DEVELOPING TEACHING MATERIALS AND
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING
ASIAN AND ASIAN AMERICAN/CANADIAN
WOMEN’S THEOLOGIES IN NORTH AMERICA
FINAL REPORT
A Teaching and Learning in Theological Education Project
under the Teaching and Learning Small Grants Program of
the Association of Theological Schools
and
A Teaching Theology and Religion Grant Project of
the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion
PROJECT TEAM
Rita Nakashima BROCK
Jung Ha KIM
KWOK Pui-lan
Nantawan Boonprasat LEWIS
Greer Anne Wenh-In NG
Seung Ai YANG
Gale A. YEE
November 1999
2
CONTENTS
PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS 3
INTRODUCTION
Who are We? 5
Why this Project? 5
Mid-term Progress 6
The Consultation 6
PART I THE TEACHING OF ASIAN AND ASIAN NORTH AMERICAN
WOMEN’S THEOLOGIES IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
Asian and Asian North American Presence in ATS Schools 8
Curricular Constraints 9
Alternate Venues 10
PART II TEACHING MATERIALS AND INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
FOR TEACHING ASIAN AND ASIAN NORTH AMERICAN WOMEN’S
THEOLOGIES
Challenging the Canon of Theological Knowledge 11
Development of Asian and Asian North American Women’s Theologies 14
Pedagogical Approaches 17
Learning Styles, Teaching Styles 21
Teaching about Racism 22
Classroom Dynamics 23
The Use of Multimedia in Teaching 26
PART III ASIAN AND ASIAN NORTH AMERICAN WOMEN AS FACULTY
AND STUDENTS
Issues Facing the Faculty 29
Differences between Asian and Asian North American Students 32
Issues Facing Asian North American Women Students 34
PART IV RECOMMENDATIONS TO INSTITUTIONS (through appropriate
channels via the Association of Theological Schools and the Wabash Center for
Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion) 37
NOTES 42
APPENDICES
1. Selected Bibliography on Asian and Asian North American Women’s Theologies 47
2. Selected Bibliography on Teaching and Pedagogy 52
3. Selected Novels and Audio-visual Resources 55
3
PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS
Rita Nakashima BROCK received her doctorate from Claremont Graduate School and
is Director of the Bunting Fellowship Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study, Harvard University. She is the author of Journeys by Heart: A Christology of
Erotic Power and co-author of Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and
the United States. She was an editor and contributor to Setting the Table: Women in
Theological Conversation as well as Guide to the Perplexing: A Survival Manual for
Women in Religious Studies. Currently she is co-authoring a book about feminist
theological reflections on the death of Jesus.
Jung Ha KIM was academically trained in religion and theology and teaches sociology
at Georgia State University. She considers herself an “organic intellectual” and is a
community organizer and educator at the Center for Pan Asian Community Services, Inc.
She has published articles on Asian American women and the family and religious
experiences of Korean American women. Her most recent book is Bridge-Makers and
Cross-Bearers: Korean American Women and the Church.
KWOK Pui-lan is William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at
Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA. She received her doctorate from Harvard
Divinity School and has published extensively in Asian feminist theology, biblical
hermeneutics, and postcolonial criticism. Her books include Chinese Women and
Christianity, 1860-1927, Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World, and
Introducing Asian Feminist Theology (forthcoming). She is the co-chair of the Women
and Religion Section of the American Academy of Religion.
Nantawan Boonprasat LEWIS is Professor of Religious Studies and Ethnic Studies at
Metropolitan State University, Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota. Her doctorate is from
Princeton Theological Seminary and she has written many articles on the struggles of
Asian and Asian American women and has edited several books including Revolution of
Spirit. She recently serves as co-editor of Remembering Conquest: Feminist/Womanist
Perspectives on Religion, Colonialization and Sexual Violence (forthcoming). Her
current research is on women, religion, and AIDS in Thailand and neighboring countries.
Greer Anne Wenh-In NG is Associate Professor of Christian Education at Emmanuel
College, Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Canada, and faculty
coordinator of its Centre for Asian Theology. She is committed to feminist and liberative
pedagogies in theological and church education, to doing theology in an interdisciplinary
fashion as an Asian in the North American diaspora, and to women's struggle for
leadership in church and academia. For eight years she served on the Task Force for the
Globalization of Theological Education of the Association of Theological Schools. She is
a contributor to Harper's Enclyclpedia of Religious Education and the Dictionary of
Feminist Theologies, and more recently to People on the Way: Asian North Americans
Discovering Christ, Culture and Community and Multicultural Religious Education. She
is ordained in the United Church of Canada.
4
Seung Ai YANG was born in Korea and came to the US for graduate studies in 1984.
She received her doctorate from the Divinity School, University of Chicago, and is
currently Assistant Professor of Old Testament at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity of
the University of St. Thomas. From 1994 to 1998, she was Assistant Professor of New
Testament at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley and the Graduate Theological
Union. She has also taught at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea. Her current research
focuses on a Korean interpretation of the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount.
Gale A. YEE is currently the interim director of Studies in Feminist Liberation
Theologies at Episcopal Divinity School. She received her doctorate from the University
of St. Michael's, Toronto School of Theology and was Professor of Hebrew Bible at the
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN. She is the author of Composition and Tradition
in the Book of Hosea, Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John, the Hosea commentary in
The New Interpreter's Bible, and the editor of Judges and Method. She has chaired the
Women in the Biblical World Section as well as the Committee on Underrepresented
Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession of the Society of Biblical Literature. She is
the current president of Ethnic Chinese Biblical Colloquium.
5
INTRODUCTION
Who Are We?
The Asian and Asian American/Canadian women faculty who form the research
team of these two projects come from both theological schools and departments of
religion and sociology in universities in the United States and Canada. We had become
acquainted with one another chiefly in our role as faculty advisors to a network of Asian
and Asian American/Canadian women students and women in ministry who gather
annually for a conference known as Pacific, Asian, North American Asian Women in
Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM), now in its 14th year of existence.1 In this report,
Asian North American refers both to Asian Americans and Asian Canadians.
Why this Project?
As faculty advisors, we usually found ourselves acting in a variety of mentoring,
supporting, advising, leading, and generally “giving” capacities, which left us with not
much opportunity to get to know and engage one another as Asian and Asian North
American scholars. It was, therefore, a deeply felt need to spend time together as scholars
engaged on a research project of common concern that motivated us, among other
reasons, to apply for a Teaching and Learning in Education small grant from the
Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in the spring of 1998. The research topic was
agreed on because of its own significance and urgency, as well as its relevance to our
historical association with PANAAWTM. An additional grant from the Wabash Center
enables those of us teaching in universities to participate in the project. We are deeply
grateful to the support of the ATS and the Wabash Center.
6
Mid-term Progress
As outlined in the proposal, the project consists of pre-Consultation, Consultation
(scheduled for June, 1999), and post-Consultation phases. In February 1999, three
members represented the team at the ATS mid-point Teaching and Learning in
Theological Education Conference in Pittsburgh, and helpful feedback was received from
the scholars present. At that time, syllabi pertinent to the research area were collected and
a tentative list of pedagogical topics generated. In March, each member of the research
team agreed to a common reading list and a particular topic for a working paper.
The Consultation
Seven of the team met from June 10 to 15, 1999 at the Episcopal Divinity School,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, as planned.
1. We devoted the first part of the consultation to what we called “sharing our
intellectual journeys” after a brief, holistic, Asian-rich opening ritual. This sharing was an
informative, richly textured and moving time that allowed us to appreciate our history,
struggles, successes, and questions as serious scholars, spanning a range of disciplines
and subject areas (Bible, Theology, Sociology, Pastoral Theology/Religious Education,
Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies) and institutions.
2. We then discussed the common texts we had read, using the following to focus
our reflection:

Name three things that you find most helpful.

