Copyright by Esther June Kim 2020
The Dissertation Committee for Esther June Kim Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:
CITIZEN MAKING IN RELIGIOUS SPACES: ENCOUNTERING THE “OTHER”/EACH OTHER ON SCHOOL MISSION TRIPS
Committee:
Anthony Brown, Supervisor
Jennifer Adair
Madeline Hsu
Katherina Payne
Cynthia Salinas
David Wang CITIZEN MAKING IN RELIGIOUS SPACES: ENCOUNTERING THE “OTHER”/EACH OTHER ON SCHOOL MISSION TRIPS
by
Esther June Kim
Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin May 2020 Dedication
To 엄마, 아빠, 할머니, 외할머니. Thank you for your love, sacrifice, and faith.
Acknowledgements
To all my former students in California, Seoul, and UT, my love of teaching was born and nurtured because you all were the best students I could ever have hoped for.
This dissertation came out of a desire to be a better teacher for you all.
To Calvary Lutheran and all my participants, thank you for welcoming me into your community with love and honesty.
To the Missions teachers: I am so humbled by what you have and continue to build. Thank you for being so real with me and for showing me a way to love the world with integrity and humility.
To the participants who shared stories of their pain: without your permission, your encouragement, and your hope, I could not and would not have been able to do this research. I am honored that we could share some of the collective pain and laughter.
Thank you for entrusting me with your stories.
To my committee: Jennifer Adair, thank you for all your support, encouragement, and critique. You helped me understand the importance of integrity, care, and reflection as a researcher. Madeline Hsu, I admire and respect your scholarship and teaching more than I can express. But what also sets you apart from so many in your field is that you somehow make the time to do so much more: to ensure that Asian American students like myself are holistically supported, to work with K-12 teachers who crave the intellectual sustenance you can provide, to partner with marginalized community groups, and of
v course to rescue Jack and Sasha. Thank you for the many lessons I learned by your remarkable example. Dave Wang, I’ve always enjoyed your sermons the most at every church we’ve attended together, even before I personally met you. Your scholarship, theology, perspectives, and actions all seamlessly fit together, and it is evident in how you live in community with others.
To my Social Studies committee: Katie Payne, from the first phone call where you answered the millions of questions I had, you have been a source of kindness, comfort, and knowledge. Thank you for helping me sort through the muddle of thoughts and data in my head whenever I needed and thank you for the many ways you are present for your students. Cinthia Salinas, throughout my time at UT, I have been surrounded by support, love, and care, thanks in large part to you. And not just the countless hours, seafood meals, hugs, Hoppy time, and intellectual brilliance you provide, but the family you take the time the build with those of us lucky enough to be in your orbit. To my dissertation chair, Anthony Brown, you introduced me to scholars and theories (in addition to your own example) that not only shaped my academic path but helped me make sense of my own history and gave me a glimpse of how I want to be in this world and with others. I am so thankful for the wisdom, grace, and opportunities you have always extended to me.
Professor Sylvia Wynter, you are the most generous “weaver of ideas,” as you so modestly describe yourself. Your ability to see what is happening with piercing clarity and to name what is insidious and inhumane in such meticulously thought out and researched ways, yet the hope and the compassion that guides your work and life were vi exactly the spiritual and intellectual nourishment I needed when you opened your home and life’s work to me. Thank you for your care, your humour, and your encouragement.
Anna Falkner, you are so much more than an academic sister. You challenge me and at the same time accept me without reservation. You graciously share your time, your brilliant insights, and your loving family. I am so grateful to you and for you. Austin,
Atticus, Lillian, and the Falkners (in Austin and Mississippi), thank you for all your care and support!
Noreen Naseem Rodríguez, what can I say but that you are irreplaceable as a friend and mentor. You set the example not only as a scholar and colleague, but also as a human being who cares deeply for what is just and right. You live, dance, sing, mother, and work with an openness and passion that inspires and gives words to those of us still finding our way.
Dee Hall, you are filled with joy, love, and a genius creativity. Your friendship means lots of laughter but also an extra shoulder when carrying a burden. You know how to embrace and love through the good and the bad.
Neil Shanks, you were an academic and emotional rock during some tumultuous personal times—one of the most steadfast people I’ve had in my life. Your friendship has meant so much to me.
