• Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Newsletter
Faithfully Magazine
Sunday, June 4, 2023
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submissions
  • Q&As
    John Blake photo by John Nowak for CNN

    CNN Reporter Talks Race, Faith and Reconciliation in Powerful Memoir ‘More Than I Imagined’

    Brown Baby Jesus author Dorena Williamson

    Author Celebrates Jesus’ Messy, Multiethnic Family Tree in ‘Brown Baby Jesus’

    KevOnStage and MrsKevOnStage in an interview with Faithfully Magazine.

    Interview: KevOnStage and MrsKevOnStage Talk Sex, Therapy, and Why ‘Marriage Be Hard’ (Video)

    Christina Edmondson and Ekemini Uwan on Truth's Table book

    ‘Truth’s Table’ Authors Talk Early Beginnings, Centering Black Women, and Inspiring One Another

  • Exclusives
    Karen Abercrombie

    After Award-Winning Role in Top-Grossing Christian Movie, Karen Abercrombie Is Leading Change From Within

    black women group

    ‘Righteous and Ratchet’ Black Women of Faith Embraced on Jemele Hill’s ‘Sanctified’ Podcast

    Josh McDowell

    Apologist Josh McDowell Backtracks After Claiming Black Families Don’t Value Education

    Christian author and preacher Dr. Voddie Baucham

    ‘Fault Lines’ Author Voddie Baucham Confused or Making Things Up, Richard Delgado Says in Response to Misquote on ‘Righteous Actions’ of Whites

  • Profiled
    Chris Broussard

    Sports Analyst Chris Broussard Uses Hoops and Christianity to Address Needs of Young Men

    Bishop Noel Jones

    Bishop Noel Jones: Engagement, Life, Family and Ministry (Profiled)

    nadine raphael

    From Prison to the Pulpit: Nadine Raphael on God’s ‘Greater Plan’ for Her Life (Profiled)

    lisa sharon harper

    Lisa Sharon Harper Is Her ‘Ancestors’ Wildest Dreams’ (Profiled)

  • Remember
    Rev. Dr. William Hiram Bentley

    Black Evangelicalism and the Reforming Influence of William H. Bentley

    Marie Bassili Assaad and Mother Irene

    Knitting Together the Community of Love: Lessons From Marie Bassili Assaad and Mother Irene

    Rev. Sutton E. Griggs

    The Complex Legacy of Sutton E. Griggs: From Respected Leader to Race Traitor?

    fannie lou hamer

    Fannie Lou Hamer: Forerunner of Faith-Driven, Pro-Life Democrats (Remember)

  • Opinion & Analysis
    migrants

    When Faith Says to Help Migrants — and the Law Says Don’t

    couple with child

    Missionary System That Brought US Man Accused of Abusing African ‘Orphans’ Was Always Deeply Flawed

    Civil Rights March 1963

    The Women Who Stood With Martin Luther King Jr. and Sustained a Movement for Social Change

    pile of books

    In New Jersey, School Segregation Didn’t End; It Evolved

  • Specials
    • All
    • Growing a Green Church
    clean energy

    Can Money-Making Microgrids Empower Black Churches to Close the Clean Energy Gap?

    laudato trees earthbeat

    Laudato Trees Planting Program Enlists Catholic Properties to Help Increase DC’s Canopy

SUBSCRIBE
  • Login
  • Register
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
No Result
View All Result

Faithfully Podcast 8: Asian Americans, Yellowface, and Pursuing Whiteness

FM by FM
May 28, 2016
Reading Time: 4 mins read
Bruce Reyes-Chow Faithfully Podcast
ShareTweetPin It

Chinese/Filipino Author Bruce Reyes-Chow Shares Perspectives on Navigating Race

The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow joined the Faithfully Podcast crew recently to share his thoughts and observations on some issues Asian Americans face when it comes to experiences relating to race and culture.

Reyes-Chow hails from San Francisco, California, is a third-generation Chinese/Filipino, and a former pastor. Reyes-Chow, ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), served as Moderator for the denomination’s 2008 General Assembly, its highest elected office.

The married father of three teen girls has authored the books But I Don’t See You as Asian: Curating Conversations About Race, The Definitive-ish Guide for Using Social Media in the Church, and 40 Days, 40 Prayers, 40 Words: Lenten Reflections for Everyday Life, among others.

In his discussion with Faithfully Podacst hosts Nicola Menzie, Keisha Boston, and Vincent Funaro, Reyes-Chow comments on challenges some Asian Americans face when relating to the black-white binary paradigm inherent in conversations about racism in the United States.

“The danger when we start to talk about race anywhere in the church or in larger society, and starting to compare and contrast and you know, black-white kinds of conversations, and then kind of putting the brown folks in and where everything fits, is… I think we tend to get into this oppressive olympics and trying to figure out who’s had it worse and try to measure and all that. I think that’s one of the dangers,” Reyes-Chow said.

“In the work that I do and the conversations I have, [I] try to get to mutual understanding and appreciation of…and brown folks, in particular Asians, have to figure out their place within the context of the history of the United States, their own immigration roots, and how each individual Asian community has experienced racism, continually experiences that in the United States,” he added.

