APA Religions 101

Japanese, Jewish, Queer, and Clergy with Rev. Laura Cheifetz Bradley Onishi interviews Reverend Laura Mariko Chaffetz, discussing her experiences as a multiracial queer Asian American Christian minister with Jewish heritage. They examine how APA religious communities navigate the black-white binary in the U.S., the impact of anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, and the dynamics of Christian identity in various contexts. The conversation highlights the importance of recognizing and valuing the diverse and rich religious practices among Asian Pacific Americans.Laura Cheifetz is the co-author and editor of "Church on Purpose: Reinventing Discipleship, Community, & Justice" (Judson Press) and contributor to "Race in a Post Obama America: The Church Responds" (Westminster John Knox Press), "Leading Wisdom: Asian and Asian North American Women Leaders" (WJK), "Here I Am: Faith Stories of Korean American Clergywomen" (Judson), and "Streams Run Uphill: Conversations with Young Clergywomen of Color" (Judson). She is co-author of the "Forming Asian Leaders for North American Churches" entry in the "Religious Leadership" reference handbook (SAGE Publishing).Learn more about APARRI. APARRI’s vision is to create a society in which Asian Pacific American religions are valued, recognized, and central to the understanding of American public life. Since 1999, The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) has been a vibrant scholarly community advancing the interdisciplinary study of Asian Pacific Americans and their religions. Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi: @bradleyonishiAudio Engineer and Musician: Scott Okamoto: @rsokamotoFor more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.usFunding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Many wonder how and why religious minorities in the USA adopt conservative – and even fascist – political identities when it seems that the American Right is anti-immigrant and in many cases explicitly racist. Scholars Dr. Jane Hong (Occidental) and Dr. Adrian de Leon (USC/NYU) argue that Asian American (religious) conservatism should be understood not just as an imported phenomenon from outside these communities, but as something structural within the formation of Asian America itself.Special Issue of Amerasia: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00447471.2023.2167934Dr. Jane Hong is the author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of American History, the Gilder-Lehrman Scholarly Advisory Board, the managing board of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI), and the Board of Directors of the Public Religion Research Institute(PRRI). Hong appears in two episodes of the Peabody Award-winning PBS docuseries, Asian Americans (2020). An active public speaker, Hong has shared her expertise with the Brookings Institution, Uber, and NPR’s The Takeaway, in addition to academic and faith-based venues. Dr. Adrian De Leon is an award-winning public historian and writer. Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America, his first academic book, uses archival research in the Philippines, Hawai‘i, North America, and Spain in order to follow the co-constitution of Philippine indigeneity and Filipino migrant labor through the racial archives of 19th-century plantation capitalism in Luzon’s northern hinterlands.Learn more about APARRI. APARRI’s vision is to create a society in which Asian Pacific American religions are valued, recognized, and central to the understanding of American public life. Since 1999, The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) has been a vibrant scholarly community advancing the interdisciplinary study of Asian Pacific Americans and their religions. Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi: @bradleyonishiAudio Engineer and Musician: Scott Okamoto: @rsokamotoFor more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.usFunding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Brad speaks with journalist and scholar Philip Deslippe about the origins of yoga in the United States as a response to the precarity of South Asian lives in the 20th century America. "A century ago, students of yoga in the United States, like many practitioners today, believed that they were engaging in something pure, ancient, and Indian. In reality, the yoga they were doing was a bricolage of the metaphysical and mundane presented to them in an exotic, Orientalized package by largely educated and worldly immigrants from India. These teachers were themselves responding and adapting to a nativist and racist climate. Yoga in the United States during the interwar decades is one of many examples of how Asian religions in the United States cannot be fully understood outside the context of Asian American history."Learn more about APARRI. APARRI’s vision is to create a society in which Asian Pacific American religions are valued, recognized, and central to the understanding of American public life. Since 1999, The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) has been a vibrant scholarly community advancing the interdisciplinary study of Asian Pacific Americans and their religions. Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi: @bradleyonishiAudio Engineer and Musician: Scott Okamoto: @rsokamotoFor more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.usFunding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Brad speaks with Dr. Simran Jeet Singh , Executive Director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.As a boy growing up in South Texas, Simran Jeet Singh and his brothers confronted racism daily: at school, in their neighborhood, playing sports, and later in college and beyond. Despite the prejudice and hate he faced, this self-described “turban-wearing, brown-skinned, beard-loving Sikh” refused to give in to negativity. Instead, Singh delved deep into the Sikh teachings that he grew up with and embraced the lessons to seek the good in every person and situation and to find positive ways to direct his energy. These Sikh tenets of love and service to others have empowered him to forge a life of connection and a commitment to justice that have made him a national figure in the areas of equity, inclusion, and social justice.The Light We Give: https://simranjeetsingh.org/the-light-we-give/Learn more about APARRI. APARRI’s vision is to create a society in which Asian Pacific American religions are valued, recognized, and central to the understanding of American public life. Since 1999, The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) has been a vibrant scholarly community advancing the interdisciplinary study of Asian Pacific Americans and their religions. Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi: @bradleyonishiAudio Engineer and Musician: Scott Okamoto: @rsokamotoFor more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.usFunding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Brad speaks with Dr. Funie Hsu and Chenxing Han about race, heritage, and Asian American Buddhisms. They discuss the ways Asian American Buddhists are often misunderstood in the United States due to the incomplete representation of Buddhism in American culture and the contemporary predominance of Whiteness in Buddhist spaces.Dr. Funie Hsu is currently Associate Professor of American Studies at San José State University and was a former University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Davis. Her first book, Instructions for (Erasing) Empire: English, Domestication, and the US Colonization of the Philippines (under contract), demonstrates how English language instruction served to erase the violent reality of US occupation.Chenxing Han (she/her) is the author of Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists (2021); one long listening: a memoir of grief, friendship, and spiritual care (2023); and numerous articles and book chapters for both academic and mainstream audiences. A frequent speaker and workshop leader at schools, universities, and Buddhist communities across the nation, she has received fellowships from Hedgebrook, Hemera Foundation, the Lenz Foundation, and the University of Michigan. Learn more about APARRI. APARRI’s vision is to create a society in which Asian Pacific American religions are valued, recognized, and central to the understanding of American public life. Since 1999, The Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI) has been a vibrant scholarly community advancing the interdisciplinary study of Asian Pacific Americans and their religions. Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi: @bradleyonishiAudio Engineer and Musician: Scott Okamoto: @rsokamotoFor more information about research-based media by Axis Mundi Media visit: www.axismundi.usFunding for this series has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.