Chinese American

So this week is the San Diego Asian American Film Festival (www.sdaff.org) and it reminds me of how much I love being Chinese American. I have struggled in the past with why God made me Asian and not white (not all the time, but on various occasions when I was younger) and why my friends and I had racist comments thrown at us when we were younger or how my white friends never had peanut butter noodles or shrimp chips growing up. I hated the ugliness of Chinese people with their perfectionist tendencies and shame based culture that seemed to plague each generation. In college much of my identity as an Asian American deepened through the work of InterVarsity. InterVarsity was a choice that I consciously made versus going to an Asian American specific fellowship. This meant going to a fellowship that was racially diverse and at times uncomfortable. This was uncomfortable because people communicated differently, ate foods that were foreign to me and hugged me! I slowly learned what "my own culture" meant, not being home in Asia or America and taking the blessings of what this culture could bring. An example of my culture is in worship. I always had a love for the Asian American worship style (in part repetition), but never knew such a style existed. I always thought that worship was based from what I experienced growing up in a Chinese church. The AA worship style was so embedded in me that my first two years of college I would "sneak" over to AACF (Asian American Christian Fellowship) at UCSD to take part in their worship sessions. Yet InterVarsity exposed other styles of worship to me like gospel songs and songs with different languages.
There seems to be a strong sense of growth in the Asian American community. Older Asian American staff have shared their experiences and stories of a growing presence on the national stage of InterVarsity. Now I feel like it is my responsibility to pass on what has been taught to me about the value of ethnic identity and the celebratory pieces in being Asian American for my students. What is equally important in learning about identity is applying what has been learned to build bridges with other ethnicities. I am still learning about the AA culture and how it is currently being shaped by God's own special plans, but for now I am grateful that this journey of ethnic identity is done in a community from both the past and present Asian Americans. Go watch a movie if your in San Diego and appreciate the talent and blessings that the Asian American community brings.