Episode 13: Christianity, Race, and Asian American Teenagers

Danny Kwon 

Welcome to Asian American parenting, a podcast from rooted ministry and the soul led network where the gospel meets Asian American faith culture and parenting. Each episode, we explore how to raise the next generation with a strong gospel foundation in Christ while navigating the unique challenges of our cultural identity. Thanks for joining us. Let’s dive in.

Danny Kwon 

Welcome to Asian American parenting, the podcast of the soul network and the rooted ministry, where we talk about the gospel and how it meets Asian American faith, culture and parenting. And I’m glad to be joined by my co host, Monica Kim, Hi, Monica, hi, she’s a psychologist and biblical counselor, and I’m Danny Kwon. I’m rooted Senior Director of Youth Ministry content. But before that, I was a youth pastor for 29 years, working with families and youth. And today, our topic is a very interesting topic. It’s about Christianity, race and the Asian American teenager. And you know, we’re thinking about this really complex issue. 

Danny Kwon 

In light of some modern situations like covid and, you know, the politics of calling it the China flu, and right now, with the ICE raids and the attacks on brown people, and even thinking back in our history of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese internment camps, and even in my own youth ministry, I can still remember in 2007 at the campus of Virginia Tech, there was a shooter who did a mass shooting, who was Korean, and in one of our local high schools, one of my youth group students was verbally attacked when some students came up to him and said, You’re Korean, just like the shooter. Are you going to shoot me too? And he was racially attacked, and he got really angry and caused a big fight and suspensions and so for teenagers, and as us parents of teenagers, how much do these things impact our race, ethnicity and culture, and how do they impact our lives? 

Monica Kim

I know that we what you and I want to try to get going in today’s podcast is just to start a conversation. I know the conversations on the intersections of Christianity, race and, you know, Asian American teen, teenagers, those things have been ongoing. It’s quite complex. And so with that question, how much does race, ethnicity and culture impact our lives? I think it varies quite a lot. And you know, the the circumstances, the historical kind of issues, and that those, those those descriptions you came, you know, talked about with the Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese internment. I I’m even thinking about the LA riots that happened, you know, when I was growing up, too, and how I think a lot of those kinds of circumstances, incidences had brought up a much more of a consciousness, or an awareness of what’s going asking the Questions, you know, what’s happening here? Why are we? Why is this happening? What might be things behind this also, and I think it gets quite complicated. So I do think those facets race, ethnicity and culture, obviously, do impact our lives and incidences and hardship and circumstances can actually bring it up even more to raise an awareness or an understanding all the more.

Danny Kwon 

Yeah, and I wonder, as parents, it might impact us more versus our teenagers and our teenagers, depending on also where they live, like Asian American teenagers in Southern California or New York City who are in diverse kind of racial ethnic areas already, or I know in Southern California, they’re already surrounded by fellow Asians, so they might not think about race and culture as much. But how much, as parents, do we need to be aware of it and maybe think about it as far as our own teenagers, and bring it up with them, and maybe, like we know, with our oldest son, we once asked him about him playing football and getting racially taunted because he was one of the best players, but people would call him a racial taunt on the field and how he got him angry. But you know, you know, do we need to bring up the, you know, the Atlanta shootings a few years ago, or covid or discrimination that our kids might face, but not might not talk about?

Monica Kim

Yeah, I think that’s a good question to reflect on. Obviously, we won’t have all the answers, but we can certainly reflect on how it might be important, how it is important to be able to talk about it with our teen children growing up. 

Monica Kim

I’m thinking even in terms of myself as a biblical counselor, but also, psychologists, studies have shown that racism or consistent invalidation can result in or be linked to incidences you know, PTSD or complex PTSD, one might, you know, it depends on if it is like a one, if it is an incident, but also a continuing incidences throughout one’s life. It’s a an ongoing issue. So, so racism and racial trauma or incidences, are things that are linked to mental health issues. So having said that, though, as a thinking about all of this biblically too, and that’s really important, how to really understand that in a biblical context. I think for us parents, we we do have to keep that in mind, because that’s where we can find the greatest hope, even as we find the greatest validation for what we’re experiencing. Because while Scripture does talk about on the kingdom, it is about oneness in unity in diversity, all coming together to worship our God. Revelations really talks about this in a marvelous way. Revelations, chapter seven, verses nine to 11, says, After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. There’s this real, magnificent picture of all people from every nation, tribe and tongue, coming together and worshiping our God. What we also see, you know, there’s another passage I just want to mention also is the Bible talks about in Acts, chapter 17, verse 26 and you know, I just, I know it’s just one verse, But he, it says, And he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling. Place. So you know, God has, from one man, created many nations to live together in this land. However, even though we have we because of Christ, we are living on this trajectory or direction and on the kingdom today, with this eternal, you know, Heaven in mind, we are still living in a lot of brokenness, yeah, where now we have the greatest comfort of Christ to draw upon and be rooted in. In the midst of all of this brokenness that comes from divisions among races or nations or tribes, and tribes can even form, not just from people groups, but, you know, affinity groups, or, you know, there’s so many ways in which we get divided in many respects. But I know today we’re focusing a little bit more on divisions when it comes to, you know, kind of tribes or races or cultures that can be a way in which people are grouped together because of how people look like one another. And you know, that’s a very visible way of grouping folks together, and from that comes so much division and hurt and brokenness that I do think it is important for parents to be able to understand the great hope we have in Christ, but also how in that great hope can we then face talking about The brokenness that abounds because of the divisions and the animosity and the vitriol that comes from race, culture, tribes, all of that.

