My mother’s parents, Kay Jen and Yun Yee Tom, were both born in the Toishan city of Canton (now Guangzhou)1. Like many young men his age, Kay Jen fled the poverty of southern China in the 1920’s to seek his fortune in the land of “gold mountain.”
He stowed away aboard a ship which docked at the Angel Island detention center in the San Francisco Bay. There he was interrogated for many weeks before being permitted to start his new life in America. My grandfather trekked from place to place, finding jobs in hotel and restaurant kitchens from California all the way to Montana.
During that time, he became a U.S. citizen and even served as cook for an American survey team to the Alaskan frontier. After that, he leased his own cafeteria from the Continental Can Company in East Oakland.
In the late 1940’s, it became legal for Chinese men to bring over wives from the homeland. (The U.S. had excluded Chinese women from about 1870-1943 to control the Asian population). So in 1949, Kay Jen sent his picture to the village matchmaker in Toishan to find himself a wife.
Yun Yee decided that marrying him was better than laboring in the rice fields and agreed to marry him. They met in Hong Kong and were married just a few months before China officially entered Communist rule. She was surprised to find him ten years older than the photo he had sent, but she would learn to love him.
The Sunday Seed
In 1954, my grandparents bought a home in East Oakland and sent my mom and her brother to the newly-planted Chinese Bible Church on Wakefield Ave. They believed the church would be a good influence that would keep their children out of trouble and introduce them to other Chinese.
My grandparents worked long hours with Sunday as their only day of rest, so they did not attend the church themselves and were grateful for the buses that picked up their children and brought them back home each Sunday. They also encouraged their children to attend the church summer camps because there was no money or time for vacations as a family. And when the church had special fundraisers or Thanksgiving banquets, Kay Jen and Yun Yee were always eager to participate.
Childlike Faith
Kay Jen never believed in ancestor worship, claiming those rituals to be fake. But Yun Yee followed traditions from home. Like most Chinese, she claimed that good health came from balancing the Ying foods with the Yang foods. She practiced such customs to appease the demons and to receive good luck.
Little by little, however, my grandparents heard the good news of Jesus Christ as their children brought home gospel literature and gospel cassette tapes in Chinese. They learned how God’s beloved Son became a man who lived a perfectly sinless life upon the earth. This perfectly righteous man sacrificially died upon a cross to bear the punishment for sinners like us. He traded his life for ours—his righteousness for our iniquity. He then rose again from the dead to prove his power over sin and over death. My grandparents heard this story piece by piece as my mom and her brothers shared it with their childlike faith.
A Caring Shepherd
The White pastor of this Chinese immigrant church also made a special effort to befriend my grandparents. Their friendship blossomed when the pastor waited in the hospital as Kay Jen underwent surgery. The pastor’s small act of care broke through my grandfather’s reserve to earn his trust after he had come to expect nothing but prejudice from “White people.”
A Spiritual Family Lineage
Kay Jen and Yun Yee accepted Jesus Christ as Savior in September 1970. Soon after, both were baptized and began to attend the Bay Area Chinese Bible Church every Sunday2. My grandmother said that being a Christian lifted the burden of appeasing the demons to have good luck in life. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are still attending the church.
Kay Jen and Yun Yee are since deceased and buried in Mountain View Cemetery. Yet both are now alive with Jesus as they await their family’s arrival.
Today’s Role for the Chinese American Church
Many today question the need for ethno-specific churches in multicultural America, but I have many reasons to still be grateful for the Chinese American church.
First, the need continues as immigrants keep coming to this country, particularly professionals and university students. Chinese-language ministries proclaim the gospel and train up future leaders for church planting and missions (Acts 1:8).
Second, such churches provided necessary community during a time when many Chinese Americans were unwelcome in non-Asian churches. Although the church today has progressed beyond outright prejudice, many still seek out such community for legitimate reasons. Ethno-specific churches will continue to serve their purpose on this side of eternity.
Third, history teaches us to interpret the present. As we thank the Lord for his work among previous immigrant groups, we gain a vision for what he is doing today as the nations come to us (Acts 17:26-27). We are then compelled by the love of Christ to reach the unreached among all nations (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
If the Lord has called you to serve in a Chinese American church, let me encourage you to explore the history of its blessings. Ask your different “aunties” and “uncles” about their stories of following Christ. Interview your pastors to see how their faith and ministry grew up from the soil of generations before them. Find out how many church planters, missionaries, and ministry leaders have been sent out by your congregation. Then celebrate your church’s unique diversity as we all contribute to the every people’s worship of that future glorious day (Revelation 7:9-10).
- This article is based on my mother’s recollection of her parents’ history. I was named after my grandfather who always went by “Tom,” so my mother was influential in leading both of us “Toms” to the Lord.
- About twenty years after my grandparents’ salvation, the Bay Area Chinese Bible Church bused another little immigrant girl to church who soon grew up to become my wife. Pictures of the church and my grandparents can be found here.