups.
• Remaining Reformed. Most North American Korean Christians have come from a Presbyterian background. Although most come to North America with the intention of remaining faithful in their practice of the Reformed faith, a quickly adopted secular lifestyle threatens their faithfulness. Will the next generation value this Reformed heritage as much as the Is do? In October 2002 a Reformed Worship conference was held in response to the Korean churches' desire to address these issues in the context of worship.
• Keeping the 2s. Ones often think differently, live differently, and believe differently than 2s. The Koreans' love for higher education often brings them to secular universities that contribute to an erosion of their faith. The attrition of their youth is a large concern of the Korean community. They frequently ask the question, How can we get a good education, enter a successful career,and yet protect ourselves from the inroads of secular thinking and believing?
• The structure of church government. Although there are many similarities between the Presbyterian system of church order and that of the Christian Reformed Church, the Koreans experience some tension over the comparative authority of the elders and the pastor. How many elders should a congregation have? What is their role and how much authority should they exercise? How much authority should the pastor exercise?
• Small groups. Pastor Kang would love to d raw more of his members into cell groups that nurture faith and promote close relationships. Cell groups have long been a mark of Korean Christian churches. Will American Koreans continue that tradition?

The Korean Americans at Orange Korean Christian Reformed Church and other Korean American churches are a part of our Christian family that enriches us all. Let's give thanks, affirmation, and support for their commitment to live out their faith through the generations.

Excerpt

Profile

• Established twenty-five years ago in 1978.
• More than 1,100 members, about 60 percent first generation Korean, 20 percent 1.5, and 20 percent second generation Korean American.
• Staff includes four pastors plus two youth staff and two other ministry staff.
• Sunday services in Korean at 7:45 (traditional), 9:30 (contemporary, bilingual), 11:30 (traditional); in English at 1:15 for the second generation, mainly youth and college-age worshipers.
• A different choir sings in each Sunday morning service: the Bethel Choir, Zion Choir, and Hallelujah Choir.
• Praise teams lead worship at the 9:30 and 1:15services.
• Prayer services Monday through Saturday at 5:30 a.m. and on Wednesday and Friday nights at 7:30 p.m.

North America: Korean Adventist Press Unites U.S. Korean Churches

At a time when the Seventh-day Adventist Church is celebrating 100 years in Korea, a group of American-based Korean Adventists are helping immigrant and second-generation Korean-Americans stay connected to their homeland - and their faith. November 2, 2004 Los Angeles, California, United States Betty Cooney/ANN Staff

Sunny Oh, KAP founder and general manager. [Photo: Betty Cooney/ANN]

KAP treasurer Joseph Cho and editor Soon-Tae Song (l. to r.) in the retail store of the Korean Adventist Press. [Photo: Betty Cooney/ANN]

KAP magazines (l. to r.) Home & Health, Signs of the Times and Church Compass. [Photo: Betty Cooney/ANN]

At a time when the Seventh-day Adventist Church is celebrating 100 years in Korea, a group of American-based Korean Adventists are helping immigrant and second-generation Korean-Americans stay connected to their homeland -- and their faith.

The Korean Adventist Press (KAP), based in Los Angeles, prints and distributes publications for the Korean community in North America, as well as for 130 Korean Adventist churches in the region. Approximately two million Koreans reside in the United States and Canada. It's estimated that more than 10,000 Koreans in North America are Seventh-day Adventist church members.

Editor Soon-Tae Song works with his associate editor and Treasurer Joseph Cho and a shipping crew to create and/or distribute material. KAP's range of publications is linked to the needs of Korean Adventist church members in the United States and Canada, but don't stop there, Song said. Two magazines, "Home & Health" and "Signs of the Times," are designated as "outreach" publications for the general public, as are books containing the writings of Ellen G. White, a pioneering founder of the church, and several cookbooks emphasizing a healthy lifestyle.