From the perspective of an Asian or Asian North American teacher, name two
things you want to add.
7
Our common texts included Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach (1998), Rebecca
Chopp’s Saving Work (1996), bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress (1994), Confronting
Diversity Issues on Campus by Benjamin P. Bowser, Gale S. Auletta, and Terry Jones
(1993), Rey Chow’s Writing Diaspora (1993), two additional essays by Chow and a
report on Asian American women in academia by Shirley Hune.2 Each member was
asked to read a novel written by an Asian American/Canadian female author. Numerous
insights and learnings were shared and a number of questions around the teaching
realities of Asian and Asian North America women faculty were raised, including that of
student evaluation and possible alternative course evaluation tools and strategies.
3. Working paper topics ranged from the canon of knowledge/ways of knowing
and pedagogical issues in the teaching of Asian and Asian North American women's
theologies, the social-cultural issues facing Asian and Asian American students and their
surviving and thriving in academia, to the identity of and challenges facing Asian and
Asian American/Canadian women faculty (as one paper puts it, “What difference does it
make if the teacher is an Asian American and a woman at that?”). They evoked
reflective, impassioned questioning, and often “aha” responses in an honest and open
exchange of ideas and sharing of experiences. The results of these discussions are
incorporated into the “communal paper” making up Part II and Part III of this report
below.
4. Copies of syllabi collected were circulated. We noticed, as will be explained in
Part I below, a number of features about them. Our response came in the form of some of
the recommendations under “Curriculum” later on. We agreed to keep on exchanging any
new courses on similar topics that we may develop in the future.
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5. We concluded our time together by evaluation of the consultation, formulating
recommendations to ATS and the Wabash Center, and identifying some follow-up steps.
An important follow-up step is the writing up of a final report that includes both our final
recommendations and a communal paper incorporating our discussions and reflections at
the consultation as well as the working papers. We also developed plans to share the
findings of the report with Asian and Asian North American colleagues and other faculty
interested in multicultural issues in theological education.
6. Worthy of special mention is the strengthening of the sense of community
among these scholars that happened not only in the scholarly exchanges and serious
working sessions, but just as powerfully in the informal times we spent together: in the
personal connections during walks or subway trips, in good natured banter and
comraderie erupting over good food and drink, in other seemingly insignificant day-today encounters. For this nurturing of personal as well as professional friendships in a
“time of our own,” we owe our granting agencies undying thanks, and know that we go
forth better equipped in more ways than one for our continued work.
PART I
THE TEACHING OF ASIAN AND ASIAN NORTH AMERICAN
WOMEN’S THEOLOGIES IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
Asian and Asian North American Presence in ATS Schools
In a project on teaching Asian and Asian North American women's theologies,
one needs to come face to face with certain realities of the theological education scene in
North America. According to ATS statistics, the percentage of Asian and Asian
American/Canadian faculty, including male and female, is about three percent.3 All of
9
these faculty teach in institutions which are predominantly Euro-Anglo in culturo-ethnic
mix: in other words, in most cases they are the sole Asian or Asian North American
member on the whole faculty. What impact does this isolation have on their functioning
as faculty, and specifically in their attempt to introduce Asian or Asian North American
perspectives into their respective theological disciplines? What extra constraints or
requirements are placed on their struggle to teach as effectively and faithfully as they
would like? And, for the even rarer Asian American or Asian Canadian women faculty,
what special opportunities or hindrances surface as they carry out their teaching among a
student body that is usually more Asian than Asian North American, even when the
Asian-heritage presence is noticeable? (We realized early on that, where Asian North
American studies are concerned, much more had been done in universities than
theological schools--hence the inclusion of women teaching in secular universities in this
project became crucial.) And what about the dynamics of teaching primarily white or
other non-Asian students? These issues became central in the deliberations of the team
during their June consultation.
Curricular Constraints
As team members shared their existing course materials and hopes for new
courses, they soon came to the realization that almost none of them had the luxury of
offering within the formal curriculum of their schools complete courses devoted to Asian
or Asian North American theologies, let alone women’s theologies from these contexts.
What they have had to do is to include these as components in their courses whose
“explicit curriculum” might be spirituality/women's spirituality, ecofeminism, biblical
studies, contextual theology, or women's religious lives. Sometimes it was possible to
10
include it within or alongside a ministry or pastoral rubric. And, because so much of
Asian and Asian North American women’s theologies grow out of women’s life and
religious experience, works of fiction are found to offer a rich source for theological
reflection from such perspectives. Apart from regular courses, some have found a channel
in directing graduate women students who wish to major in Asian or Asian North
American women’s issues in their dissertations and related guided tutorials/reading
courses.
Alternate Venues
What this means is that many team members find themselves teaching some form
of such theologies and spiritualities outside as well as in the classroom at theological
school--congregationally, denominationally, or ecumenically-sponsored continuing
education events, as theme speakers in conferences or as workshop leaders within
conferences, or as guest preachers. Some of these events are sponsored by Centers for
Asian and Asian American/Canadian Theology and/or Ministry such as those that exist at
Princeton Theological Seminary, the Claremont School of Theology, McCormick
Theological Seminary, Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Knox College in Toronto, and
Emmanuel College in Toronto. And often they exercise their ministry of teaching in the
books and articles they write for publication in both North America and in Asia (see
bibliography in Appendix 1). Perhaps there needs to be more intentional “linking”
between the Centers and the schools, so that the teaching that goes on can be made
available to a wider audience, and so that their publication can benefit not just church
people, but also academia, especially for those faculty and students seeking resources in
this particular area.
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PART II
TEACHING MATERIALS AND INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
FOR TEACHING ASIAN AND ASIAN NORTH ANERICAN
WOMEN’S THEOLOGIES
Challenging the Canon of Theological Knowledge
During the last two decades feminist, womanist theologians, and scholars of color
have challenged Eurocentric assumptions of what counts for knowledge in general and
theological knowledge in particular. These are assumptions that theological educators
bring to the classroom about knowing and who knows. Such assumptions affect the “what
and how” of the transmission of knowledge and have important implications for whose
scholarship is included and whose is left out. The challenges from the formerly
marginalized groups cast doubts on the so-called “master narratives” in our disciplines
and on the canon of theological knowledge in general. As Kwok Pui-lan has stated: “In
theological education, a large part of the curriculum has been the study of the lives and
thought of white, male, Euro-American theologians, to the exclusion of many other
voices. More importantly, the theologies done by these people are considered normative,
which set the standards and parameters of what ‘theology’ should be.”4
Asian and Asian North American women theologians point to the contextual,
historical, and political nature of knowledge, and urge theological educators to embrace a
plurality of knowledge and diverse cultural styles of knowing. Resistance to integrating
other perspectives into the curriculum to a great extent stems from the assumption that
the canon of knowledge is fixed and universal, defined by the white, male, European
experience. This assumption was fostered by the way most of the theological educators
were historically trained in our disciplines. Throughout our graduate training, many of us
12
were minimally exposed to the scholarship of feminist theologians and theologians of
color, and seldom had the privilege of having been mentored by faculty of color. With
more and more scholars of color entering the profession, we hope this trend will be
changed in the near future.
To critically examine how the white, male, European canon of knowledge was
shaped, feminist educators have called attention to the issues of privilege and power that
are implied in the mainstream curriculum. As Karen J. Warren points out:
Feminists argue that the mainstream curriculum is a feminist issue because an
understanding of it can and should contribute to an understanding of the
oppression of women. With regard to mainstream scholarship, feminists
continually press the questions “For whom?” “According to whom?” This
penchant for contextualizing discourse in this way has led feminists to insist on
marking traditional academic disciplines with their appropriate prefixes . . .With
the appropriate prefixes, it becomes at least an open question whether that
philosophy is truly representative or inclusive of the realities of workers, women
and men of color, non-Westerners, of the multiple realities of diverse groups of
people.5
Challenging the biases in the traditional assumptions of knowledge production and
transmission is a critical step in transforming the existing curriculum. It will clearly imply
a paradigm shift in our theoretical and theological framework and assumptions of
knowledge that one brings to the classroom. In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks
shares her vision of education as the practice of freedom. She writes:
If we examine critically the traditional role of the university in the pursuit of truth
13
and sharing of knowledge and information, it is painfully clear that biases that
uphold and maintain white supremacy, imperialism, sexism, and racism have
distorted education so that it is no longer about the practice of freedom. The call
for a recognition of cultural diversity, a rethinking of ways of knowing, a
deconstruction of old epistemologies, and the concomitant demand that there be a
transformation in our classrooms, in how we teach and what we teach, has been a
necessary revolution.”6
Transformation of the curriculum from monocultural to multicultural needs to be
accompanied by pedagogical change from the faculty in order to live out their
convictions in the classroom. It will require some new learning of the history of groups
that have been invisible, their cultures and their lived experience as well as the social
construction of categories such as race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and disability.
At times this new learning creates resistance from the faculty, as they feel inadequately
prepared to deal with the diverse teaching materials and dynamics in the multicultural
classroom. As hooks correctly observes: “The unwillingness to approach teaching from a
standpoint that includes awareness of race, sex, and class is often rooted in the fear that
classrooms will be uncontrollable, that emotions and passions will not be contained.”7
Thus, it is important that faculty are provided with the continued support they will
certainly need as they implement a transformative curriculum and pedagogy.
Ways of knowing certainly imply ways of teaching. The construction of a gender
and race balanced curriculum must first be embraced by the whole faculty. As Johnnella
E. Butler states: “A review of feminist pedagogy over the past fifteen years or so reveals
a call for teaching from multifocal, multidimensional, multicultural, interdisciplinary
14
perspectives.”8 To be able to live out an understanding of the plurality of knowledge and
ways of teaching that takes seriously differences of students’ experience, is to use Paulo
Freire’s phrase, to practice a pedagogy of hope—a defense of tolerance and radicalness
and a true practice of education as liberating action.
Development of Asian and Asian North American Women’s Theologies
Asian feminist theology developed in the context of women’s heightened
awareness of their subordinate position in the church and society. Earlier feminist
writings of Christian women can be found in church yearbooks, college bulletins,
pamphlets, religious journals, and YWCA magazines. Since the late 1970s, Asian
Christian women began to create their own theological networks through the Women’s
Desk of the Christian Conference of Asia and the Women’s Commission of the
Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians. The Asian women’s theological
journal In God’s Image was launched in 1982 by Sun Ai Lee Park, and the Asian
Women’s Resource Centre for Culture and Theology was established in 1988. At the
same time, associations of theologically trained women were formed in various countries,
including Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines. Asian women have met
nationally and regionally to discuss patriarchy in the church and society, the relationship
between Gospel and culture, feminist biblical interpretation, and collaboration with
women of other faith traditions.
Since the Bible is preeminent in church life in Asia, many feminist theological
writings focus on reinterpretation of the Bible. Some emphasize women’s heritage in the
Bible, trying to recover the memory of biblical women such as Naomi and Ruth, Hannah,
Miriam, Deborah, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, as strong role
15
models. Others have reclaimed biblical women as subjects with their own thoughts,
feelings, and voice through storytelling, dramatization, and creative performance. Asian
feminist theologians have also tried to demonstrate the relevance of the Bible to
contemporary struggle using insights from socio-political analyses and cultural
anthropology. Through the process of dialogical imagination, they tried to relate the
biblical story to the myths, legends, and folklore in Asia. An emerging approach is to
interpret the Bible with the help of cultural studies and postcolonial theories. These
various approaches have shown that the Bible is a complex document, which must be
critically scrutinized through the lens of women’s struggles in order to be used as a
resource for liberation.
Living in a religiously pluralistic world, Asian feminist theologians are influenced
by the religious language and symbolic structure of their cultural environment when they
speak about God. They have begun to formulate new theological constructions of God,
Christ, Mary, and the Church. Jesus is seen as a fully liberated human being, a priest of
han, and the embodiment of the feminine and creative principle of the universe, shakti, in
different contexts. An emerging life-affirming, compassionate, and energizing spirituality
celebrates religious and cultural diversity, the interrelatedness of all things, and the
sacredness of the earth. Rediscovering the power of subversive protest in popular Asian
religions, such as shamanism, Asian feminist theologians pay increasing attention to the
theological aspirations of the indigenous peoples, the dalits, minorities, and refugees,
who are left out in the so-called economic “development” of Asia.9
Asian North American women’s theology emerged from multiple oppression as
racial minority women in America. Many Asian North American women in divinity
16
schools and religion departments have to find their “theological home” because of
marginalization within both the churches and the Asian North American communities.10
They have not been encouraged to seek advanced degrees in theology and many go into
ministry after their theological studies because they do not see the possibilities of going
into teaching and research, since there are so few role models and mentors. Asian North
American women’s theology must address their multiple and hybridized identities, and
their sense of always situated “in-between.” As Rita Nakashima Brock has written, Asian
North American feminist theology destabilizes fixed national, ethnic, and cultural
boundaries and struggles to express “interstitial integrity,” true to their multiple selves.11
Since Asian North American communities are so diverse, theological reflections
from Asian North American women also take very different routes. Several significant
studies evaluate how Christian women in immigrant and ethnic churches negotiate their
identities and the role of religion in cultural passage from Asia to America.12 Others
recover archival materials on early history of Asian immigrant women and their
autobiographies and writings as resources to understand their religious experience and
theological quest.13 A group of scholars are developing an anthology on critical
understanding of Asian American religions and cultures. Those in religious education and
pastoral fields focus on developing inclusive worship and liturgical resources for use in
the local congregations.14
Although Asian and Asian North American women theologians and scholars have
developed a sizable amount of written materials, these resources have seldom been
