Articles & Press Releases
HA:N Statement Against Anti-AAPI Racism and Violence
We at HA:N United Methodist Church are outraged and heartbroken by the racism and violence against members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, especially our women, our elders, migrants and those struggling with poverty. As a predominantly Asian American and multi-racial congregation, we grieve for all the lives lost and hurt, particularly since the start of the COVID pandemic. And we are devastated by the thousands of AAPIs across the country who have been targets of violence, including the six Asian women murdered in Atlanta, Georgia on March 16, 2021.
Members of AAPI communities in the U.S. have long suffered racial bias and hatred. Racism is a social construct that stems from white supremacy, Western imperialism, settler colonialism, orientalism and xenophobia. It has blinded many from seeing how U.S. policies at home and abroad (especially through militarism) have led to political, social and economic destabilization in this country and many parts of the world. They included policies of forced relocation of Indigenous peoples through the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and later on to a steady flow of immigrants and refugees from Asia, the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, and more since the enactment of the 1965 Immigration Act.
Despite the fact that AAPIs are a vital part of the history of continental North America, with Filipinos arriving as early as 1587, too many of us have been marked as perpetual foreigners. The U.S. government has shown a pattern of deploying nativist policies such as the Naturalization Act of 1790 to disenfranchise the very people they recruited for labor. Chinese and Japanese workers arriving in the 1820s and 1880s respectively, faced hostility, derision, and violence even as they were contributing to the building of this nation -- pushing it toward its stated ideals of liberty, opportunity and equality. The U.S.’s first federal immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, prohibited the entry of all Chinese women into the United States. Seven years later, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned the immigration of Chinese men. The U.S. government’s placement of our Japanese American citizens in incarceration camps during World War II and Executive Order 13769, also known as the Muslim travel ban, were travesties that continue in the form of systemic and individual racism against AAPIs in the U.S. today.
Regardless of the myriad contributions -- in science, the arts, the military, business, academia -- people of AAPI descent continue to be marginalized, stereotyped, exploited, violated, and rendered invisible. Those with limited resources and/or English language ability have borne the brunt of the violence against our communities. And the murder of six Asian women in Atlanta was not just an isolated instance of racism and bigotry, but also the product of racist misogyny.
AAPI diversity has been turned into stereotypes and caricatures, and dissolved into a Black and white binary that erases the complex totality of who we are. White supremacy and Western imperialism have sought to hypersexualize AAPI women and emasculate AAPI men in an attempt to minimize our humanity and strip us of our dignity. Further, the Model Minority Myth, falsely placing Asian identity in proximity to whiteness, has amplified anti-Blackness. Thus, AAPIs have been exploited both as tools of oppression and convenient scapegoats within racism.
AAPIs reflect a broad diversity of ethnicities, ancestries, caste, cultures, histories, languages, faiths, genders, sexualities, abilities, socioeconomic status, class, geographies, and much more that comprise the pan-AAPI community. We celebrate both our diversity and our distinct identities within this community. When we join together to work for racial justice and our collective liberation, we will be seen, heard, and acknowledged in our fullness. And we will not be silenced or dismissed.
As a church dedicated to living out the healing and liberating message of Christ, queering the status quo, and confronting all forms of injustice and oppression, we at HA:N commit to finding solutions by joining with all communities of color and everyone working to dismantle white supremacy. We commit to fighting racism by calling out racist laws, attitudes and actions. We also commit to tearing down prejudices within our own communities -- including ethnocentrism, caste supremacy, colorism, language hegemony, religious fundamentalism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, classism, materialism -- starting with honest self-reflection.
Yet, as we name our deep pain, we must also acknowledge how members of our own communities have too often been silent bystanders to the oppression and suffering of others. Within the U.S. and as well as around the world, we are witnesses or even perpetrators of oppression of Indigenous peoples and state-sponsored violence.
This moment requires all of us to come together -- irrespective of our differences -- and join the urgent call for solidarity with those who refuse to stand by and watch another be oppressed or erased. We must work together to end racism. We urge all who yearn for liberation from injustice and oppression to stand up and speak out against anti-AAPI hatred and violence, and all forms of racism and bigotry. We invite you to co-conspire with us in pursuit of the peaceful and just creation that God intended for us all.
STATEMENT ON THE KILLING OF GEORGE FLOYD - 5/31/20
HA:N United Methodist Church condemns the appalling murder of Mr. George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. This is yet another instance of violence perpetrated against our Black brothers and sisters in a long and unbroken succession of state sanctioned terrorism inflicted on the Black community. This pervasive policing of and violence against Black bodies are evident throughout the whole of our society. It is clear that these horrific tragedies are not the result of the actions of a few bad apples, but rather the fruit of a diseased orchard.
We at HA:N resist evil, injustice, and oppression in all forms that they present themselves. As a predominantly Asian American congregation that is also multi-racial, we grieve with our Black family members. Asian Americans have benefited directly from the tireless work of the Black community in resisting oppression and advocating for justice against policies that also negatively impacted Asian American communities. We at HA:N stand firmly with our Black sisters and brothers. We commit to fighting White supremacy and dismantling the anti-Black attitudes and actions in society at large and within our own Asian American communities. We urge fellow Asian Americans and Asian American Christians to join in this struggle for liberation. We demand justice for Mr. Floyd and his family and we call on everyone to work towards a just and peaceful world that benefits all peoples.
THE KOREAN AMERICAN CHURCH & LGBTQ FAMILY: THE BEGINNING OF RECONCILIATION
Courtesy of rmnetwork.org
My name is Daniel Cho, and I am the pastor of HA:N UMC, a progressive congregation formed by a community of Korean Americans.
As a pastor, having writer’s block is a weekly affair. I spend my time staring at Bible passages, usually from the lectionary, or I spend my time looking up passages that might relate to a theme for a sermon series. I then try to reflect on the passages and maybe throw in a couple prayers to God to please help me. Then when a sermon finally begins to take some sort of shape, inevitably, I find that I am often the one in need of hearing the message I thought others needed to hear. There comes a moment when I am compelled to repent. This is the case as I write this article now.
God’s Unconventional Work
Courtesy of Divergingmag.com
“JESUS IS QUEER.”
That’s the sign I’m holding up as I walk with an Asian American queer organization that was gracious enough to let my church, HA:N UMC, march with them for the World Pride Parade. Here I am, an Asian face, with a clergy collar, holding a sign celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community with my church, and quite literally displaying all this for all the world to see. Every time I start feeling too tired to keep marching and holding the sign, I get energized by these brief but powerful moments.
THIS SMALL KOREAN AMERICAN CHURCH OFFERS A HOPEFUL FUTURE FOR THE UNITED METHODISTS
Courtesy of Auburn Seminary
In 2017, Jeannie Lee and a few others joined together to create a new United Methodist Church for the Korean American community. Ha:n Church was, from its inception, meant to be a safe, progressive spiritual home for all, including LGBT Korean Americans who have too often felt excluded from the more theologically conservative Korean American Christian community. Lee attended Yale Divinity School and is an active lay leader as well as the Director of Facilities and Hospitalities at Auburn Seminary. Lee Spoke with Editor of Voices, Paul B. Raushenbush, in anticipation of the Special Session of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in St. Louis.