For church members, KAP distributes quarterly Bible study guides and magazines prepared by the world church.

According to Song, the Korean "Signs of the Times" magazine distributed by KAP has a circulation of 17,000 copies. Church members pay for the subscriptions and for books to share with others.

KAP is the only Adventist organization for Korean members in North America, Song said, and serves as a resource for the Korean Adventist community. For the past 16 years, it has organized annual trips to Korea for some 50 high school and college students so they can experience Korean life.

Sunny Oh, treasurer for the Adventist Church in Southern California noted, "The press was established in 1980 as a subsidiary of the Southern California [district] and is recognized ... as a denominational institution." Oh, founder and general manager of KAP, explained the genesis of the institution. "Around 1979, about 40 Korean churches worshiped in the U. S. and Canada, using literature and church supplies each church imported from Korea. Delays, shipping expense and other factors involved in getting materials from Korea to churches on this continent, especially dated materials such as Bible study guides and monthly magazines, created difficulties for the churches.

"Prior to 1980, no central organization or information exchange existed in North America for Korean churches, so they were just by themselves," he continued. "This changed once the press was established. In addition, an annual directory of North American Korean members was developed (now published every 18 months) which includes contact information for all the Korean Adventists in the region. The directory helps Korean members worldwide know how to contact members who now live in North America."

Koreans Lend Hand to Guatemalans

By Elizabeth Llorente
The Record
December 7, 1998

Part 1 available in The Authentic Voice

In August 1998, The Record ran a two-part series about the experiences Korean and Guatemalan immigrants have had trying to assimilate in Palisades Park. This article is a follow-up to those experiences.

A Palisades Park barber shop offers services to Koreans. (Photo: ABC News/ Nightline)

The Koreans tried again and again, arriving at their church on Broad Avenue at the crack of dawn every Saturday to prepare dozens of cups of coffee and spread cream cheese on the bagels. Weeks passed before the Koreans, one of the region's most successful immigrant groups, achieved a breakthrough with the Guatemalan laborers, who stand daily on street corners in Palisades Park hoping contractors will pick them for a day of work.

The turning point came when the Koreans brought along a Spanish-speaking member of their parish, the Korean Presbyterian Church. The translator repeated, in Spanish, the words of goodwill that his fellow parishioners futilely had tried to relay in English.

Now the Guatemalans warmly accept the coffee and bagels and shake the hands of friendship. Some of the Koreans have learned to say "hola" - hello in Spanish - which always brings a smile to the laborers.

Many of the Guatemalans, in turn, have learned to say "how are you?" and "thank you" in English. For the past two months, several Koreans have been studying Spanish at the church while younger Korean-Americans, who were born in the United States, teach English to the Guatemalans.

The growing bond between the two immigrant groups underscores how so many towns in North Jersey have changed. It is an alliance between two groups that have been - at different times - at the core of ethnic conflicts with Palisades Park's white residents. And it is a most unlikely friendship between one of the borough's most influential immigrant groups and its most powerless.

"They're kind of isolated by language and their limited lifestyle," said associate pastor Eunhyeok Chung, 34, who spearheaded the outreach to Guatemalans this summer. "They didn't understand why we suddenly were there one day. And we were unable to tell them why at first."

"We're immigrants, we're settled, and we've achieved opportunities, thanks to, in a large way, earlier immigrant groups who paved the way," Chung said. "We feel indebted. We have to give back. We have to help immigrant groups that are going through struggles now."

The Rodeo Plaza illustrates the changing look of the neighborhood. (Photo: ABC News/ Nightline)

The Guatemalans, mostly undocumented men who have little contact with people other than contractors and one another, express a mix of gratitude and amazement over the Koreans' outreach. "Some of us are so poor we can't even afford coffee," said a day laborer who, like many others, declined to give his name for fear of deportation.

"It's hard to stand here on cold mornings like this not knowing if you'll get any work," he said on a recent blustery Saturday, as Chung and other parishioners greeted them and handed out warm bagels in brown lunch bags and coffee in foam cups.