integrated into the theological curriculum to enrich the understanding of students. There
17
is a dire need to develop syllabi and curricular materials to teach this emerging body of
literature.
Pedagogical Approaches
We teach our best when we “teach from the heart,” by being who we genuinely
are, with our full integrity and ignoring no facet of our identity. This much Parker Palmer
has convincingly demonstrated in his latest volume, The Courage to Teach. It is the inner
life of the teacher, rather than any number of techniques or skills, that makes teaching
effective. To what extent, then, is the conscious choice of one pedagogical approach over
another a real choice? Would it not already be dictated by who we are as
teachers/learners? For many Asian and Asian North American theological educators
whose cultural identity is so much shaped by a Confucian ethos (whether we are
conscious of it or not), it might be assumed that Confucian ways of teaching would
predominate. It might also be assumed that our Asian and Asian North American students
would have been similarly socialized and therefore expect to be taught in certain ways.
A selection of such assumptions internalized by both faculty and students of
Asian heritage includes the following, taken mostly from examples in the Analects.
1. Teaching by example. On one point, at least, both Palmer and Confucius agree:
the personal integrity and quality of life of the teacher is paramount. This is something
the teacher attains after much striving, not something born with. In this sense, part of the
authority of the teacher is what has been described as “achieved authority” in addition to
“ascribed authority,”15 that which is given because of the teacher’s rank (professor).
Social status, age or sex are major considerations in Asian cultures. One can easily see
the problem when the teacher is either of the same age or younger than the students (a not
18
infrequent occurrence in theological schools these days), and female when many Asian
theological students are male.
2. Employing dialogue in teaching, as in the Analects. Students can help
determine the curriculum by bringing questions and problems to the Master. Sometimes
Confucius would initiate questions himself as well. Since only men were accepted into
his circle of students (reputedly three thousand in all, with seventy-two in an inner circle),
women’s lives, issues, and perspectives never formed part of this great classical
educator’s curriculum. Hence the need for our present project!
3. Teaching without distinction of [social-economic] class. Confucius was among
the first who set up “private schools” to make classical and moral teaching-learning
available to the “cotton clothed,” that is, commoners rather than the aristocracy. He
would charge a sliding scale of fees according to the student’s ability to pay, sometimes
taking in payment in the form of farm animals or produce.
4. Teaching according to the potential of the student. In this respect Confucius
practiced “individualized teaching” and “customized curriculum” long before our time.
Taking both the knowledge level and the personality traits of individual students into
account, he would often give different responses to the same question, or advise contrary
courses of action for the same problem posed. Such an approach may seem too idealistic
for overworked professors trying to survive. And how much flexibility would be allowed
by institutions anxious to maintain “standards?”
5. Teaching morals and wisdom, not just “knowledge.” Confucius was wont to
declare that he was not an innovator: he only wanted to preserve the wisdom, teaching,
ritual practices and skills (including writing poetry and playing musical instruments) of
19
the ancients and pass these on to those who are sincere in desiring to learn. The analogy
in theological education today would be advocating the importance of spiritual formation
as well as theological knowledge and ministry skills.16
Asian and Asian North American women faculty, however, are not replicas of
Confucius, nor do we wish to be, no matter how much Confucian ideas and practices still
influence us. For one thing, all of us have been educated in the west. Those among us
growing up in North America have been exposed to Dewey with his attention to
experience in learning, to process, and to social learning. Many of us have been
captivated by Paulo Freire’s analysis of the ills of the “banking” system of education and
have moved more toward a “learning circle” approach of teaching.17 Most of us have
adopted feminist practices that try to downplay hierarchy in the classroom, opting instead
for a more democratic way of functioning.18 The question arises when these convictions
are not shared by our students, especially students coming from Asian and other “high
context” cultures19 who do not appreciate the attendant democratic practices. Trying to
be faithful to Confucius’ example of contextualizing teaching, how do we discern when
to employ which approach, and when to make concessions because of students’ needs?
Some Asian students need to view “the professor” as the expert with the requisite
store of knowledge and wisdom which they expect to have transmitted to them-expectations fitting the traditional “banking” model rather than either a Freirian or
feminist circle model or a “homemaking” model of instruction.20 For optimal learning, at
the start they may need to listen to us give input more than being required to share their
own ideas or to raise questions. At the same time, as Asian and Asian North American
feminist teachers, we may have to recognize that to “give our power away” too
20
drastically in the classroom may strip us of much of our authority as teachers, on top of
its unconscious erosion by the perceptions of society in general because of our ethnocultural and gender minority status.
A related dilemma arises when as adult educators we urge students to bring their
own experience and perspectives to build up the store of knowledge of a particular
course. These students may feel cheated of their expectations of “being taught” by the
receiving of objective knowledge instead of what they feel to be “sharing the ignorance”
of their classmates. This sharing is particularly indispensable in courses on Asian and
Asian North American theologies and spiritualities, where resources are limited and
where much of the issues to theologize on must therefore come out of people’s and their
communities’ lives. We have discovered that using novels by Asian and Asian
American/Canadian writers is one way of providing some “material” and “objective”
content they can then learn to reflect on.
Add to this felt need by these students to observe the hierarchy between professor
and student, the pedagogical challenge gets more complicated, as identities are constantly
being renegotiated. We might have to discern where some compromises, such as allowing
oneself to be addressed as “Professor so and so” rather by one’s first name, can be done
with integrity, or that to permit a male Asian student to carry one’s heavy books is not to
bow to male chauvinism, but simply to allow that student to feel he is being true to his
role as he perceives it.
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Learning Styles, Teaching Styles
Another value brought by the traditional Asian student is the expectation of
learning in a highly literary form--that is, using the written word. Verbal discussion
(lectures excepted), pictures, music, movement, embodied exercises--all are discounted
as being of lesser or no learning value. This poses a dilemma for the enlightened teacher
who is aware of the variety of people’s learning styles and wishes to incorporate more
active learning activities in the classroom.21 The dilemma is accentuated for teachers
convinced by the multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner and wish to be more
holistic in their classroom practice. They want to make sure that they tend to the needs of
those high in spatial (visual), musical, and kinesthetic (bodily) intelligence as well as to
the needs of those high in the more traditionally prized linguistic (word) and
mathematical-logical intelligence; to those who are high in personal (self-reflective) as
well as interpersonal intelligence.22 Perhaps the call here is for teachers to find out
enough about their students, and to trust their good will, to introduce more inclusive and
holistic activities gradually, and not to expect instant acclaim! Incidentally, this will
apply whether our students are of Asian heritage or not, although the Asian heritage ones
may have suppressed their non-linguistic, non-logical intelligences more because of
cultural factors.
Teachers would do well, therefore, to become knowledgeable about their own as
well as their students’ learning styles so that they may avoid teaching only in their
favorite style, or simply because they feel students need to learn something new in fresh
ways. David Kolb’s “Learning Styles Inventory,” an instrument to identify the extent to
which individuals naturally prefer the “abstract conceptualization” pole as opposed to the
22
“concrete experience” pole, or the “reflective observation” pole as opposed to the “active
experimentation” pole, could be a helpful diagnostic tool for both teacher and student in a
new classroom encounter.23 Then we could vary our approaches to ensure that
everyone’s preferences are taken into account, and yes, that occasionally everyone is also
invited to try to learn in some ways not familiar to them.
Teaching about Racism
In Canada and the United States, issues between the blacks and the whites
dominate much of the discussion on racism, to the extent that very few students have
adequate knowledge about the diverse cultures and histories of Asian North Americans
and their struggles. While Asian and Asian North American faculty face racism on a
daily basis, teaching and facilitating discussion on volatile issues, such as race relations,
require much training and skills. Sometimes, minority faculty become scapegoats for
bringing up the issue of race, especially when the school is not ready for it and the
political culture of the school is against it. Two resources are helpful for minority faculty.
In her analysis of modern racism, Valerie Batts identifies the following behavioral
patterns of those who display modern racism and those who internalize oppression, and
these patterns often reinforce one another24:
Behavioral Manifestations of Modern Racism and Internalized Oppression
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Modern Racism
Dysfunctional rescuing
Blaming the victim
Avoidance of contact
Denial of difference
Denial of political
significance of differences
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Internalized Oppression
System beating
Blaming the system
Anti-white avoidance of contact
Denial of cultural heritage
Lack of understanding of the
political significance of differences
23
Another resource is Beverly Daniel Tatum’s important study of the diverse patterns of
racial identity development for white students and African American students and their
implications in the classroom.25 Her study would be helpful for Asian and Asian North
American faculty to develop appropriate strategies for helping students to talk about race.
Racial Identity Development Theory
White Students
(by Janet Helms)
1. Contact
2. Disintegration
3. Reintegration
4. Pseudo-Independent
5. Imersion/Emersion
6. Autonomy
African American Students
(by William Cross)
1. Preencounter
2. Encounter
3. Imersion/Emersion
4. Internalization
5. Integration/Commitment
Classroom Dynamics
While much has been written on feminist pedagogical issues, there has been a
critical lack of research on the complex and multilayered power dynamics in the
classroom when the teacher is a minority woman. The complexity is a result of her
multiple subject positions in the classroom: as a teacher, she has some authority over the
students, but as a racial minority woman, she is marginalized by the white mainstream.
Thus, white feminist assumptions of pedagogy, which center on discrimination because
of gender, may not apply to her situation.
The stereotypical images of Asian and Asian North American women as gentle,
soft-spoken, and submissive often work against them, as they want to claim authority as
teachers in the classroom. On the other hand, students may find these faculty members to
be too strict and demanding, because most of them have grown up in cultures with
tremendous respect for their teachers, who have high expectations for their students. The
24
cultural difference of American and Asian styles of teaching and learning is compounded
by the pedagogical debates surrounding the feminist classroom. While it is generally
accepted that a feminist teacher should agree to share power, some students have used it
as an excuse to undercut the authority and power of minority women faculty. While some
educators have hailed a student-centered pedagogy, this model could translate into the
domination of the white students over the discussion and agenda of the whole class, if
steps have not been taken to empower minority students. Letting the white students set
the agenda could change the class into a therapeutic session, in which students become
preoccupied with their own issues or individual pain, instead of focusing on broader
social and political issues. Racial minority students have to take enormous risks to name
their own truth and oppression. Seldom having the luxury of a “safe space,” racial
minority students could be accused of ruining the “safe space” of white students when
they raise the difficult issue of racism.
Negotiating the unspoken cultural and gender-based assumptions of authority and
power is not easy, as one teacher shares her story of coming to terms with the identity of
being a teacher. Reflecting upon her reluctance to see herself as a teacher, she begins to
understand that it has much to do with the multiple layers of cultural translations and
seemingly contradictory role expectations attached to being a racial, woman, minority,
and a teacher all simultaneously. Furthermore, the “naturalized” and “universalized”
assumption of what Audre Lorde calls “what the white fathers told us: I think, therefore I
am”26 also plays an undeniable role in inhibiting her from making a self-definition as a
teacher. Taught to rely on the individualistic and cognitive process as the normative way
of learning, she has been asked to relegate her learning experiences based on gut-level
25
feelings and guidance from ancestors as secondary. Since much of her own valuable
learning experiences were thought to be insignificant, no wonder she has to struggle with
her self-identity as a teacher.
Growing up in a white-dominated culture, Asian North American women faculty
often find that they have to rely on survival strategies learned in other contexts. For
example, a 1.5 generation Korean American woman shares her story of learning from
childhood experience. One of her early recollections of being a “teacher” of some sort
took place in the form of becoming a translator and a representative of her parents. As
they used their native tongue to express and communicate, she was assigned the role of
translating what they said into English. Translating one language into another is not a
mechanical process, but a skill that requires both cross-cultural knowledge and
sensitivities. Forced into a position of a “child-teacher,” she had to communicate across
lines of generation, language, and life experiences. It was a peculiar status she occupied,
in which none of the assumed dichotomies and hierarchies maintained their conventional
power and meanings. She intuitively understood early on that teaching could lead to the
state of anomie that was both discomforting and exciting.
If the “child-teacher” in her has learned the process and the state of anomie in
teaching, the community-activist-teacher in her has learned that teaching can take place
as bridging cultures and advocating necessary structural changes to realize “justice for
all.” Deeply rooted in and working with locally based pan-Asian communities, she
concurs with Katie Geneva Cannon that “liberation ethics is something we do;
epistemology is accepting the findings we come to know.”27 Just as Cannon suggests
womanist pedagogy to be “the process by which we bring this kind of knowing about
26
African American women into relation with a justice-praxis for members of our species
and the wider environment in which we are situated,”28 Asian American women’s
pedagogy is also deeply rooted in lived experiences of being cultural/linguistic
translators, representatives, cultural brokers, and advocates for social changes to actualize
“justice for all.”
Teaching with a commitment to anti-racism is a fine balancing act. While some
students would embrace such a pedagogical approach, others might hesitate to accept it or
even feel resistance. Constant check-in and feedback throughout the semester is,
therefore, crucial to bring all students on board. The students are not without power in the
educational setting. Their evaluation of the performance of faculty and their critical
feedback to the administration often affect the hiring, retention, and promotion of the
teacher. In reviewing evaluation of the class, the administration needs to be sensitive to
cultural assumptions and power dynamics in a multicultural classroom.
The Use of Multimedia in Teaching
Except for the few students who have studied Asian culture and civilization,
North American students hardly know the facts and realities of Asian peoples’ lives out
of which Asian women’s theology emerged. Many lack the knowledge of the diversity of
Asian cultures, languages, and histories, and Chinese culture is often mistaken as
representing all Asian cultures because of the early immigration of the Chinese. To help
students understand the richness and diversity of Asian cultures, students must be
exposed to the different facets of Asian cultures, both inside and outside the classroom.
Some of these strategies will also be helpful in teaching Asian North American women’s
theology.
27

