Coming to America: The Immigrant Experience

By the Rev. Lloyd Wake
[Journal of the Endowment Fund - Winter 2007]
[National Federation of Asian American United Methodists]

San Francisco -- February 2007

We are all immigrants. Whether we were pushed out of our homeland by political, social or economic conditions, or pulled by the prospect of the "American Dream," and whether we are first generation of fifth and sixth generation Asian Americans -- ours is an immigrant legacy.

When the Asian American Caucus movement began 35 years ago, it included four Asian ancestry groups: Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean. At that time it was a miracle that such a diverse group of people could agree to work together as the National Federation of Asian American United Methodists. We remembered that in our Asian homelands, our people were both victims and perpetrators of injustice, oppression, and cruelty. There were more factors that could have kept us apart than bring us together. It was a miracle made possible by human forbearance, forgiveness, and God's grace.

Today we are ten groups. If it was miraculous 35 years ago, how much greater today is the challenge to continue the miracle. We value our solidarity as Asian Americans. We work hard to maintain it because our life-shaping experiences are so different and diverse.

When I was a pastor at Glide Memorial Church, I served as a member of the Community Development Committee of Pine UMC. The church's project supported a Vietnamese youth development program. The key staff person, working very effectively with the youth, was a young man from Vietnam whom the San Francisco Vietnamese community labeled a "communist." Several times the Vietnamese community held a protest rally in front of the Glide building denouncing him and the program. One day at the entrance to his apartment, he was shot to death. At his burial, the Buddhist priest, fearing reprisal, dared to go no further than the entrance to the cemetery, so the pastor of Pine, Nobuaki Hanaoka, proceeded to the gravesite to conduct a brief service. The staff person's death remains a mystery.

I mention this to point out that while our Vietnamese, Hmong, Cambodian, and Laotian brothers and sisters, now members of our United Methodist Church, were struggling to survive the tragically chaotic situation in their homeland, some of us Asian Americans, in both church and community, were protesting United States' involvement in Vietnam and labeled "communist sympathizers." Our Indochinese brothers and sisters were at risk by being labeled "U.S. sympathizers."

While acknowledging the contradictions and ideological conflicts within our Asian American immigrant experience, we accept the challenge to work for the fulfillment of Jesus' prayer "that they all may be one."
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[Editor's Note: Written as an appeal to donate to the Endowment Fund.]