"When they come with the bread and hot coffee, you feel someone acknowledges what you're doing to support your needy parents or children back in your country," said the 18-year-old laborer. "For the first time, people have light bulbs in our small village because of the money we've sent back. We look at the Koreans and we feel inspired to reach higher, work harder."

Attempts at communication between the two groups more often than not end in confusion and awkward pauses.

On a recent Monday, Kenny Oh tried to teach two Guatemalans the word "singer." But he wasn't getting through to the immigrants, who arrived in the United States about three months ago.

"Elvis Presley. You know, Elvis Presley," Oh exhorted. His students, who walk more than a mile from their apartments to attend the class, responded with vacant stares. In the most remote hinterlands of Guatemala, many have never heard "Blue Suede Shoes" or "Don't Be Cruel," Oh learned.

There is so much that separates the two groups. The Koreans are among the state's most affluent residents. The Guatemalans - many of whom never had electricity or telephones before arriving in the United States - are among the poorest. The Koreans are largely college-educated and hold professional jobs. Many of the Guatemalans left school before they were teenagers to help support their families.

Still, the groups have much in common.

The Korean parishioners realize that most of the day laborers are deeply religious. There also is the common experience of transplanting roots and finding their way in a new language and culture. On Nov. 23, many of the more recent Guatemalan immigrants celebrated their first Thanksgiving at the Korean church with turkeys, stuffing, and Korean dishes.

They also have the common experience of being the two newest immigrant groups in Palisades Park, a small working-class town that was predominantly white until 10 years ago. As such, both have had collisions with longtime residents.

Sushi takeout begins bright and early at a local business. (Photo: ABC News/ Nightline)

Native-born borough residents resented the large groups of day laborers standing on the corners.

Many complained about them at council meetings and demonstrations. Eventually, the tensions shifted to the Koreans, because of issues including Korean-language store signs and legal battles over business hours.

Jason Kim, a school trustee who often has tried to broker peace between his compatriots and borough officials, echoed many Koreans when he expressed pride over the unlikely alliance with the laborers. "It's a marvelous thing that shows we have a heart and are trying to reach others," Kim said, referring to common criticism in town that Koreans are too insular. "It also shows that not only can Koreans look after themselves, but they want to help bring other people up the ranks."

Outside the Korean and Guatemalan communities, few in Palisades Park are aware of the bridge that the two groups have been building. Told of the budding alliance, many reacted with interest and praise.

"It seems like a very noble thing for the Koreans to do," Mayor Sandy Farber said. "Though I'd like to see more in the Korean community make efforts to learn English themselves, I very heartily commend the members of the church for teaching the laborers English, which is extremely important to progressing in this country. That's a huge, huge plus."

Farber said he wouldn't be surprised if a few people - already uneasy about changing demographics - are less enthusiastic about the outreach. "Some might say, 'Don't do anything for laborers. Let them leave and go back where they came from.' But those are the bigots. This is a good, humane effort."

Local human rights activists, long concerned about the tensions in Palisades Park, also reacted with hope and interest.

"Here's an immigrant community with its own struggles and concerns to deal with, and it's committing itself to helping another deal with obstacles," said the Rev. Steve Giordano, president of the Bergen County Council of Churches and a member of the county Human Relations Commission. "This generous move serves as a great example to other groups and communities. And it can only be good for Palisades Park."

The Koreans admit to being pleasantly surprised by how their journey - full of rejection and awkwardness at first - is unfolding.

"At first, I distributed the coffee and bagels without any thinking, not much expectation," said Dongsoo Lee, 29. "One Saturday, I didn't go. But now, I have a real desire and need to see them every week. I can truly say I've grown to love them. We look different from each other, but we're brothers."

The Koreans have invited the Guatemalans to participate in their prayer circles on Sundays. Some go, although many have said they don't because they cannot understand the English-language prayers.