Assign students to read religious classics, such as the Tao Te Ching, and feminist
novels, such as The Butcher’s Wife by Li Ang (Taiwanese).

Show slides from The Bible through Asian Eyes by Masao Takenaka and Ron
O’Grady, and on Asian arts, temples, and architecture.

A tour through Chinatown to discuss problems facing new immigrants and refugees.

Visit Buddhist, Muslim, and religious sites in the neighborhood.

Teach students songs from Sound the Bamboo, published by the Christian Conference
of Asia or from other resources from the Asian Institute of Liturgy and Music.

Other resources include movies from Asia and entries in the Encarta Encyclopedia
(CD)
In introducing resources from Asia, care must be taken to avoid the attitude of “cultural
sampling” or even voyeurism. This often relies on the integrity of the teacher and the
way the course is conducted. In addition, both the strengths and the weaknesses of Asian
cultures must be discussed to avoid the impression of a monolithic Asia and the one-sided
portrayal of some Asian countries in the news media, as they are often clouded by current
political agenda.
A very powerful way of introducing students to the Asian religious and
community life is through religious rituals, which reenact the beliefs and values of Asian
peoples. Religious rituals open the window to understand the religiosity of the masses,
which cannot be gleaned from studying religious texts and philosophical ideas. The
rituals in their original settings should be explained and students must be given the
opportunity not to participate if they are not ready to do so. Students should also be
encouraged to create their own rituals for class. Again, the teacher needs to cultivate a
28
sense of respect for these rituals and the issues of misappropriating other people’s
spiritual and cultural resources need to be discussed.29 Some of the rituals, chanting, and
movements that can be introduced include:

Rituals created by Asian women found in In God’s Image and the proceedings of
their ecumenical meetings.

Ritual for International AIDS Day and other events by Christian Conference of Asia.

Buddhist chanting and walking meditation, Tai Chi.

Videotape of Chung Hyun Kyung’s presentation at the 7th Assembly of the World
Council of Churches.
Since most theological schools or religious departments do not have a collection
of Asian or Asian North American audio-visual materials, the teacher has to encourage
the school to set aside budgets to acquire these materials. The following are beginning
steps to build a collection.

Maintain contacts with ecumenical organizations in Asia, such as the Christian
Conference of Asia, to be informed of their resources.

Acquire slides on culture, religion, and architecture of Asian countries.

Order videos from PBS (e.g. Bill Moyer’s Healing of the Mind series, vol. one is on
Chinese healing)

Visit local video stores: Chinese and Chinese American movies such as To Live,
Farewell my Concubine, and The Wedding Banquet are readily available.

Use community resources: Buddhist Zen Center, Kung Fu Tai Chi Institute.