Steven Montemayor, you are radiant. You make everyone around you shine more brightly. You see straight into a person’s mind and heart, and all that is lovely, irritating, and ridiculous. Yet you manage to stay beautiful and full of loyalty and compassion
(even when you try to hide it!). I am so lucky to have you in my life. vii Bedour Alagraa, you set the example of how to think, love, and offer friendship so grandly. Every moment with you inspires me to push beyond boundaries and expectations.
Kevin Magill, you made me feel so welcome from day one. You always gave invaluable advice, and I’m thankful for your willingness to perform for the joy of others
Amanda Vickery, thank you for the Winnie updates, videos and photos! But more so, thank you for your guidance and your support these past five years.
To my colleagues: Michael Joseph, I am so happy that our years at UT overlapped. You’re a solid friend, office mate, and colleague. Working and laughing with you has been a true pleasure and joy. Heath Robinson, I have learned so much from our theory talks, to the way you truly listen, to how open and nice you are while constantly reflecting on how you can be a better scholar, teacher, and person. Joanna Batt, you show such care for the people around you. I’m so happy for all the new teachers who will have had you through their preparation. Melissa Rojas Williams, you have the best laugh and it always warmed my heart to be with you and your kids.
Jenna Anderson, thank you for your friendship and all the ways you kept me sane.
You have inspired me in many ways and I’m so grateful for the years you were in Austin.
Ashley Moline, you are one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever known. Thank you for being a friend, a sounding board, a lifeline, and a constant encourager.
Jane Roh, your friendship and constancy have been a support that enabled me to go and live anywhere at anytime. I’ve loved journeying through so much of life with you. viii To my Kakao friends: Jane, Janet, Joyce, Keren, Ann, Michelle, Mia, and Una— whenever I needed anything (books, prayer, encouragement, a space to vent, proofreading, a laugh, a photo of Bernie, Jeter, or Wally), you were always present.
Through our ten, twenty, and over thirty years of friendships, your unconditionality has been unparalleled.
To my Bruin roomies: Bonnie, Jeannie, and Julie—the three of you were the first to make me understand that I could be exactly who I am without fearing rejection— something I’ve learned always looms over the heads of academics. Time with the three of you reminds me that I’ll always have a place where success or failure will never matter.
To my CA church and Solidarity friends: Bethany, Tommy, Matt, Jay, Dave, and everyone else too numerous to name, thank you for showing me a community that lives in a way that really is what Jesus would do and did. This is the first space where I saw how privilege, racism, neoliberalism, and fear could be countered by the Gospel. The honesty, humility, and constant willing sacrifice by which you all live your lives proves to me that a “radical” alternative is possible here on earth.
To my aunts, uncles, and cousins who showed me that an academic life is not easy nor always fun, but that it should always be driven by love of learning. And especially to New York 이모 for providing the many writing retreats I needed to finish this dissertation.
To Richard: Brother, no one else knows better why I am who I am. We faced some heavy challenges together, sometimes from opposite sides, but I would never exchange any of our life together because no matter the mistakes we’ve made and keep ix making, it continues to teach us how to live and work more deeply in grace, faith, and love.
To my parents: 엄마, 아빠 you always saw the best in me and named it but held me accountable when my worst appeared and would listen when I did the same. From birth, you tried not to stifle the stubbornness that saw me through my hardest times. Your constant support and faith not only when I’ve succeeded, but when I’ve floundered, u- turned, or failed, is the only reason I could do any of this. Thank you for everything.
x Abstract
Citizen making in religious spaces: Encountering the “other”/each other on school mission trips
Esther June Kim, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2020
Supervisor: Anthony Brown
This dissertation focuses on ideologies that shape the civic agency of students and how ideologies that divide between human beings might be deconstructed both at home and abroad. Using Sylvia Wynter’s (1995) hybrid human, and her application of subjective understanding to examine what makes a moment in history possible (e.g.
Columbus’ voyage), as well as Thomas Holt’s (1995) analysis of race and racism in the everyday, this ethnography took place alongside students, teachers, and parents from a religious high school. The context is the intersection between ideology and civic education, where the following questions may be explored: how do ideologies shape the interactions between students, teachers and “others” on short term missions, and, how might ideologies shift?
While multiple dilemmas emerged around doing civic work in religious spaces, three themes related to ideological movement emerged. Shifts were often facilitated by a combination of teacher mediation, the consistent leaving of home, and steadfast
xi engagement with counter narratives offered by insiders from “other” communities. A constant dilemma, however, was the barrier of racism within the school community.
