PANA Institute for Leadership Development

Concurrent Session B1 / Saturday.2008.Aug.9 / 8:30 AM / Mudd 103

Emily Wu, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA:  ewu@ses.gtu.edu
Natalie Quli, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA:  natalie@shin-ibs.edu 
Ofelia Villero, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA:  siegville@sbcglobal.net

In this panel, Wu, Villero, and Quli explore issues of representation, diversity, and community boundaries in the study of Asian American religions. Each argues that recent scholarship has obscured the complexity of Asian American religions by creating hard boundaries between “inside” and “outside” and relying on singular identities to describe communities that are in fact diverse. Wu suggests that in the current studies of Asian American religions, the predominant conception of “communities” consists of specific Asian ethnic groups that have relatively clear boundaries from the American mainstream society within which they are located. Such clear distinctions then lead to contentions between those who are within the ethnic communities and those who are not, even when they share the same religious identities and practices. Drawing on her work with Chinese healing practitioners in California, Wu argues that academics, by constructing an artificial barrier between the mainstream and the ethnic communities, become embroiled in questions concerning how “within” and “authentic” can be protected from what is “without” and “contaminating.”

Quli likewise argues that the study of Asian Americans in the field of Buddhist studies is currently based on highly dualistic notions of culture and place. Beginning from a highly essentialized notion of Asian Buddhist “tradition,” scholars of Buddhism have become preoccupied with protecting authentic Asian Buddhisms from the contaminating influence of Western “Buddhist modernism.” This overly simplistic model of Asian versus Western, “traditional” versus “modernist,” repeats the same tired stereotype of the passive Asian and active Westerner, perpetuating the salvage anthropologist's inclination to “save” Asian American Buddhisms from the contaminating influence of the West. To understand the various forms of Buddhism developing in the American context, Buddhist scholars must abandon nostalgic notions of “pure” cultures and traditions and recognize the multiple identities-such as both Asian and American-that mark the American cultural-religious context. Finally, Quli argues that Buddhist scholars have relied too heavily on an unarticulated self/Other dichotomy (Western self, Asian Other), manifesting in a “hierarchy of field sites” (Gutpta and Ferguson, 1995) that results in a paucity of studies on Asian American Buddhisms.

Villero, basing her arguments on research into the religious practices among low-income Filipina women who are breast cancer survivors, contends that in the academy, the prevailing image of the Filipino American community lacks diversity, and the academic literature has focused mostly on how well Filipino American cultural and religious practices have been integrated into the regular flow of parish life, and on how Filipino Americans have revitalized Catholic churches and parishes that were in decline. While this image warms the hearts of Filipino Americans and is a rightful attempt of community members to gain respect and counter marginalization, it does not provide a true picture of the community nor of the power dynamics that characterize its religious practices. Villero argues that the community is more diverse and that religious practice is divided along class lines. The economically well off in the community use their ties to parish churches, its membership in church organizations, its highly visible participation in duties like serving in the liturgy as a way to “mark” them as elite. On the other hand, the lower-income members of the community, especially women, stay away from church-related organizations and activities, making them invisible. The faith practices of these lower-income women largely differ from those of the well off, and that the churches need to pay attention to them in the interest of justice.