Borrow slides and materials from other university libraries

The World Wide Web offers tremendous resources for classroom teaching if the
29
school has adequate equipment.
PART III
ASIAN AND ASIAN NORTH AMERICAN WOMEN AS
FACULTY AND STUDENTS
Issues Facing the Faculty
Some American students have never had an Asian or Asian North American
faculty teaching them before, and many find it a novelty to see one of them teaching
Christianity, and not Asian religions. This indicates that students still assume Christianity
as a western tradition, although Christianity was born in the western part of Asia and the
majority of Christians are living in the South. Many white students think that faculty of
Asian descent are best equipped to teach Asian and Asian North American theology, and
not white male theologians. This is ironic since most of them were trained in American
universities, where they were required to master the texts of white male theologians
before they were allowed to do creative work in their specialties. While white faculty
(especially men) can teach Asian religions and any other subjects or traditions, minority
faculty are often consigned to be “spokespersons” for their own cultures because of
complex identity politics in academia today.
Survival in academia in these days often impinges on the ability to discern and
juggle with seemingly contradictory demands of the faculty’s time and energy. One such
binary opposition is between teaching and researching. But many Asian and Asian North
American women faculty experience the call to teach and to do research as two sides of
the same coin, just as Parker Palmer calls the relationship between learning and teaching
30
as a “paradox.”30 They feel that becoming a disciplined student is what is required of
good teaching. Another binary opposite that is often constructed is between academic
work and activism in the community. But many Asian and Asian North American women
faculty are committed scholars as well as deeply connected with their communities and
movements to end racism, domestic violence, and other forms of oppression. From their
lived experience, the boundary between the inside and outside of academia is often
blurred and the continuum between learning and teaching is highlighted.
For those teaching in large urban secular universities, classrooms are hardly
places that are isolated from “real life,” but are expressions of the surrounding culture
and society. The majority of the students work at least part-time, if not full time, while
pursuing their own academic credentials. Contents and processes of what and how the
faculty teach in class can hardly be devoid of issues related to socio-economic status.
Discarding class-based experiences as invisible will make learning irrelevant to these
students’ lives. Furthermore, the “feminization” of classes that pertains to studying
religion is a documentable phenomenon at many secular universities. This feminization
of classes in religious studies urges critical probing of whose interests are served by
knowledge shared in academia. As the faculty struggles to share experiences and analysis
of religion as an Asian and Asian North American woman, students can also experience
the phrase “gender, race, and class” not as a mantra of postmodernity, but as a “litany in
the attempt to transform Eurocentric patriarchal studies into multicultural, nonracist, nonsexist, nonelitist education.”31 This is not to say that the Asian or Asian North American
women faculty in the classroom would automatically enable students to critically assess
31
complex intersections of race, gender, and class, but that they are constantly reminded of
how these three and other inseparable aspects of being who we are as humans.
Most Asian and Asian North American women faculty are lone voices in their
departments. As pioneers in their schools, they have few role models to look up to and
mentors to consult. Where racial politics are still largely defined by black and white,
these women faculty often find their issues ignored while they are called upon to serve as
mediators for black and white racial conflicts. In addition, they feel the pressure to work
harder, to publish more, and to be highly visible and involved in school affairs to
overcome their multiple discrimination by the dominant society. As a result, these women
are overworked, overburdened, and overtaxed, with little time left for family, recreation,
and renewal. When their scholarly work is undervalued by the white institutions, they do
not have fruitful feedback from their colleagues. Since there are few networks and forums
to discuss their theological issues, they often lack dialogical partners who understand
their cultural background and perspectives. The lack of intellectual exchange hinders
their professional development and circumscribes the contributions they can make to
their respective disciplines. Shirley Hune discusses issues pertaining to Asian Pacific
American women:
APA faculty women list the lack of mentoring, the absence of a sense of
community with their colleagues, among their concerns. They feel APA women
are generally devalued in their departments and evaluated differently. Their
theoretical perspectives, publications, and creative work, especially those
involving ethnic and women’s issues, are frequently disregarded by peers who
consider APA women’s contributions lacking in academic merit . . .Their
32
concerns may be doubted by whites and occasionally by other minorities, who do
not see Asian Pacific Americans as racially disadvantaged.32
Differences between Asian and Asian North American Students
Although Asian and Asian North American students may look similar from
outside, they have very different life experiences and national and cultural identities.
Asian women identify themselves primarily with their country of origin, nationality, and
cultural backgrounds. Asian North Americans have hyphenated identities and are often
situated on the boundaries of different racial and ethnic groups. While many Asian North
American women identify racism as a primary form of marginalization, many Asian
women point to colonialism, militarism, struggle for democracy, and economic
exploitation in global capitalism as causes of their oppression. Many do not want to be
identified as “women of color” because they have not been defined according to color or
race in their own countries.
Asian North American women are not encouraged by the mainstream culture to
study their Asian cultural roots. The first, 1.5, second and third generation relate to Asian
cultural heritage in significantly different ways. To counteract racism in America, some
Asian North American women have cultivated a romantic sense of “belonging” to Asia,
while others harbor opposite feelings because of the conservatism of Asian American
communities. At the same time, Asian women often know little about the struggles of
Asian North America women before coming to study here. They were exposed more to
white culture because of the domination of CNN and other global news media.
Since English is their second language, many Asian women students experience
difficulty in expressing themselves adequately both orally and in written form. For Asian
33
North American women students, there is the difference of ability to communicate in
Asian languages, depending on how many generations their families have been in
America. In addition, Asian and Asian North American women have diverse body
language and different understandings of silence.
Class is also a divisive issue among the Asian and Asian North American
students. Because of the different pace of economic “development” in Asia, those
students from the more industrialized countries such as Japan, Korea, and Singapore may
have more resources than those coming from poorer countries. There are also significant
class differences among different ethnic groups within the Asian North American
communities. Many Asians think that Asian North Americans are Americans and
Canadians, members of first world countries, and some Asian North Americans say the
Asian students are leaders of their churches and communities before coming to study, and
they are members of the elite, though they come from the Two-Thirds world.
As two marginalized groups, they are often treated differently by white faculty
and students. It makes a difference if the answer to the often-asked question, “Where are
your from?” is “California” or “Korea, China, and India.” Some white folks tend to be
more hospitable to the Asian students because of their patronizing attitude toward Third
World people. It is easier to deal with issues further away than with racism at home.
Furthermore, Asian North Americans are here to stay and compete with white folks for
resources and job opportunities.33
Although these two groups of students are different, they are also linked in many
ways. For example, stereotypical images of Asian countries and Asian people affect the
ways the mainstream culture looks at Asian North Americans. The rising economic
34
power of the Pacific Rim affects social and political relations between the US, Canada,
and Asian countries. Global capitalism has challenged the boundaries of national identity,
and the issues of migration, diaspora, and transnationality have increasingly linked Asia
and North America. More and more Asian and Asian North American women have to
negotiate new identities in the midst of economic restructuring, change of political
cultures, and emerging critique of national and cultural identification in a postcolonial
and postmodern world.34
Issues Facing Asian North American Women Students
Although once considered the “yellow peril,”35 Asian North Americans are
subjected nowadays to an insidious racial stereotype of the “model minority.”36 The
stereotype is fueled by a perception of them as high achieving “whiz kids,” who
overcame racism and succeeded in American society through a combination of discipline,
hard work, quiet perseverance, tightly-knit family cohesion, and respect for and
submission to authority. This stereotype belies the fact that not all of them are successful,
and that there are significant socio-economic differences among their ethnic groups.
Moreover, the stereotype has been used as an ideological weapon by the dominant white
society to shame and discredit other racial/ethnic groups, and obscures the very real ways
in which Asian North Americans suffer racial discrimination in this society. 37
Asian North American women are adversely affected by the “model minority”
stereotype in particular ways. Feeling pressured to succeed by parents and institutions,
they suffer acutely from “achievement” stress while negotiating hurdles that do not
usually afflict their male counterparts. Although their families support the education of
daughters, in general, a greater portion of the family resources is usually apportioned to
35
sons. Often, families finance a daughter’s education, not for her own intellectual
development, but to enable her to secure a higher paying job to support the household.
Asian North American parents regularly send mixed signals to their daughters. First
generation Cambodian, Hmong, and Punjabi families would encourage education for
females while conveying traditional beliefs that it could make girls too independent, or
delay or prevent future marriages.38 Moreover, in some Filipino- and South PacificAmerican homes, girls are socialized into traditional domestic roles such as cooking,
cleaning, and caring for siblings, which regularly conflict with their educational
responsibilities.39
Asian North American women suffer from the complex convergence of
sexualized racial stereotypes and racialized gender stereotypes,40 in a particular twist on
the madonna/whore image. On the one hand, they are exoticized as Dragon Ladies,
ruthless, dangerous, and erotically-charged. On the other hand, as “the China Doll,
Geisha Girl, and shy Polynesian beauty,”41 they are fantasized as the pliant, submissive,
ever-loyal companion who gratifies every sexual whim of western male libido. These
western male images of Asian North American women converge with colonial and neocolonial history to construct the idealized “Oriental” woman, a Madame Butterfly, who is
desired over the liberated western woman and her outspoken ways. This idealization
takes an insidious materialist dimension when one considers the sex trade industry in
Asian countries that cater to western male fantasies.42
Besides the implicit racism in the “model minority” stereotype and sexualized
racial stereotypes, Asian North American females must contend with internalized
oppression, what Osajima calls “the hidden injuries of racism.”43 One way in which
36
internalized racism is expressed is through a distaste for one’s Asian identity and a desire
to be white, or “more American.” This desire to be “more American” or “more Canadian”
leads to uneasiness around foreign-born Asians, in particular. Furthermore, internalized
racism is manifested in anxieties about how the Asian North American individual is
perceived by the white majority. Asian North American students have coped with racial