So the Koreans are planning to recruit a Spanish-speaking pastor and provide space for the laborers to worship at their church each week.

"Koreans have had difficulties in Palisades Park. There's been some problems," Chung said. "Every group has prejudice. Every group can do more to understand the other group. This is a small step, but it's a beginning to establish fellowship with other human beings."

Chung, who is studying Spanish to communicate better with the Guatemalans, conceded that there's still much he doesn't know about the laborers. But every Saturday morning and Monday night - when the two groups mingle over doughnuts after their language classes - he learns a little bit more.

"The more I learn, the more I admire them," he said. "We realized, for instance, that many of them rejected the bagels at first because they didn't want to be seen as charity cases. They're proud of working hard, like we Koreans are, and like to earn what they get. They seemed to think we were treating them with pity.

"If you don't reach out and try to build a bridge, you'll never realize the special things in other human beings, and relations never improve."

Luce Colloquium of Korean Christianity "KOREAN CHRISTIAN WORLD MISSION: The Missionary Movement of the Korean Church."

By Timothy Kiho Park, Ph..D. Director of Korean Studies & Associate Professor of Asian Mission Fuller Theological Seminary School of Intercultural Studies

Friday, November 17, 2006
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
10367 Bunche Hall, UCLA
Los Angeles,

The Korean Church has been a missionary church almost from the beginning. Today, the Korean Church has become one of the largest missionary-sending churches. The Korean Church, however, has both strengths and weaknesses in their missionary work. The church will play important roles in the 21st century world mission should the church correct their problems and use their resources wisely. The paper deals with 1) Brief Mission History of the Korean Church, 2) Current Status of the Korean Mission, 3) Strengths and Weaknesses of the Korean Mission, and 4) Suggestions to the Korean Church.

The New York Times wrote, ¢®¡ÆSouth Korea has rapidly become the world's second largest source of Christian missionaries. . . . it is second only to the United States and ahead of Britain. The Koreans have joined their Western counterparts in more than 160 countries [180 as of February 2006], from the Middle East to Africa, from Central to East Asia. Imbued with the fervor of the born again, they have become known for aggressively going to - and sometimes being expelled from - the hardest-to-evangelize corners of the world.¢®¡¾     (Norimitsu Onishe, ¢®¡ÆKorean Missionaries Carrying Word to Hard-to-Sway Places,¢®¡¾ New York Times (Internet Editon), November 1, 2004)

Christianity Today predicted that the Korean Church will be the number one missionary-sending church sooner or later by saying that ¢®¡ÆSouth Korea sends more missionaries than any country but the U.S. And it won't be long before it's number one.¢®¡¾ (Rob Moll, ¢®¡ÆMissions Incredible,¢®¡¾ Christianity Today, February 24, 2006).

The Korea World Missions Association (KWMA) has released recently a statistics of the Korean mission. The number of Korean missionaries as of February 2006 is 14,086 in 180 countries (about 19,000 according to non-official counts).  Leaders of the Korean churches and missions made a resolution to send one million tent-making missionaries by 2020 and 100,000 missionaries by 2030. (Sung Sam Kang, ¢®¡ÆThe Statistics of the Korean Church Mission and Future Ministry,¢®¡¾ Kidok Shinmun, February 15, 2006.)

God and a Few Close Friends

Rebecca Kim discusses why ethnic-oriented, collegiate Christian groups grow faster than multi-racial ones.

Margaretta Soehendro

In the 1990s, said Rebecca Kim, large numbers of Asian American college students began joining Christian student groups, and their desire for community, as well as for power and majority status, led to a rise of ethnic-oriented groups on U.S. campuses.

For some, even an Asian American Christian group was not as attractive as a solely Korean American one, said Kim, an associate professor of sociology at Pepperdine University. She discussed the UCLA graduate research that led to her book, God's New Whiz Kids?: Korean American Evangelicals on Campus, at a lecture hosted by the UCLA Center for Korean Studies on April 29, 2008.