Danny Kwon 

On a positive, very practical church note, as a former youth pastor for 29 years, who has taken his youth group to multiple mission trips, I’ve been on 53 myself to various countries. I’ve seen a lot of literature written by Christian Asian American scholars who’ve talked about how God can use the beauty of Asian Americanness, and maybe as parents, we can share this with our own Teenagers, how God can use our Asian Americanness very uniquely in being agents of reconciliation of God’s kingdom, of sharing the gospel of bridging gaps in differences in mankind, Although we were coming made from one and in this Christian scholarship of Asian Americans, you know, you know, there are some, they say there are some advantages of Asian Americans doing mission work because of the way we look. We can sometimes be less threatening than a white missionary, and the old stereotype of the white, imperialistic missionary that came to be heroes Asian Americans can come to the mission field, do God’s work, and we can have an advantage of being less threatening, more warm. It’s just something that Christian scholars, Asian American scholars have written about. So I just want to note that I’ve seen a lot of young Asian American Christian teenagers go overseas to Africa, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and because we are not white, but Asian. We are very warmly accepted, and the opportunity to share the gospel and do God’s work has been really vast.

Monica Kim

Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Uh. To reflect a little bit more on in terms of highlighting the gifts that we have been given as folks who look different with one another. They’re in every culture, there are strengths or that the, you know, good things that point to the goodness of God. And I think that’s one thing that you’re identifying also just that hopefully, in our sinfulness, we don’t use that and you know, then, and and feel like we are indeed like the heroes or or we’re coming in to save, versus really humbly walking alongside and having a heart to love the folks in such a way that really draws them to the love of Christ.

Danny Kwon 

I remember going to Africa and Central Asia, and just because of the way Asian American teenagers looked, we were just more non threatening to the indigenous people, and it was a great way to share the gospel and for our teenagers to know that as Ephesians, 210 says we are God’s workmanship created in Christ, Jesus to do his good works, which Christ has prepared to do So in our Christianity and race and Asian American, Asian Americanness and teenagers. God, can really use us and use our teenagers in a unique way now, at the same time, you know, for our teenagers, I wonder Monica, how much digging as parents or just sensitivity we might need to do to maybe them feeling a sense of racism or cultural identity struggle, like maybe they get called the racial name at school, or they Someday they realize in school they’re different culturally than their white, mainstream friends, and I know more recently as a youth pastor, I’ve had to tell my youth group and our youth group that, hey, if you feel any teacher or administrator discriminating against you, please let me know, and I can go with your parents and talk to your school. It’s just something. In the last eight years in the climate that we live in, I’ve had to express that I can help them as a pastor and their parents in these kind of issues.

Monica Kim

I’m saying something that’s probably something that we all know. First of all is that we know that divisions among race, race, ethnicity or culture have always been there since, you know, since beginning of time, or, you know, way, way back, in terms of All the, you know, fights and battles and happen. And so this is nothing new, but what gets really more, what gets complicated, is knowing how to talk about such so many where there, where there are so many facets to it, and also diversity within people’s experiences and also their perspectives on how they think of it and how they think of themselves. So I think from my experience with engaging with a lot of teenagers regarding race culture and their sense of themselves in the midst of it, it seems so to be so vast, let’s say, and so parents being open to recognizing that it could be quite vast. Um. Is one thing I think, important for parents to understand when you open up conversations, I know you had wondered, how much do we dig into it? How much yeah, do we kind of persist in talking to them about any negative kind of experiences they might have, might have had, and so I think it is about being open to understanding that there are going to be vast experiences, but their own. What’s also vast is their own interpretations of their experiences and when they might, and because it’s also going to be changing and developing in terms of how they interpret it and understand it. It’s going to look different as they get older too. They’re going to look back and think, Whoa. That was racism, but I didn’t experience it as that then, but now I look back and I think, Whoa, that that was real, that that was not kind like, let’s say, for example, when I was young, I did experience a lot of kind of, you know, racial taunting, and I grew up in a very multi ethnic, you know, city. I grew up in Toronto, and when I was going into elementary and also high school, the body, student body was so multi cultural. I mean, you’re looking at, if you look at a class photo, you’re looking at lots of brown, black, Asian, just, you know, so multi ethnic, white, you know, kids too. But it was so evenly distributed at the same time, there was still lot of racism, we all kind of called each other names. That was something that in the greater culture we, you know, had learned how to tease, you know, taunt and tease each other at that time, when I was young, I didn’t really, initially, it didn’t hit me, but as I grew older as a teen and became much more aware, I started to be, you know, try look for people who I felt much more comfortable With. And so I think there are so many ways in which we will change and develop in how we even understand the experiences that we’ve had when we were younger. So having said that, parents being very open about meeting your kids and teens, where they’re at and their understanding, I think is so important, yeah, even though we have experienced such different ways of, you know how our race, culture and ethnicity impacted us growing up.