Participants of color across race and grade levels expressed a shared pain in their racialized encounters with classmates and teachers. A common sentiment of feeling alone in a predominantly white space facilitated the formation of theories on their own or within their church communities to make sense of the injustices they and their families both faced and witnessed. My research with this community builds on the work of scholars who study race and ideology in the classroom, specifically how ideological shifts occur in schools (Giroux, 1991; Philip, 2011). I extend this in my research by considering how a confluence of identities and ideologies, including religion, come together and how they may be deconstructed by students and teachers.
xii Table of Contents
List of Tables ...... xix
List of Figures ...... xx
Chapter One: Unexpected ...... 1
Interpreting the Bible As an Evangelical ...... 2
The Song of Deborah ...... 2
“The Son of a Harlot” or “a Mighty Warrior” ...... 3
WHAT IS EVANGELICALISM? ...... 5
Evangelical vs. Fundamental ...... 5
WHY THIS MATTERS IN SOCIAL STUDIES ...... 8
OVERVIEW OF CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ...... 10
OVERVIEW OF STUDY DESIGN ...... 11
Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 14
“A CITY UPON A HILL” ...... 14
DEFINING “CITIZEN” AND “CITIZENSHIP” IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACES ...... 16
Cultural Citizenship ...... 20
CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS ...... 27
Useful Typologies ...... 27
Authenticity and Civic Education for a Diverse and/or Global Society ...... 29
Service Learning & Ideological Border Crossing ...... 31
“NOT OF THIS WORLD”: CITIZENSHIP ACCORDING TO THE “HIGHEST AUTHORITY” ...... 34
Citizen of Heaven ...... 35
xiii “An Instrument of God” for God’s Justice in the Old Testament ...... 38
“An Instrument of God” for God’s Justice in the New Testament ..... 39
PASTORAL INTERPRETATIONS: CITIZENSHIP FROM THE PULPIT ...... 42
Identity: Private or Public? ...... 44
Membership: To Whom/What Do I Belong? ...... 47
Agency: How Am I to Live? ...... 50
CHRISTIAN (EVANGELICAL) SCHOOLS ...... 54
Christian Schools in the 1980s: Evangelical and/or Fundamentalist ...... 54
An Unintentional Discursive Image ...... 56
A Christian Education Means a Christian Worldview ...... 58
Faith Alone? ...... 61
A CONCERN FOR DIVERSITY AND AUTONOMY ...... 63
Does Evangelicalism Have a Place in a Pluralistic Democracy? ...... 63
A Citizen Should Be Autonomous ...... 64
Chapter Three: Research Design ...... 70
RESEARCH PARADIGM ...... 70
Ethnography ...... 71
Why Ethnography ...... 71
CONTEXTS ...... 74
School and County Space: The Sunbelt ...... 74
We’re An Addidas School ...... 76
Missions at Calvary Lutheran ...... 78
“Somewhere Totally Different”: Taiwan ...... 81
xiv Concordia Middle School in Chiayi: Taiwanese Lutheran Education ...... 82
Indigenous in Taiwan ...... 84
“The Other America”: Appalachia ...... 87
A Sovereign Nation: Bishop Paiute Reservation ...... 88
SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS ...... 92
Time and Place ...... 92
Short Term Missions ...... 93
People ...... 94
Focal Participants—Students ...... 95
Focal Participants—Teachers ...... 97
Focal Participants—Parents ...... 98
DATA COLLECTION & TRUSTWORTHINESS ...... 98
Influential Ethnographic Work & Findings ...... 100
Field Notes and Jottings ...... 101
Informal Interviews and Oral Accounts ...... 103
Formal Interviews ...... 105
Data Analysis ...... 106
Home & Culture ...... 110
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ...... 111
The Function of Ideology/Cosmogony/Origin Story ...... 112
Subjective Understanding ...... 113
Creating a Propter Nos/a Referent We ...... 116
Auto-Institution and the Resulting Social Reality ...... 117 xv Transformation ...... 120
Everydayness: What the Liminal Must Shift From ...... 122
RESEARCHER POSITIONALITY ...... 127
Identities ...... 128
Identity One: Christian ...... 128
Identity Two: Asian American ...... 128
Identity Three: Researcher ...... 129
Identity Four: Teacher ...... 129
Identity Five: Divinity school graduate ...... 129