Kim conducted research on five UCLA Christian organizations: two Korean American groups, one Asian American group, one multi-racial group, and one majority Caucasian group. When she asked students why they chose their particular Christian group, she said most replied, "It is just more comfortable." Kim assessed that "comfortable" for second-generation Korean Americans meant similarities in upbringing and in cultural tastes—like Korean pop music and the stickiness of Korean rice—and in bicultural and generational issues.

Also, the pastors and staff of collegiate Christian organizations observed that homophily, the principle that familiarity breeds connection, works better for membership growth. It is easier to evangelize and convert by starting with commonalities and minimizing linguistic and cultural differences. Ethnic-oriented, on-campus Christian groups grow much faster than multi-ethnic or multi-racial ones, Kim said, and they do so through social networks. She shared that whenever she showed up at services alone, "they look at me like I'm an alien."

"If you say 'I just came because I looked you up on the Internet,' they don't get that… because everyone comes with somebody. You don't just walk into a campus ministry because you like it," said Kim.

Therefore, while ethnic-oriented Christian groups provide students a comfortable environment, a sense of ethnic identity, and leadership opportunities, Kim said they also lead to more ethnically homogonous social circles. One student told Kim that he had forgotten how to start a conversation with non-Korean Americans.

The process also works in the other direction. Staffers at the UCLA chapter of InterVarsity Campus Fellowship, which has a multi-racial membership, admitted to Kim that when they tried to promote greater diversity, for example by singing in Spanish or in an African style, they saw white membership drop.

Not having to please whites is regarded by some as an advantage. As one second-generation Korean American student told Kim,

I'm tired of being apologetic. I mean, I'm at a top university. I'm going to make over $100,000. I have a hot car, a hot girlfriend. Why should I be the minority and pander to whites? Why should I try to figure out what white people like? I'm tired of "let's find a middle ground," so I was like, "screw this, I'm just going to do my own thing with my Korean crew."

Some second-generation Korean American evangelicals also recognize a problem in their willingness to "witness" to non-Koreans but not, in practice, to worship with them. It conflicts with the evangelical theology that "all are one in Christ." During Kim's research, one of the on-campus Korean American Christian groups changed its name to show it did not intend to be ethnocentric.

"If anyone should be a model of multi-racial community, harmony, it should be the church," said Kim, "but it's the opposite because there is that kind of tension."

Date Posted: 5/13/2008

Oak to Spearhead English-Language Studies of Korean Christianity

This summer Sung-Deuk Oak, a UCLA faculty member in Asian Languages and Cultures, was chosen to be the first scholar funded under the Dong Soon Im and Mi Ja Im endowment. He'll be charged with telling a remarkable story in the history of religion.

Margaretta Soehendro

Although Sung-Deuk Oak, 47, spent two years as a full-time junior minister in Korea and was ordained there, he says his calling has always been as an academic. His perspectives on religion and history were shaped by serious times: South Korea was under military rule when he returned to Seoul National University from the army.

"My generation, of the '80s, they are very serious. They thought about world history, politics, theology, those big things, because every month we would see public suicides or demonstrations on campus," he says.

Oak, an assistant professor in the UCLA Asian Languages and Cultures department, this summer was named UCLA's first Im scholar in Korean Christianity. The appointment puts him on a track to become the Dong Soon Im and Mi Ja Im Chair in Korean Christianity at UCLA, which was created last year following a $1 million donation from the Fullerton couple. Established under the UCLA Center for Korean Studies, the endowed chair is thought to be the first of its kind at a western, secular university.

As Im scholar, Oak plans to launch an online Korean Christian library to index English-language primary and secondary sources like photos, articles, and books. Up to now, he says, the religious tradition has been written about extensively only in South Korea.

