PANA Institute for Leadership Development

K. Christine Pae, Denison University:  paec@denison.edu

In light ofthe ecological frame, this paper contemplates how Korean churches have constructed their ethnic, cultural, and religious spaces, coping with the rapid urban development in Flushing. Although Flushing offers homes for religiouslyand ethnically diverse Asian Americans, the influx of a large immigrant population has accelerated the urban development which results in the shortageof residential spaces and in the increasing of the real estate prices. Theseurban changes have also increased tension among diverse residents as they are forced to live next to each other within limited spaces.

When ethnically,racially, culturally, and religiously diverse groups of people negotiate with each other for their own worship, communal, and cultural spaces, what roles do religious institutions play in creating and maintaining these spaces when facing the steep prices in the real estate market? And how do these institutions understand their physical spaces? Focusing on Korean Catholic and Methodist churches in Flushing, this paper particularly asks how Flushing’surban development has affected Korean churches’ understandings of religiously and culturally secured spaces and how the expansion and development of the Korean community and Korean churches affected urban spaces? I hope this pape rwill open up further dialogue among Asian American religious institutions in relation to their different urban and regional experiences.