Identity Six: Korean heritage ...... 130
Identity Seven: Woman ...... 130
Access as an Insider & Outsider ...... 130
Pilot Studies ...... 132
Chapter Four: Receiving and Telling Stories ...... 134
ALISHAN, TAIWAN ...... 134
Martha or Mary: To Act or To Listen? ...... 136
THE BISHOP PAIUTE ...... 143
“We Don’t Do that Around Here” ...... 146
“We Are All One People” ...... 148
Respecting Boundaries ...... 150
“NOT EVERYONE HERE IS A HILLBILLY” ...... 152
Hunting for Treasure ...... 153
PARADIGMS ...... 154
xvi Narrative, Counter Narrative, or Origin Story? ...... 160
Chapter Five: Boundaries of Home & Missions ...... 162
PRACTICING SELFLESSNESS ...... 162
MISSIONS VERSUS NORMAL LIFE ...... 165
Where Women Belong ...... 169
Where Men Belong ...... 172
Respecting Culture ...... 173
Context Matters ...... 176
Defining Home ...... 179
Chapter Six: Wynter’s Liminal Category at Calvary Lutheran ...... 188
RACE & RACISM ...... 188
“For Her Safety” ...... 190
RIDICULE & RACISM ...... 191
“Dissipating” Black Lives Matter ...... 192
“I Don’t Think Calvary Lutheran Is Ready For That” ...... 194
Physical Violence ...... 195
THE SCHOOL RESPONSE ...... 196
Shared Pain ...... 197
STUDENT RESPONSES ...... 200
Speaking a Counter-Narrative ...... 200
Choosing Silence or Quiet ...... 202
MAKING SENSE OF WHAT’S HAPPENING: STUDENT THEORIES ABOUT RACISM ...... 204
Theology and Justice ...... 204 xvii “They just have to do it”: White laughter ...... 206
Church As Shelter ...... 207
Re-Writing Stories ...... 210
Chapter Seven: Implications & Conclusion ...... 212
A Subjective Understanding of Pacific County ...... 214
“Some More Racist Things” —Racism at the Macro Level ...... 216
A Subjective Understanding of the LCMS ...... 217
Counter Narratives and Dominant Paradigms ...... 219
Silences, Absences, & Non-Engagement ...... 223
Theology as Ideology ...... 228
Learning From Borders & Border Crossing ...... 231
The Praxis of being “Ecumenically Human.” ...... 233
“Our Stories… are what makes us human” ...... 233
References ...... 237
xviii List of Tables
Table 1: Participants, demographics, time in field, and collected data ...... 109 Table 2: Simplified conceptual framework for Sylvia Wynter’s theories ...... 122
xix List of Figures
Figure 1: Sample field notes and reflections ...... 107
xx Chapter One: Unexpected
“God, thank you for letting Esther see what she did and for putting her in a position to make these connections that she shared with us, and would you continue to bless her research.” Each teacher in the Missions department prayed for me as we ended our meeting.
I had just shared initial findings from my first few observations of the Missions class and
I had been terrified that they would be angry, offended, or at the very least uncomfortable.
Leading up to our meeting, I had asked a friend whom I knew to be theologically and politically very conservative to critique my presentation for whatever might be offensive or seemingly biased. Ultimately, I presented everything without restraint or euphemisms.
I outlined the racial divide in their classes, stories of microaggressions, sentiments of heightened nationalism, and the tendency to ignore structural inequities. I was so scared, my voice shook. But when I finished speaking, they thanked me for sharing, and then asked questions about what they could do to address what I had seen. They asked if they could pray over me and my work and then invited me to continue my research by joining them on mission trips.
Having taught at the school for three years, having reviewed literature on evangelical and religious schools, I did not expect their openness and trust. Even as a partial insider in the community, I assumed much of the same as the discursive image of evangelicals that had come to the forefront of U.S. society and politics in the 2000s. Despite my own membership in the community, I missed the obvious fact that I should have been proof to myself that evangelicals are not monolithic. When I qualified the name and added 1 “white” evangelical, even then, I was quickly shown that every community has complexity no matter how they are discursively positioned.
