Abstract
Using ethnographic and interview data, my paper analyzes how geopolitical relationship manifest at the community level in Chinese America Responding to Lien Pei-Te’s call to meaningfully disaggregate among the commonly “lumped together Chinese Americans”, I draw upon the experiences of specific groups of Chinese immigrants to the US, post-1949 migrants to Taiwan, pre-1949 migrants to Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Chinese, in order to understand how boundary drawing occurs in their various communities but also consider how the act of being “lumped together” itself in the US context complicates identity formation. The year 1949 marks the communist victory in the PRC as well as the inaugural year of the Kuomingdang (KMT)-led Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. Carved out of these historical events, the contemporary social relations among these groups persist after their migration to the US, but they manifest differently in various domains of practice, including religious ones. As political relationships among states reorganizes their social relations, the religious site offers what Carolyn Chen calls a “moral vocabulary” to articulate, contemplate, and, in some cases, justify these divides. Even within a Christian context, messages of inclusivity are not universal but redefined according to the political and social contexts. By not assigning a singular definition to Christian thought, my paper makes way for a theorization of an intersectional Christian identity.
Highlights
With China’s rise in the global order combined with the continuing push for Taiwanese independence,1 questions of who counts as Taiwanese and who counts as Chinese have come to the forefront, even affecting areas outside of distinct political arenas
Because there are no second-generation members, apart from myself, Sunday services are conducted entirely in Mandarin without any translation. They have an informal daycare for children, but there is no formal Sunday school because the children are too young. They conduct their activities in a church rented from a predominantly white congregation Unlike Maryland Evangelical Church (MEC) which has a rotating and formally elected deacon’s board, the leadership of Maryland Baptist Church (MBC) is comprised of a waishengren couple who have been in the US since the early 1990s
Positively associates being “western” or “open-minded” with the Taiwanese whereas the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Chinese are bound by their traditional ways. It is precisely getting this “western” influence without having to go an American church that makes her stay at MEC, a church where she is a minority and where she is subjected to stereotypes of PRC Chinese
Summary
With China’s rise in the global order combined with the continuing push for Taiwanese independence, questions of who counts as Taiwanese and who counts as Chinese have come to the forefront, even affecting areas outside of distinct political arenas. Within the North American sociological literature as well as the public forum, the Taiwanese people and Taiwanese Americans are commonly associated with a definition of Chineseness that centers the PRC Chinese while viewing Taiwan, Hong Kong, and sometimes Singapore, as added-on satellites or “ethnic supplements” (Chow 2013; Tu 2013; Wang 2013a) By not exploring these places individually, we overlook how domestic and international forces shape these groups and how they engage with dominant renderings that they institutionally encounter in their daily lives. Using what Chen (2008) calls their “moral vocabularies” to articulate these differences, Taiwanese congregants complicate and redefine what it means to be “inclusive” and “decent” Christians Their anxieties about a strong China manifest through their fear of “hordes” of PRC Chinese immigrants “taking over” their church and changing worship practices. By not assigning a singular definition to Christian thought, my paper makes way for multiple interpretations and more importantly, a theorization of an intersectional Christian identity
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