Korean Christians made worldwide headlines this summer when 23 South Korean missionaries were kidnapped by Taliban militants in Afghanistan. Two of the men were murdered, and the rest were released in August after negotiations and a ransom was allegedly paid. Oak says more than 200 teams from South Korea have gone on short-term missionary trips to Afghanistan in the past two years.

But that's just one episode in the history of religion and the Korean people. Today, roughly one-third of South Koreans are Christians, as are 40 to 50 percent of the country's politicians and around half of its business leaders.

The undergraduate class that Oak has taught for four years at UCLA covers the history of Korean Christianity—mostly its dominant Protestant wing—from the 19th century to the present. Because Korea's political and economic transformations are tied to the religion, Oak says, the study of Korean Christianity is the study of modern Korea.

Reformation Counter

Oak first took an academic interest in Korean Christianity as a junior at Seoul National University. With the encouragement of a mentor, he returned to study Korean history even after completing his degree in English literature.

"The year was the centennial anniversary of Korean Protestantism," Oak says. "At the same time, that year was the bicentennial year of the Korean Catholic church. So in 1984 many people thought about the history of Korean Christianity."

So it was after two undergraduate degrees and an ordination that Oak came to the United States to earn a masters degree at Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate at Boston University School of Theology. Along the way, he has studied English, Chinese, French, Japanese, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

Oak says that Korean Christianity is unique as a western religion that arose and succeeded within a framework of eastern nationalism. After 35 years of Japanese rule in the first half of the 20th century, Koreans had come to view Christianity as a means of rejecting colonialism.

"Politically, Korea was colonized by Japan, so American missionaries were well received by the people, and Korean leaders thought the United States would help them be an independent nation," Oak says.

In the decade after the Korean War, Oak says, Christianity was also seen as one way to stave off communism. Before the war, two-thirds of Korea's Christians, including most of the church leaders, lived in the northern part of the peninsula, but when the war broke out, they fled south.

Later and in different ways, political upheavals and industrialization in South Korea aided the spread of Christianity. Villagers who moved to the city for work wanted a sense of belonging, and churches created de facto families.

Widespread pro-American sentiments were crucial too, according to Oak. Korean political leaders were often educated in American missionary schools and later in the United States. And America engendered good will through programs like U.S. Food Aid. Oak remembers eating free corn soup and tasting cornbread provided by the United States as an elementary schoolchild.

"So many people [who are] now in their 50s, 60s, 70s regard the United States as a savior because of the Korean War, and after the war, they were supported by [America.]" Oak says.

In Los Angeles and on trips to Seoul, Oak has often pointed to the need for grants to advance English-language studies of Korean Christianity. One of the people he spoke with was Rev. Hyung Cheon Rim, senior pastor of Young-Nak Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles, where Dong Soon and Mi Ja Im are members. Lee introduced the Ims to Oak after they expressed an interest in donating a portion of their real estate investment to a worthwhile cause. Following meetings with Oak and others and many prayers, the Ims more than tripled the size of their planned donation to create the endowed chair.

On June 20, 2007, the Ims held a reception over dinner in Koreatown to congratulate Oak on his new title and role. In addition to rare prestige, endowed chairs provide faculty members with a budget for research.

"They are very excited, and they expect much from me," he says and smiles.

A four-member search committee formed within the UCLA International Institute selected Oak as Im scholar after considering some 20 candidates and bringing top contenders to campus for interviews.

Date Posted: 10/2/2007

Korean Press Lauds UCLA Donors

A $1 million gift from humble, hard-working Fullerton couple makes news in their country of birth. Dong Soon Im and Mi Ja Im have endowed a chair in Korean Christianity at UCLA.

