Reconciling Cultures and Generations: Reflections on Today's Church by Korean American Catholics ed. by Simon C. Kim and Francis Daeshin Kim

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reconciling Cultures and Generations: Reflections on Today's Church by Korean American Catholics ed. by Simon C. Kim and Francis Daeshin Kim Angelyn Dries, OSF Reconciling Cultures and Generations: Reflections on Today's Church by Korean American Catholics. Edited by Simon C. Kim and Francis Daeshin Kim. Chicago: Catholic Theological Union, 2018. 142 pp. $14.99. Perhaps the earliest study of what happens to the faith of Catholic immigrants in the context of the United States was Gerald Shaughnessy, Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith? (1925). Ninety plus years later, editors Simon C. Kim and Francis Daeshin Kim have drawn upon diverse categories of thought to examine the historical background undergirding current issues in the life and identity of Korean American Catholics. While influenced by Korean history and culture and by American contexts, Korean, American, and Catholic identity has taken place in a situation where negotiating identity interfaces with an already racialized framework of White, Black, and Protestant. Another factor is the navigation of generational differences within families, often related to the Korean experience of arrival before or after the Korean War. Some common migration issues, albeit with individual particularities for Korean Catholics, are presented with diversity and breadth. Co-editor Francis Daeshin Kim shares his background—Korean heritage, English, and Protestant to Korean American Catholic, [End Page 81] when he married a Korean Catholic woman in California. Chapters are written by scholars in theology (Kevin P. Considine, who married a Korean), Elizabeth Anne Park (child psychologist), James K. Lee (history of Early Christianity), Elizabeth Oh (English), Mi-Kyoung Hwang (ministry), Franklin Rausch, a non-Korean married to a Filipina (historian, late nineteenth century to 1945 Korea and Catholicism), Irene Park (pastoral theology), and co-editor Simon C. Kim (theology). Analysis of cultural and religious factors in the transmission of Catholic faith is central throughout the book. Koreans are known for their strong evangelization efforts. Because women have assumed a key role in handing on culture and faith, Oh's chapter on the psychological effects for women of the misinterpretation of Confucian and Christian teachings about women is especially insightful. Park's chapter explores the role of stories in navigating difficult situations and bridging a generational gap in addressing acculturation issues in immigrant families. Co-editor Simon C. Kim has also played a large role in connecting the experience of Korean Catholics with the church in the United States through the document he wrote for the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Conference, Harmony in Faith: Korean American Catholics (2016), written for the jubilee celebration of Korean Catholics in the United States. The Kim and Kim edited volume is an excellent entrée to an underrepresented community in American Catholic history. Angelyn Dries, OSF Saint Louis University Copyright © 2019 American Catholic Historical Society