I started my first day at the BayPark Financial Group with a class of fresh new graduates — snotty noses, wide eyes and all. As we took our seats in our orientation, you could smell our collective nervousness. But despite our common greenhorn status and almost identical off-the-rack Macy’s work clothes, I sensed that I — the only Asian recruit in the class — was dealing with something all on my own.
Soon I was dealing not only with finding my place in an office space — but also in a new culture — a very white culture set from the top. The all-White management birthed a culture of cottage cheese and egg whites, Jeep Wranglers and Camaros, and pictures of their dogs on their desktops. In a word, it was a very White world. While the other recruits were trying to figure out their log in passwords, I was simultaneously trying to figure out who I was all over again.
Race at Work: Ambushed by Success
When an Asian American steps into the workplace, she feels herself out in the new environment like a toddler in front of a mirror for the first time. This is new but not really. Professor Peter Cha suggests that Korean Americans engage in a constant process that he calls “Identity Negotiation.” We are involved in the process of negotiating with majority white culture regarding our self-identity.
For the Asian American, this self-identity is most commonly earned through our hard work. This mindset has led to something that has been referred to as the “Model Minority Myth” coined in 1966 by sociologist William Petersen in The New York Times Magazine when referring to the unusual success of Japanese Americans.
The myth calls every other minority to look to the Asians as the model minority for the way they peacefully contribute to society: Asian immigrants have earned their place at America’s table through hard work. But as objectively meritorious as that sounds, it also means that status can be lost.
Home at Work: The Baggage of our Culture
There’s another level at which we are experiencing the unique burden at work: as the champion of our family’s immigrant story. Champions in the Old Testament are men like David, women like Deborah and leaders like Abraham. These men and women are unique in that their actions will either validate their Israel’s journey or send the whole nation for a temporary swirl down the proverbial drain.
The children of Asian immigrants feel the “champion” burden as they enter into the workplace for the first time. Our parents came over with twenty dollars in their pockets (or was it five? It keeps getting more ridiculous…) to give us a chance at success.
Now it’s up to the children of our hero parents to prove that their sacrifice was all worth it. Our work success or failure will be the culminating chapter of our family’s immigrant story. Will our family’s story be a story of immigrant success or failure? Only you can write that ending — at work.
Looking For Answers
Many Christian books on work and faith seem to ask the same question: “Is secular work glorifying to God?” This question got its start in the Protestant Reformation in the 16th-17th centuries. At that time, Christians were still recovering from the hangover of the medieval belief that while religious work was meaningful, secular work was not. And while that was an important battle to win at the time, it is not necessarily the tension that many modern workers are asking.
So in modern books and seminars, we often hear the teaching: “Your work is meaningful because it contributes to God’s wider kingdom.” I heard a well-known vocational theologian once state that even the deck that he built at his home is worthwhile because it will last in eternity. Why? Because it contributed to God’s kingdom.
There is a danger to this line of thinking. Because it makes it seem as though we are now commissioned to build the kingdom that Jesus died for. We are tasked with bringing the kingdom here as it is in heaven.
The message becomes this: Worth is found in contributing. Producing. Output. The Christian isn’t just responsible for materializing her family’s redemption but also Jesus’ as well.
Adoption is a Way Out
On its own, this theology places a familiar burden on our backs: “Work and you shall be validated. You and your household.”
So perhaps we need a new perspective on work and faith. By “we” I don’t just mean Asian Americans, but all Christians. Is there something other than our contribution that makes our work lives pleasing to the Lord? Are we again workers in the echo of a sacrifice? Not only working to validate our parents’ sacrifice, but also Jesus’ sacrifice? Are we citizens only because we contribute to Jesus’ kingdom?
But there is something more central to our identity in Christ than building the kingdom. It is this beautiful jewel in our gospel called “adoption.” Adoption is the glorious truth that our only contribution to the kingdom was failure. We wrecked it all. We ruined it. We miscarried our work terribly. When called to bring something to add to the community soup, we didn’t just come empty handed, but we dropped vile poison in it. And yet, in Christ we are beloved.
“Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ…” (Eph 1:4-5)
Why is that? Because in his work, He gave us status as sons and daughters of Christ. And sons and daughter never have to earn their place at the table. It is given to them.
Sons and daughters of the Most High inherit their place at the table. If we dare to keep reading Scripture even further, we find out that He did a radical thing: He adopted failures.
“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. Godchose what is low and despised in the world…”(1 Cor 1:26-18)
A backhanded compliment if I’ve ever heard one. He is saying that God went out into the world and chose the failures to make them his kids. He made bums into royalty.
We are IN. It is FINISHED.
What does that do for the Asian American at work in majority culture? She is reminded that her identity is established completely apart from her successes. Her identity is never tenuous. Despite how out of place she feels in majority culture. The Christian can’t ever add to her identity by success or lose her identity by failure. She can’t validate her family’s immigration story any more than she can add an hour to her span of life nor does she have to.
So what does adoption do for her? Her shoulders drop a little. The tension in her neck leaves. She can smirk when the pressure is on. Because adoption whispers in her ear that her place at the table is set. She can fail. She can leave her job for another. She can stop working altogether if she feels called.
In addition, her family’s immigration story isn’t the real story at all. The real story has already been written, and it’s a story about adoption, not attainment! She is not David standing before Goliath. Jesus is. She’s not throwing the stone, she’s spectating. And nothing is more freeing than that.
My dear brother and sister, stop being swayed by the pressures of performance. It’s not your ticket in. It’s not your family’s crown. We need to reclaim the beauty of adoption in our theology of work. For the Asian American for sure, but also for every and any person who has ever tried to earn their place at God’s table.