White Like Them: Asian Refugees in a White Christian Congregation

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the introduction of Lao refugees on previously polarized (black/white) ethnic relations in a working‐class evangelical congregation in St. Louis. Church members maintain idealized concepts of Lao economic success, youth, gender roles, and academic performance, which they contrast to concepts of blacks whom they perceive to fail where the Lao succeed. Minimizing differences between the Lao and white church members creates a sense of unity which facilitates restructuring Hie ethnic order into a black/non‐black dichotomy that perpetuates racism and sexism, and appears to "prove" the theory that the poor are responsible for their plight, [sexism, racism, ethnicity, Lao, refugees]