Danny Kwon  

Well, that kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of gives me a thought of like in our youth group a couple years ago with the way the climate is these days, I felt it was important to do a small group Wednesday night. We met Wednesday nights a series on race and faith, and talking about power of Babel and God creating races. And I know you quoted Romans, Acts 17 and revelations, giving a biblical outline of it, but also talking about racial strife and how to deal with it, and how to deal with it in a Christian way. And I think it was real important, because kids were experiencing things in school, in driving around at McDonald’s and things like that. Maybe as a parent, would you suggest, I know you said, as parents, to be open to it like a couple years ago, after while covid was happening, and there was all this talk of the China flu, and there was shooting in Atlanta of Asian beauty parlors and people, and people thought that was a form of racism and targeting Asians as parents. Yes, do we open up these conversations like I did in our Asian American youth group? Would you have any thoughts and suggestions? 

Monica Kim 

I think we as parents ought not to feel so afraid of bringing up topics that might be sensitive. I know we did often, too with our teenage boys growing up, to have conversations about our experiences and perspectives, both Biblical understanding of it, and also in the biblical how brokenness can look racially and the differences in cultural kind of understanding mind. Just to pause on a note. Just want to make notation of this that there’s a lot of folks you know talking about how race itself is a modern kind of so social phenomena, you know, it’s a social, socially constructed phenomena, right? And the idea of that, you know, I understand. I just want to mention that when people look at the Tower of Babel, it’s not so much about, you know race, you know distinction, but the idea of, you know language being divided, and from that, you can’t understand each other. So you’re, you’re, you’re going to be, you’re going to go with people you understand and so there are divisions and tribes and tongues and languages. So I know I say that because a lot of people want to make much ado about that and say there is no race, but I think what we are talking about is not so much about the semantics of that. For now, just want to put that aside. We can definitely talk a lot about those things, but to recognize, even in Scripture, that from one nation many nations, there’s an acknowledgement of many tribes and tongues and languages, and in a broken world, there are so many divisions because we are sinful and we do need Jesus. Having said that, I think as parents, it’s so important to be able to say it’s it’s okay to talk about these things, yeah, and so we can bring it up and say, Hey, what do you think about, even open questions might be good. Hey, what do you think about, you know, the differences in race and culture that you’ve experienced at church versus, you know, at school, because, you know, they grew up in an Asian, you know, predominantly Asian church, right? And so there’s almost that, that shift in such a different culture, and those kind of differences can be very good as a way to bring out any kind of reactions or thoughts, and so I think parents ought not to feel afraid of talking about it, but also start with open questions, rather than just trying to give them a lesson on race and racism. I know I’ve often wanted to do that and tell them all I know about racism, what the Bible says about it, systemic issues, you know, all of that. So I’ve had to really pull back on trying to teach them or tell them what I know, and be much more open to meeting them where they’re at.

Danny Kwon  

And one last question, do you think it’s kind of important to at least bring it up openly because of what you said in the beginning of the podcast, where it might be something hidden in their kids lives, there could be a trauma or something oppressing them.

Monica Kim

But we want to be aware that the reality of brokenness is that they’re the consequences to things that. You know, when bad happens, there could be consequences, right? So in just in the general understanding, but, yeah, we have seen that there are these patterns where consistent racism. Yeah, and we know we live in a society where there are lots of messages. Sometimes it’s not direct, but there could be indirect messages, a lot of behaviors, a lot of kind of, you know, in group, out group, kind of dynamics. And if your child continues to experience lots of invalidation throughout I think it’s really important to be able to open that up and to talk about it, because that could certainly lead to different kinds of hardships. Whether, yeah,

Danny Kwon 

That’s really good, and I am sad that we only have 30 minutes for this episode. I think it’s a topic that we need to revisit another time. But, you know, really appreciate this deep and profound topic and conversation. So until next time, may we embrace the hope, enjoy the gospel and believe that it’s true, powerful and transformative. Thanks for listening to Asian American parenting. Thanks.

Danny Kwon 

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