incidents primarily through deflection, non-confrontation, and blending into the
mainstream,44 mechanisms which are exacerbated by their traditional reluctance to call
attention to themselves.
Asian North American women must also negotiate divided multiple identities, in
ways that white American women do not. They must deal with the complexities involved
in their Asian American identity, along with their gender and sexual identities. Issues of
inculturation and diversity that mark the Asian North American experience cannot be
ignored.45 One cannot generalize about the construction of identity for Asian North
American women and their personal inculturation into this society precisely because of
the plurality of these women. This plurality is ethnically diverse, comprised of Chinese,
Japanese, Sri Lankan, Korean, Filipina, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian,
Hmong, Thai, East Indian, Burmese, Samoan, Hawaiian, and Malaysian nationalities,
among others. Each of these nationalities has its own conflicted immigration history into
this country.
This plurality is also regionally diverse, contributing to differing senses of being
“American” and “Asian.” Those who live in California, with its high concentration of
Asian Americans, or those who grow up in “Chinatowns” or “Little Saigons,” will have
much different understandings of their Asian American identities than those who grow up
37
isolated from each other in the deep South, Midwest, and East Coast. Different regions in
the US will have particular ideas about what it means to be an American, which an Asian
North American must reckon with in the construction of her own identity.
Finally, this plurality is culturally diverse. Some Asian North Americans are
immigrants from Asian countries who have come to this country at various times, as
infants, adolescents, or adults. Others are born in the US of dual Asian parentage, while a
good number of them are products of Asian/white parentage. Others come into the US as
adoptees for white childless couples, and are raised in white households.
In sum, Asian North American women encounter multiple issues in the
development of self-identity in a white dominated culture. They are hampered by the
prevalent stereotype of Asian North Americans as “the model minority,” which often
clashes with the patriarchal roles of traditional Asian household. Moreover, they often
fall victim to a complex interconnection of sexualized racial stereotypes and racialized
gender stereotypes and internalized racial oppression. Finally, they must negotiate
multiple identities that are simultaneously ethnically, regionally, and culturally diverse.
PART IV
RECOMMENDATIONS TO INSTITUTIONS (through appropriate
channels via the Association of Theological Schools and
the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion)
1. Provide sensitivity training for administrators and faculty about race and diversity
issues, specifically:
A. That the book Confronting Diveristiy Issues on Campus by Benjamin P. Bowser, Gale
S. Auletta, and Terry Jones be adopted for use by administrators and faculty as a
38
resource for raising consciousness regarding diversity issues in academia, for
instance, as a resource during faculty and staff development workshops.
B. That activities for the academic community involving the use of movies, novels, and
past television programs in video form be encouraged. Some titles are: The Color of
Rage (PBS), Answering Children's Creation (PBS), etc.
2. Encourage consideration for adoption the following recommendations regarding the
canon of knowledge and curriculum, issues in pedagogy/teaching and learning:
A. Curriculum matters:
a) Include more works by and about Asians and Asian North Americans
reflecting their experience more fully and accurately.
b) Include courses on teaching and learning in doctoral programs.
c) Include specific reference to Asian North Americans as part of general
training/consciousness raising for students, faculty, staff, and administrators.
B. Pedagogical approaches and learning/teaching styles:
a) Provide training for faculty to become knowledgeable about their own as well
as their students' learning styles and personality types, using various
instruments and programs now available.
b) Facilitate more intentional discussion among faculty on multicultural
pedagogy issues, seeking out appropriate resource persons to do this.
c) Address issues of different teaching/learning styles, including the value and
importance of lectures (which are often within the learning style of Asian
North American students).
39
d) Be aware of the “politics of silence” by encouraging diverse ways of class
participation such as small group discussion, e-mail discussion, “shoe box”
input, prepared presentations, etc.
e) Encourage the acquisition of audio-visual resources in the teaching of culturespecific components/aspects of courses.
3. Make available for consideration and action the following recommendations from
Shirley Hune’s “Asian Pacific American Women in Higher Education,” pp. 8-9, 1113, to facilitate greater awareness of hidden expectations and difficulties facing
the Asian and Asian North American women on your campus:
A. Especially where such faculty and staff are concerned:
a) Recognize the “exotic,” “passive/demure” and other Asian North American
stereotypes that discount the academic and professional qualifications of
[these] women and erase their distinctions.
b) Monitor encounters that Asian North American women at all levels have with
harmful stereotypes, and correct policies and practices based on stereotypes
that limit the access and opportunities of these females and hinder their
academic, personal, and professional development.
c) Provide a variety of forums, both curricular and co-curricular and in-service
training, to teach the campus community about the historic racial and sexual
discrimination against Asian North Americans.
d) Have firm policies and grievance procedures that address sexual harassment
and racial harassment and ensure their dissemination and implementation on
campus.
40
e) Provide appropriate counseling and legal advisement services for Asian North
American women who may experience racialized sexual harassment.
f) Adopt effective and fair policies and practices that include Asian North
Americans and account for the great variation among Asian North American
groups and between men and women.
g) Provide spaces and structures where Asian North Americans can deepen their
own understandings of one another with an aim to reduce biases within their
community itself.
B. Especially where such students are concerned:
a) Understand the variety of Asian North American home cultures and
communities to enhance support for students and their families in making
educational choices and following through successfully.
b) Recognize that all Asian North American women are not the same; different
groups have different points of entry into higher education: a Cambodian-born
Khmer American is likely to have a higher level of need than, for example, a
third- or fourth-generation Chinese American. Work toward providing
policies that reflect and satisfy this variety.
c) Through campus/community partnerships help Asian North American
communities, especially newcomer parents, better understand American
education and career opportunities.
d) Provide all Asian North American college students and newcomer, workingclass, and first-generation students in particular, with the information,
41
academic guidance, personal counseling, and other institutional support
necessary to ensure their full and active participation in academe.
e) Acknowledge the “model minority” as an Asian North American stereotype
that erases distinctions within the population and remedy policies and
practices based on it that harm the academic, personal, and professional
development of Asian North American women, and men as well.
4. Provide resources and support the Asian North American faculty in your midst to
attend conferences/consultations like this one.
42
NOTES
1
This group, consisting of Asian theological students and women in ministry on the East
Coast met first in 1985 as AWT (Asian Women Theologians), and over the years added
Asian American women to form AAAWTM (Asian and Asian American Women in
Theology and Ministry), to evolve into its current nomenclature in 1996 with increased
participation of Pacific women and Canadian theological women students and faculty.
Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s
Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998); Rebecca S, Chopp, Saving Work: Feminist
Practices of Theological Education (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995); bell
hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York:
Routledge, 1994); Benjamin P. Bowser, Gale S. Auletta, and Terry Jones, Confronting
Diversity Issues on Campus (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993); Rey Chow, Writing
Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1993); and the chapters of “The Dream of a Butterfly” and
“Women in the Holocene: Ethnicity, Fantasy, and the Film The Joy Luck Club,” in her
Ethics after Idealism: Theory—Culture—Ethnicity—Reading (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1998); and Shirley Hune, “Asian Pacific American Women in Higher
Education,” Papers of Women of Color in the Academy, no. 3 (1998).
2
3
Fact Book on Theological Education 1997-98 (Pittsburgh: ATS, 1998), 71.
Kwok Pui-lan, “The Global Challenge,” in Christianity and Civil Society, ed. Rodney L.
Petersen (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1995), 144.
4
Karen J. Warren, “Rewriting the Future: The Feminist Challenge to the Malestream
Curriculum,” Feminist Teacher 4:2-3 (1989): 46.
5
6
hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 29-30.
7
Ibid., 39.
Jonnella E. Butler, “Transforming Curriculum: Teaching about Women of Color,” in
Multicultural Education, ed. James A. Bank and Cherry A. McGee (Boston: Allyn and
Bacon, 1989), 151.
8
See Kwok Pui-lan, “Feminist Theologies, Asian,” in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies,
ed. Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
1996), 100-102.
9
Rita Nakashima Brock and Naomi Southard, “The Other Half of the Basket: Asian
American Women and the Search for a Theological Home,” Journal of Feminist Studies
in Religion 3:2 (1987): 135-50.
10
Rita Nakashima Brock, “Interstitial Integrity: Reflections toward an Asian American
Woman’s Theology,” in Introduction to Christian Theology: Contemporary North
11
43
American Perspectives, ed. Roger A. Badham (Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
1998), 183-96.
12
Ai Ra Kim, Women Struggling for a New Life: The Role of Religion in the Cultural
Passage from Korea to America (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1996); Jung Ha Kim, Bridge-Makers and Cross-Bearers: Korean American Women and
the Church (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997).
Young Mi Angela Pak, “ Faith as an Autobiographical Strategy: Understanding the
Lives of Two Korean Christian Immigrant Women,” Journal of Asian and Asian
American Theology 2:1 (1997): 37-50; Naomi P. F. Southard, “Recovery and Recovered
Images: Spiritual Resources for Asian American Women,” in Feminist Theology from the
Third World, ed. Ursula King (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 378-89.
13
Greer Anne Wenh-In Ng, “Inclusive Language in Asian North American Churches:
Non-Issue or Null Curriculum?” Journal of Asian and Asian American Theology 2:1
(1997): 21-36, and her essay on “The Asian North American Community at Worship:
Issues of Indigenization and Contextualization,” in People on the Way: Asian North
Americans Discovering Christ, Culture and Community, ed. David Ng (Valley Forge,
PA: Judson Press, 1996), 147-75.
14
For the notion of “ascribed authority” and “achieved authority” and a helpful
discussion of both, see “Confucius and John Dewey” by Robert J. Radcliffe in Religious
Education 84: 2 (Spring 1989): 215-31.
15
16
Translations of content from the Analects are by Greer Anne Wenh-In Ng. For
Confucius as an educator, she has drawn on a number of resources in Chinese, including
Lu Xi, Kongzi: the Great Educator (Shenyang, China: Liaoning Education Press, 1987);
Loh Qenglie and Jiemu, Kongzi on Education (Beijing, Xinhua Press, 1992); and Liu
Shezheng, Kongzi and His Educational Thought (Zhengzhou, China: Henan University
Press, 1988).
17
Brazilian educator and adult literacy innovator Paulo Freire first coined this term in his
epoch-making Pedagogy of the Oppressed, first available in English in 1970 (New York:
Continuum, 1970).
18
Two of the latest resources in feminist pedagogical practice are: The Feminist Teacher
Anthology: Pedagogies and Classroom Strategies, ed. G. E. Cohee, E. Haumer, T. D.
Kemp, P. M. Krebs, S. A. Lafky, and S. Runzo (New York: Teachers College Press,
1998); and Meeting the Challenge: Innovative Feminist Pedagogies in Action, ed.
Maralee Mayberry and Ellen Cronan Rose (New York: Routledge, 1999).
First articulated by anthropologist Edward T. Hall in the mid-1970’s, the concept of