The South Korean daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo Jan. 28 took notice of the generous $1 million endowment by Dong Soon Im and Mi Ja Im for the purpose of establishing a chair in Korean Christianity at UCLA in the married couple's name. According to the article, Mr. Im came to Los Angeles 36 years ago as an exchange student and later worked as a computer programmer. He arrived in the United States with $200. Now retired, the Ims, both 64, live in Fullerton, Calif., and attend Los Angeles Young Nak Presbyterian Church. They are hard-working, modest people who drive a used 2000 Toyota Camry. Twenty-six years ago, they purchased a small apartment building, the recent sale of which yielded $1.5 million. This windfall gave the Ims an opportunity, in their words, to do something "good" for America, the country that made their dreams come true. Also in the article, the Ims express thanks to God for allowing them the blessings that made this donation possible.

Other recent Korean-language coverage of the Ims' generous gift has appeared in the Korea Central Daily and the Korea Times.

Date Posted: 2/1/2006

Korean Americans

• Around 1770, a Korean envoy to China, Chung Tu-won (鄭 斗 源), brought back to Korea Matteo Ricci’s
  Tianzhu [The True Doctrine of the Lord of Heaven].
  
• In 1783, the Shilhak scholars sent Yi Seung-hun (李 承 薰) to visit the Catholic missionaries in China to learn
  about the Western religion.
  
• Yi Seung-hun (李 承 薰) was baptized by Chinese priest and in 1784 brought back books and articles on
  Christian doctrine, which were distributed to Shilhak scholars.
  
• These Catholic Shilhak scholars abandoned all “pagan” rites, and preached Catholicism openly, converting
  people and baptizing them.  
  
• By 1795 there were 4,000 Catholics in Korea.  By 1801 about 10,000.
  
• King Chongjo died in 1799 and the persecution of the Catholics began.  In 1801 there were about 300 Catholic
  martyrs and more than 1,000 arrests.  Other great persecutions followed: Ulhae persecution of 1815; and
  Chonghae persecution of 1827.
  
• In 1831, Chinese priest, Father Liu Fangchi was sent to Korea.  In the next five year, several French priests
  joined Liu’s ministry.  During this time, Kim Tae-gon and Ch’oe Yang-op became the first two Korean priests.
  
• In Kihae persecution of 1839 over 200 Catholic Christians died, including a French bishop, two French priests,
  and numerous church leaders.
  
• King Ch’oljong began his rule in 1849 and tolerated Catholicism.  
  
• In 1857, the Bishop in Beijing reported to the Vatican that there were 15,206 Catholics in Korea.
  
• King Ch’oljong died in 1863; and Taewon’gun began his rule.  Another wave of persecution began.
  
• In 1866 the French Bishop was executed along with more than 8,000 martyrs.  About half of the Catholic
  population was martyred.  
  
• In 1873 King Kojong began his rule; and the Korean Catholic churches enjoyed relative freedom.  
  
• In 1888, the printed Bible, prayer books and missals were transferred from Nagasaki, Japan, to Seoul.  4
  women joined the sisters of the Communaute Saint Paul de Chartres, becoming the first Korean nuns.  In 1900
  ten Korean priests were ordained.
  
• By 1910, there were 69 churches, 71 priests including 15 indigenous clergy, 41 seminarians, 59 sisters and
  more than 73,000 Catholic believers.
  

• In June of 1883, Nagasaka, a Japanese Christian, landed in Pusan, Korea, as an agent for the National Bible
  Society of Scotland in Tokyo. He distributed bibles written in Chinese and Japanese, as well as portions of the
  Gospel and other religious tracts written in Korean.
  
• In 1884, the Presbyterian Church appointed Dr. Horace N. Allen as the first missionary to Korea.  In the same
  year, the Methodist Episcopal Church sent Dr. and Mrs. W.B. Scranton; and Rev. and Mrs. Henry Appenzeller
  as the first missionaries to Korea.  
  
• Dr. Allen arrived in Seoul in 1884 and gained an immediate trust by curing the Prince Min, who was brutally
  slashed during Kapshin Chongbyon (Coup d’Etat of 1884).  In April 1885, Dr. Allen opened the first general