RELATED POSTS

It’s Time to Renew Your Faithfully Magazine Subscription (or Sign Up If You’re New)

Faithfully Magazine Founding Editor Nicola A. Menzie Talks 2021’s Big Religion Stories With ‘Interfaith Voices’

Tell Us What You Think. Take Our 2021 Reader Survey

The Asian-American communities in America are “really diverse,” particularly when looking at “Chinese versus Japanese experiences and Korean experiences and experience in general,” he said. “And then you lump the church piece onto that and it becomes even more complex because of the nature of colonialism and how churches impacted other countries before folks started coming to the United States. So there’s a lot of that that goes on.”

When it comes to portrayals of Asian Americans in popular culture, it seems like they “are still fair game for racial stereotypes in the media and around how we really created an invisible group of people,” he added.

“So a lot of the work that I do and the conversations I want to have is, as we look at Asian Americans in no way are we trying to say that we are more or less than oppressed or marginalized or any of that. In fact, we have to claim how we’ve benefited in some areas from white supremacy and privilege as well as continue to be marginalized by it.”

‘Buying Into’ Whiteness and Meritocracy

On the subject of “whiteness” and “meritocracy,” Reyes-Chow suggested that “a lot of Asian Americans who, if you didn’t know were Asian, they’re pretending they are white in the white church and wanting everybody to move past this stuff.”

“I think that we’ve bought into the idea of a meritocracy and in some ways that has… You can look at some numbers and begin to see that…you know, you get college stuff and you look at some other pieces that on a surface level, success has been achieved. But at the same time, we also know that over the past 10 years, the largest growing number of people in poverty have been Asian Americans percentage-wise. We also know that if you start to look at different Asian-American populations…if you look at Filipinos, for instance, the success or meritocracy that affects Filipinos and other Pacific Islanders is greatly impacted by negative ways so that our college rates and our drop-out rates are high and all that kinda stuff. So I think there’s this idea that we want to believe that meritocracy works. That if you just work hard enough that you’ll get somewhere. There’s that model minority piece, we still buy into it,” he said.

“Then we also have this ideal that we are accepted by the larger American culture, which is white. You go to other countries… For instance, I go to the Philippines once a year. You look at all the beauty pageants in the Philippines and they’re all light-skinned Filipinos. So that whiteness as something to achieve just impacts the psyche here, so that’s what we’re trying to get to. … The other piece is that for many Asian Americans, we experience racism very differently than say African Americans or Latinos in terms of just how police treat Asians, and this is a huge generalization about Asians because Filipinos, Samoans, other Pacific Islanders I think would speak differently to this. But others would kind of buy into that idea that you don’t get treated poorly until you do something wrong. Well, there are some of us who know that’s not true. So I think some of it is we think white’s where you gotta be and so we just blend right in. And there’s this non-threatening nature about white Americans and that stereotype that’s out there that allows us into some spaces that others may not be allowed into.”

Some subjects referenced in Faithfully Podcast 8 include:

  • Reyes-Chow’s website at www.reyes-chow.com
  • Yellowface in a 2014 episode of “How I Met Your Mother” and Twitter response #HowIMetYourRacism
  • Asian-American actors fighting against Hollywood’s whitewashing

Listen to Reyes-Chow’s full remarks in Faithfully Podcast 8 via SoundCloud.

https://soundcloud.com/faithfullymagazine/bruce-reyes-chow-asian-americans-perspectives

 

Photo by Asian/Pacific American Heritage Festival


Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
ShareTweetPin It
Tags: Bruce Reyes-ChowFaithfully Magazine
FM

FM

Related Posts

Lecrae Faithfully Magazine
Faithfully Podcast

Interview: Lecrae Talks Broadening His Faith, Serving Like Jesus, and Trusting God in Uncertain Times

November 13, 2020
The Right Rev. Professor N.T. Wright
Faithfully Podcast

Interview: NT Wright Talks God and the Coronavirus, Hope in Exile, and What He Hates About Zoom Church

June 26, 2020

Recommended Stories

treadmill

‘Fat But Fit’ Is Absolutely Possible

May 30, 2017
neo-nazis

How a Black Activist Took Control of a Neo-Nazi Nationalist Socialist Movement

November 4, 2019
podcast

Listen: ‘Anti-Asian American Discrimination in the Age of COVID’

May 9, 2020

Popular Stories

  • stream movies laptop

    Free Christian Movies: How and Where to Watch Free Christian Movies Online

    463 shares
    Share 185 Tweet 116
  • Are Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins or Related in Anyway?

    417 shares
    Share 166 Tweet 104
  • Paige Hilken, Wife of North Coast Church Pastor Christopher Hilken, Dies by Suicide

    408 shares
    Share 163 Tweet 102
  • After 20 Years, Bishop Noel Jones Says He’s Finally Ready to Marry Partner Loretta Jones

    364 shares
    Share 146 Tweet 91
  • NYC Megachurch Pastor A.R. Bernard’s Son Dies After Losing Battle With Alcoholism

    286 shares
    Share 114 Tweet 71

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submissions
  • Q&As
  • Exclusives
  • Profiled
  • Remember
  • Opinion & Analysis
  • Specials

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
Send this to a friend