“contexting” was adapted by Dorothy C. Herberg in her work on multicultural value
systems in Frameworks for Cultural and Racial Diveristy: Teaching and Learning for
Practitioners (Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1993) to help in understanding the
19
44
spectra or continuua of cultural values and practices, with “hierarchical,” “familyoriented,” “interdependent,” etc. on the high-context end of the continuum and
“egalitarian,” “individual-oriented,” “independent,” etc. on the low-context end of the
continuum.
The “homemaking” model of religious instruction was presented by Lizabeth Caldwell
in Mapping Christian Education, ed. Jack Seymour (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), as an
alternative feminist image to the more rigid, “schooling” image of instruction as usually
envisioned. The homemaking model calls for a more flexible, humane, contextual, and
“warm” approach to instruction.
20
21
For an explication of the degree to which students are naturally auditory, visual, or
kinesthetic learners, see diagram on page 49 of Linda Verlee Williams’s Teaching For
the Two-Sided Mind: A Guide to Right Brain/Left Brain Education (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1983).
Howard Gardner’s theory first appeared in Frames of Mind (New York: Basic Books,
1983), and is followed by, among other works, Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in
Practice, A Reader (New York: Basic Books, 1993), and supported and interpreted by
Thomas Armstrong in Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom. (Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1994).
22
David A. Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory may be obtained from McBer and Company
of Boston. His classic work explaining this four-pole cycle of learning is Experiential
Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (Englewood, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1984).
23
Valerie Batts, “Modern Racism: New Melody for the Same Old Tunes,” EDS
Occasional Papers, no. 2 (1998): 11.
24
Beverly Daniel Tatum, “Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: The Application
of Racial Identity Development and Theory in the Classroom,” Harvard Educational
Review 62:1 (1992): 1-24.
25
26
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (Freedom, CA:
The Crossing Press, 1984), 38.
Katie Geneva Cannon, Kate’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of Black Community
(New York: Continuum, 1995), 141.
27
28
Ibid.
Toinette Eugene et al., “Appropriation and Reciprocity in Womanist/Mujerista/
Feminist Work,” in Feminist Theological Ethics: A Reader, ed. Lois K. Daly (Louisville:
Westminster, 1994), 88-120.
29
45
30
Palmer, The Courage to Teach, 61.
Joy James, “Reflections on Teaching: Gender, Race, and Class,” in The Feminist
Teacher Anthology, 76.
31
32
Hune, “Asian Pacific American Women,” 21.
Kwok Pui-lan, “Diversity Within Us: The Challenge of Community among Asian and
Asian-American Women,” In God’s Image 15:1 (1996): 51-53.
33
34
Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1999).
Elaine Kim, “Images of Asians in Anglo-American Literature,” in Asian American
Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context, ed. Elaine Kim
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982).
35
Much has been written on Asian North American as the “model minority.” See Stanley
Sue and Sumie Okazaki, “Asian-American Educational Achievements: A Phenomenon in
Search of an Explanation,” American Psychologist 45:8 (1990); Keith Hiroshi Osajima,
“Breaking the Silence: Race and the Educational Experiences of Asian American College
Students,” in Readings on Equal Education, vol. 11, ed. Michèle Foster (New York:
AMS Press, Inc., 1991); Bob H. Suzuki, “Asian Americans as the ‘Model Minority’: Out
Doing Whites? Or Media Hype?” Change, November/December 1989; Hune, “Asian
Pacific American Women,” 9-10.
36
Joanne Sanae Yamauchi and Tin-Mala, “Undercurrents, Maelstroms, or the
Mainstream? A Profile of Asian Pacific American Female Studies in Higher Education,”
in Educating the Majority: Women Challenge Tradition in Higher Education, ed. Carol
S. Pearson, Donna L. Shavlik, Judith G. Touchton (New York: American Council on
Education, 1989), 70-73.
37
38
Hune, “Asian Pacific American Women,” 7-8.
Rosalind Y. Mau, “Barriers to Higher Education for Asian/Pacific-American Females,”
The Urban Review 22: 3 (1990): 191-93. See also, Yamauchi and Tim-Mala,
“Undercurrents,” 72.
39
Sumi K. Cho, “Converging Stereotypes in Racialized Sexual Harrassment: Where the
Model Minority Meets Suzie Wong,” in Critical Race Feminism: A Reader, ed. Adrien
Katherine Wing (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 204-5.
40
Renee E. Tajima, “Lotus Blossoms Don't Bleed: Images of Asian Women,” in Making
Waves: An Anthology of Writings by and about Asian American Women, ed. Asian
Women United of California (Boston: Beacon, 1989), 309.
41
46
42
Rita Nakashima Brock and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Casting Stones: Prostitution
and Liberation in Asia and the United States (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 1-66.
43
Osajima, “Breaking the Silence,” 124-28.
44
Ibid., 128-29.
Gale A. Yee, “The Impact of National Histories on the Politics of Identity,” Journal of
Asian and Asian American Theology 2:1 (1997): 108-12.
45
47
APPENDICES
1. Selected Bibliography on Asian and Asian North American Women’s Theologies
Abraham, Dulcie, et al., eds. Asian Women Doing Theology: Report from the Singapore
Conference, November 20-29, 1987. Hong Kong: Asian Women’s Resource
Centre for Culture and Theology (AWRC), 1989.
_____, eds. Faith Renewed: A Report on the First Asian Women’s Consultation on
Interfaith Dialogue. Hong Kong: AWRC, n.d.
Antone, Hope S., and Yong Ting Jin, eds. Re-Living Our Faith Today: A Bible Study
Resource Book. Hong Kong: World Student Christian Federation, Asia-Pacific
Region, 1992.
AWRC, ed. Faith Renewed II: A Report on the Second Asian Women’s Consultation on
Interfaith Dialogue, November 1-7, 1991, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Seoul: AWRC,
1995.
Brock, Rita Nakashima. “Interstitial Integrity: Reflections toward an Asian American
Woman's Theology.” In Introduction to Christian Theology, ed. Roger Badham,
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998.
_____. Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. New York: Crossroad, 1988.
_____, and Naomi Southard. “The Other Half of the Basket: Asian American Women
and the Search for a Theological Home.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
3:2 (1987): 135-50.
_____, and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite. Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in
Asia and the United States. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.
Chai, Alice Yun. “The Struggle of Asian and Asian American Women toward a Total
Liberation: A Korean Methodist Woman’s Vocational Journey.” In Spirituality
and Social Responsibility: Vocational Vision of Women in the United Methodist
Tradition, ed. Rosemary Skinner Keller. Nashville: Abingdon, 1993.
Cho, Wha Soon. Let the Weak Be Strong: A Woman’s Struggle for Justice. Bloomington:
Meyer Stone Books, 1988.
Chung, Hyun Kyung. Struggle to Be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s
Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990.
EATWOT Women’s Commission, Proceedings, Asian Women’s Consultation, Manila,
21-30 November, 1985. Manila: EATWOT, n.d.
48
Fabella, Virginia. Beyond Bonding: A Third World Women’s Theological Journey.
Manila: EATWOT, 1993.
_____, and Mercy Amba Oduyoye, eds. With Passion and Compassion: Third World
Women Doing Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988.
_____, and Sun Ai Lee Park, eds. We Dare to Dream: Doing Theology as Asian Women.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989.
Gnanadason, Aruna. No Longer a Secret: The Church and Violence against Women.
Geneva: WCC, 1993.
_____, ed. Towards a Theology of Humanhood: Women’s Perspectives. Delhi: All India
Council of Christian Women, 1986.
In God's Image. Quarterly journal published by AWRC, address: 79 Lorong Anggor,
Taman Shanghai, 58100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Katoppo, Marianne. Compassionate and Free: An Asian Women’s Theology. Geneva:
WCC, 1979.
Kim, Ai Ra. Women Struggling for a New Life: The Role of Religion in the Cultural
Passage from Korea to America. Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 1996.
Kim, Jung Ha. Bridge-Makers and Cross-Bearers: Korean American Women and the
Church. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997.
_____. “But Who Do you Say that I Am? (Matt 16:15): A Churched Korean American
Woman’s Autobiographical Inquiry.” In Journey at the Margin: Toward an
Autobiographical Theology in American-Asian Perspective, ed. Peter C. Phan and
Jung Young Lee. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999.
_____. “The Labor of Compassion: Voices of Churched Korean American Women.” In
New Spiritual Homes: Religion and Asian Americans, ed. David K. Yoo.
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999.
_____. “Sources Outside of Europe.” In Spirituality and the Secular Quest, ed. Peter H.
Van Ness. New York: Crossroad, 1996.
_____. “A Voice from ‘the Borderlands’: Asian-American Women and the Families.” In
Religion, Feminism and the Family, ed. Anne Carr and Mary Stewart Van
Leeuwen. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996.
King, Ursula, ed. Feminist Theology from the Third World. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1994.
49
Kinukawa, Hisako. Women and Jesus in Mark: A Japanese Feminist Perspective.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.
Kwok, Pui-lan. Chinese Women and Christianity, 1860-1927. Atlanta, GA: Scholars
Press, 1992.
_____. Discovering the Bible in the Non-Biblical World. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1995.
_____. Introducing Asian Feminist Theology, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Forthcoming.
_____. ed. “Asian and Asian American Women’s Voices.” Journal of Asian and Asian
American Theology 2:1 (1997).
Lee, Oo Chung. In Search for Our Grandmother's Spirituality. Seoul: AWRC, 1994.
_____, et al., eds. Women of Courage: Asian Women Reading the Bible. Seoul: AWRC,
1992.
Lewis, Nantawan Boonprasat. “Reclaiming Liberative Trends: Owning Asian American
Women’s History of Struggle.” In Revolution of Spirit, ed. Nantawan Boonprasat
Lewis. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.
_____. “Toward an Ethic of Feminist Liberation and Empowerment: A Case Study of
Prostitution in Thailand.” In Christian Ethics in Ecumenical Context, ed. Shin
Chiba, George R. Hunsberger, and Lester Edwin J. Ruiz. Grand Rapids: William
B. Eerdmans, 1995.
_____. ed. An Ocean with Many Shores: Asian Women Making Connections in Theology
and Ministry. Asian Women Theologians, Northeast U.S. Group, n.d.
Lozada, Rebecca, and Alison O’Grady, eds. Creation and Spirituality: Asian Women
Expressing Christian Faith through Art. Hong Kong: Christian Conference of
Asia, 1995.
Mananzan, Mary John, ed. Essays on Women. rev. ed. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College,
1991.
_____. “Feminist Theology in Asia: A Ten Years’ Overview.” Feminist Theology 10
(1995): 21-32.
_____, ed. Women and Religion. rev. ed. Manila: St. Scholastica’s College, 1992.
_____, et al., eds. Women Resisting Violence: Spirituality for Life. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1996.
50
“Mapping A Pan-Pacific Feminist Theology.” Special issue of Journal of Women and
Religion 13 (1995).
Ng, Greer Anne Wenh-In. “Crossing Oceans, Crossing Disciplines: Doing Theology as
Asians in Diaspora.” In Ecumenism in Asia: Essays in Honor of Feliciano Carino,
ed. K. C. Abraham. Bangalore: Board of Theological Education of the Senate of
Serampore College, 1999.
_____. “Toward Wholesome Nurture: Challenges in the Religious Education of Asian
North American Female Christians.” Religious Education 91: 2 (1996): 238-54.
_____, ed. Generations Trying to Live Together. Toronto: United Church of Canada,
1995.
Nordquist, Joan, ed. Women of Color: Feminist Theory, A Bibliography. Santa Cruz, CA:
Reference and Research Services, 1996.
PAACCE, newsletter of Pacific and Asian American Canadian Christian Education
Ministries.
Pacific People, Newsletter of Pacific and Asian American Center for Theology and
Strategies, Berkeley, California.
Rebera, Ranjini. A Partnership of Equals: A Resource Guide for Asian Women. Hong
Kong: Christian Conference of Asia, 1995.
_____. A Search for Symbols: An Asian Experiment. Manila: Christian Conference of
Asia, 1990.
_____, ed. We Cannot Dream Alone: A Story of Women in Development. Geneva: WCC,
1990.
Riyo, Risé, ed. Asian, Woman, and the Body. Cambridge, MA: Asian and Asian
American Women in Ministry and Theology, 1994.
Ruether, Rosemary Radford, ed. Women Healing Earth: Third-World Women on
Ecology, Feminism, and Religion. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996.
Russell, Letty, Kwok Pui-lan, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, and Katie Geneva Cannon, eds.
