“How Did I Let This Happen?”: Constructing the Body of Asian American Christianity

This paper is concerned with how race and religion are taught, explicitly and implicitly, as theological concepts in American religious spaces to those identified as Asian American Christians, and how Asian American Christians, especially young adults, interpret, embody, and map these theologies onto material existences. Of specific concern and focus in this presentation are the results and ramifications of such explicit and implicit teachings in relation to experiences of hurt, manipulation, and exploitation that go unspoken or belatedly noticed. At the heart of this paper is a deep concern with violence: the violences that are or are not permitted, unto oneself or within a community, by the ontological embodiment of being an “Asian American Christian.” After analyzing and interpreting public-facing visual, audio, and literary media, this paper then envisions, and elevates the ways others are envisioning, embodied lives and practices outside of the dominant narratives of political and institutional participation.