Inheriting Our Mothers’ Gardens: Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective.
Louisville: Westminster, 1988.
Southard, Naomi P. F. “Recovery and Rediscovered Images: Spiritual Resources for
Asian American Women.” In Feminist Theology from the Third World, ed. Ursula
King. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.
51
Women’s Concerns Unit, Christian Conference of Asia, ed. Reading the Bible as Asian
Women. Singapore: Christian Conference of Asia, 1986.
Yang, Seung Ai. “Jesus’ Saying on Divorce: A Korean Perspective.” The Bible Today 35
(January 1997): 49-54.
Yee, Gale A. “The Impact of National Histories on the Politics of Identity.” Journal of
Asian and Asian American Theology 2:1 (1997): 108-12.
52
2. Selected Bibliography on Teaching and Pedagogy
Akamatusu, N. Norma. “The Talking Oppression Blues Including the Experience of
Power/Powerlessness in the Teaching of ‘Cultural Sensitivity’.” In Re-Visioning
Family Therapy: Race, Culture, and Gender in Clinical Practice, ed. Monica
McGoldrick. New York: The Guilford Press, 1998.
Armstrong, Thomas. Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom. Alexandria. VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1994.
Bank, James A., and Cherry A. McGee, eds. Multicultural Education. Boston: Allyn and
Bacon, 1989.
Bowser, Benjamin P., Gale S. Auletta, and Terry Jones, Confronting Diversity Issues on
Campus. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993.
Brookfield, Stephen D. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 1995.
Chopp, Rebecca S. Saving Work: Feminist Practices of Theological Education.
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995.
Cohee, Gail E., et al., eds. The Feminist Teacher Anthology: Pedagogies and Classroom
Strategies. New York: Teachers College Press, 1998.
Cornwall Collective, The. Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Feminist Alternatives in
Theological Education. New York: Pilgrim, 1980.
Duraisingh, Christopher. “Ministerial Formation for Mission: Implications for
Theological Education.” International Review of Mission 81:321 (January 1992):
33-45.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York:
Continuum, 1994.
Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, A Reader. New York:
Basic Books, 1993.
Harris, Maria. Teaching and the Religious Imagination: An Essay in the Theology of
Teaching. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.
Herberg, Dorothy C. Frameworks for Cultural and Racial Diversity: Teaching and
Learning for Practitioners. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 1993.
hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York:
53
Routledge, 1994.
Hune, Shirley. “Asian Pacific American Women in Higher Education.” Papers of Women
of Color in the Academy, no. 3 (1998).
Jaggar, Alison M., and Susan R. Bordo, eds. Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist
Reconstructions of Being and Knowing. New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1989.
Kolb, David A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and
Development. Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984.
Kruzich, Jean M., Barbara J. Friesen, and Dorothy Van Soest. “Assessment of Student
and Faculty Learning Styles: Research and Application.” Journal of Social Work
Education, no. 3 (1986): 22-30.
Kwok Pui-lan. “The Global Challenge.” In Christianity and Civil Society, ed. Rodney L.
Petersen. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995.
Lawrence, Gordon. People Types and Tiger Stripes: A Practical Guide to Learning
Styles. 3rd ed. Gainsville, FL: Center for Application of Psychological Type, Inc.,
1993.
Like, Carmen, and Jennifer Core, eds. Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. New York:
Routledge, 1992.
Matsuoka, Fumitaka. “Pluralism at Home: Globalization within North America.”
Theological Education 26 Suppl. (Spring 1990): 35-51.
Mau, Rosalind Y. “Barriers to Higher Education for Asian/Pacific-American Females.”
The Urban Review 22: 3 (1990): 183-97.
Mayberry, Maralee, and Ellen Cronan Rose, eds. Meeting the Challenge: Innovative
Feminist Pedagogies in Action. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Moore, Mary Elizabeth. Teaching from the Heart. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1991.
Mud Flower Collective, The. God’s Fierce Whimsy: Christian Feminism and Theological
Education. New York: Pilgrim, 1985.
Osajima, Keith Hiroshi. “Breaking the Silence: Race and the Educational Experiences of
Asian American College Students.” In Readings on Equal Education. Vol. 11, ed.
Michèle Foster. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1991.
Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s
Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998.
54
Sandler, Bernice R. The Campus Climate Revisited: Chilly for Women Faculty,
Administrators, and Graduate Students. Washington, DC: Project on the Status
and Education of Women, 1986.
Sternberg, Robert. Thinking Styles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Sue, Stanley, and Sumie Okazaki. “Asian-American Educational Achievements: A
Phenomenon in Search of an Explanation.” American Psychologist 45: 8 (1990):
913-20.
Suzuki, Bob H. “Asian Americans as the ‘Model Minority’: Out Doing Whites? Or
Media Hype?” Change November/December (1989): 13-19.
Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Talking about Race, Learning About Racism: The Application
of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom.” Harvard Educational
Review 62:1 (1992): 1-24.
Thangaraj, M. Thomas. “Theological Education in the United States: A View from the
Periphery.” Theological Education 28:2 (1992): 8-20.
Vella, Jane. Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating
Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
Warren, Karen J. “Rewriting the Future: The Feminist Challenge to the Malestream
Curriculum,” Feminist Teacher 4:2-3 (1989): 46-52.
Wheeler G. Barbara, and Edward Farley, eds. Shifting Boundaries: Contextual
Approaches to the Structure of Theological Education. Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 1991.
Williams, Linda Verlee. Teaching for the Two-Sided Mind: A Guide to Right Brain/Left
Brain Education. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
Yamauchi, Joanne Sanae, and Tin-Mala. “Undercurrents, Maelstroms, or the
Mainstream? A Profile of Asian Pacific American Female Studies in Higher
Education.” In Educating the Majority: Women Challenge Tradition in Higher
Education, ed. Carol S. Pearson et al. New York: American Council on
Education, 1989.
55
3. Selected Novels and Audio-visual Resources
Selected Asian American/Canadian Novels
Chong, Denise. The Concubine’s Children: Portrait of a Family Divided. Toronto: Penguin
Books, 1994.
Jen, Gish. Typical American. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Kadohata, Cynthia. The Floating World. New York: Viking, 1989.
Kim, Ronyoung. Clay Walls. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.
Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys Ltd., 1981.
_____. Itsuka. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1992.
Lai, Larissa. When Fox Is a Thousand. Vancouver: Press Gang Publishers, 1995.
Lee, Hellie. Still Life with Rice. New York: Touchstone, 1997.
Lee, Sky. Disappearing Moon Cafe. Vancouver: Douglas and McTyre, 1990.
Min, Anchee. Katherine. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.
Ng, Fae Myenne. Bone. New York: Hyperion, 1993.
Sakamoto, Kerri. The Electrical Field. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1998.
Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. New York: Ivy Books, 1989.
_____. The Kitchen God's Wife. New York: Ivy Books, 1991.
_____. The Hundred Secret Senses. New York: Ivy Books, 1995.
Watanabe, Sylvia. Talking to the Dead and Other Stories. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
56
Selected Films
Double Happiness. Produced by Mina Shum. Directed by Mina Shum. Fine Line Features
First Generation Films Inc., & New Views. 87 min. Color. English and Chinese with
English subtitles. Depicts the struggles of a “1.5 generation” (born in Hong Kong
moving to Canada as a child) Chinese Canadian young adult with her first
generation parents around career choice, dating, etc.
Four Women. Directed by Loni Ding. CrossCurrent Media, 1982. 30 min.
Interviews and stories of Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Chinese American
women.
Heaven & Earth. Produced by Oliver Stone. Directed by Oliver Stone. Warner Brothers.
142 min. Color. Based on the novels When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
and Child of War, Woman of Peace by Le Ly Hayslip, this follows the life story
of Phung Thi Le Ly from Vietnam to the United States.
The Joy Luck Club. Produced by Oliver Stone and Janet Yang. Directed by Wayne Wang.
Hollywood Pictures. 139 min. Color. Based on the novel by Amy Tan, this movie
follows the lives of four Chinese American women from their girlhood and young
womanhood in China and their relationships with their American-born daughters
after immigration to the United States.
Knowing Her Place. Directed by Indu Krishnan, Women Make Movies, 1990. 45 min.
The tensions and conflicts of a woman growing up in Indian and American
cultures.
On New Ground. Directed by Loni Ding. CrossCurrent Media, 1982. 30 min.
The stories of Asian American women in traditionally male-dominated jobs: a
welder, an investment banker, a pharmacist, and a police officer.
None of the Above. Directed by Erika Surat Andersen. USC. 23 min.
This is a documentary about people of mixed racial heritage based on the
filmmaker’s own search for identity and community. We meet Erika of Indian and
Danish heritage, Leslie, a young woman of Native American, African, and
European ancestry, and Curtiss, whose mother is Japanese and father is African
American, and Henrietta, whose family has been mixed for generations. Available
from Filmakers Library. 124 East 40th Street, New York, NY 10016. Tel: 212808-4980. Web www.filmakers.com.
Picture Bride. Produced by Kayo Hatto. Directed by Kayo Hatta. Miramax Films in
association with Thousand Cranes. 95 min. Color. English and Japanese with
English subtitles. Set in Hawaii in 1918, the film follows the story of Riyo
Nakamura in her journey from Japan to marry a Matsuji, a sugar cane farmer in “the
new world.”
57
The Stories of Maxine Hong Kingston. Films for the Humantities and Sciences. 52 min.
In this program with Bill Moyers, Kingston discusses new images of America as a
“melting pot” where the dutiful notions of the Puritans blend with the Monkey
Spirit of Asia to produce a new American consciousness. Films for the
Humanities and Sciences 1-800-257-5126.
Surname Viet Given Name Nam. Directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha. Women Make Movies,
1989. 108 min.
Vietnamese and Vietnamese American women’s lives using pastiche of
interviews, still photos, historical film footage, music, and poetry.
Two Lies. Directed by Pan Tom. Women Make Movies, 1989. 25 min.
The effects of a woman’s eyefold surgery on her daughters. The racial dimension
of beauty myth in American society.
Wild Swans – Jung Chang. Directed by Mischa Scorer. BBC Omnibus. 59 min.
The epic account of the lives of three generations of Chinese women captures the
turbulent transformation of China in the 20th century. With archival and
contemporary footage, this film brings to life the memories of Chang recorded in
her best-selling autobiography, Wild Swans. Available from Filmakers Library.
To understand some of these novels and films better, the following books on Asian
American/Canadian literature and history are recommended:
Aguilar-San Juan, Karin, ed. The State of Asian America: Activism and Resistance in the
1990s. Boston: South End Press, 1994.
Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretative History. Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1991.
Chao, Lien. Beyond Silence: Chinese Canadian Literature in English. Toronto: TSAR
Publications, 1997.
Hong, Maria, ed. Growing up Asian American. New York: Avon Books, 1993.
Kim, Elaine H. Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social
Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982.
Kitano, Harry H. L., and Roger Daniels. Asian Americans: Emerging Minorities.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988.
Lim, Shirley Geok-lin, Mayumi Tsutakawa, and Margarita Donnelly, eds. The Forbidden
Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology. Corvallis, OR: Calyx Books, 1989.
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Ling, Amy. Between World: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry. New York: Pergemon
Press, 1990.
Silvera, Makeda, ed. The Other Woman: Women of Colour in Contemporary Canadian
Literature. Toronto: Sister Vision-Black Women and Women of Colour Press. 1994.
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New
York: Penguin Books, 1989.
Wong, Sau-ling Cynthia. Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity to
Extravagance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
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