INTERPRETING THE BIBLE AS AN EVANGELICAL
“Most blessed of women be Ja′el, ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? the wife of Heber the Ken′ite, Why tarry the hoofbeats of his of tent-dwelling women most blessed. chariots?’ 25 He asked water and she gave him 29 Her wisest ladies make answer, milk, she brought him curds in a lordly nay, she gives answer to herself, bowl. 30 ‘Are they not finding and dividing 26 She put her hand to the tent peg the spoil?— and her right hand to the workmen’s A maiden or two for every man; Mallet; she struck Sis′era a blow, spoil of dyed stuffs for Sis′era, she crushed his head, spoil of dyed stuffs embroidered, she shattered and pierced his temple. two pieces of dyed work embroidered 27 He sank, he fell, he lay still at her feet; for my neck as spoil?’
at her feet he sank, he fell; 31 “So perish all thine enemies, O LORD! where he sank, there he fell dead But thy friends be like the sun as he 28 “Out of the window she peered, rises in his might.” the mother of Sis′era gazed through And the land had rest for forty the lattice: years. (Judges 5:24-31, RSV)
The Song of Deborah
In the book of Judges, Deborah, a leader of Israel, is called to “Awake, awake, utter a song” (Judges 5:12, Revised Standard Version)! What comes forth from her lips is a history of Israel’s victory over their enemy Sisera and his army. She praises Jael, once an 2 ally of Sisera, who kills him when he seeks shelter and protection in her tent. But Deborah ends her song with Sisera’s mother, who anxiously wonders why her son has yet to return.
It is a story that is triumphant and troubling. In driving a peg through the head of Sisera,
Jael protects those within Deborah’s community. Yet Jael’s actions are treacherous in light of her family’s peace with Sisera’s, and her offer of protection in her tent. Deborah then gives life to Sisera’s mother as she waits for a son who will never return to her. But does
Deborah do so to mock her enemy, or does she, as “mother in Israel” (Judges 5:7, RSV), recognize the cost of their victory to another mother?
“The Son of a Harlot” or “a Mighty Warrior”
Jephthah, a Judge following Deborah, was born to a “harlot” and so cast out of his family and community until his military might was needed against the Ammonites. The sacrifice he rashly offers to God for this victory was his only child, an unnamed daughter who goes willingly to her death. As the “son of a harlot” (Judges 11:1, RSV), Jephthah’s lineage relegates him to the “Liminal” (Wynter, 2003, p. 325) of Israel, but as a “mighty warrior” (Judges 11:1, RSV), he has capital that gives him value, hence entrée into a nation.
Danielle Allen (2004) notes an admiration of Jephthah’s sense of duty and his sacrifice during the Enlightenment. Historically, however, Jephthah’s daughter was of greater interest to theologians beginning with Augustine in the 4th century CE through Reformation scholars, then again with Feminist biblical scholars in the 20th century, who censured
Jephthah while giving his daughter’s life and sacrifice the thought and imagination absent in the book of Judges (Thompson, 2001). More recently, Allen (2004) draws parallels
3 between this story and the unnamed sacrifices in “system[s] of promise and consent” (p.
38). In such systems, such as democracies, citizens are expected to consent to policies and laws even when they may not be in their best interest. Citizens do so because they understand that at some point, that sacrifice will be lifted or they will benefit from another law or policy that sacrifices the interest of others. While emphasizing the involuntary and constant sacrifice of Black Americans in U.S. democracy, Allen writes that “the daughter’s self-sacrifice… is the model for a whole other range of anonymous loss in democratic politics, which, as it happens, democratic citizens generally do not see clearly; nor do they honor it” (p. 39). The tragedy of Jephthah and his daughter exposes the bounds of a community and the cost of maintaining those borders often to the unnamed people within.
What the stories of Jael, Sisera’s mother, Jephthah, and his daughter reveal about
God, community, nationhood, and citizenship (i.e. how citizenship is enacted), will vary by context, by reader, and a number of other elements that shape our lenses. Quinn (1983) expands this notion to the entire book of Judges, which he likens to a moral test for its readers.
Those who are like the sinning Israelites will simply enjoy the story of Deborah as
a victory of "us" over "them"—and will be indifferent to the truth or to the
sentiments of common humanity, as long as this indifference is to "our" advantage.
Those, in contrast, who do see the ironies, see the parallel between the mother of
Sisera and the daughter of Jephthah, the treachery of Jael and that of Delilah, will
find Judges an excruciating experience, a wrenching call to humility and
repentance. (p. 87) 4 As Quinn suggests, truth as Truth will not be taken in and up in the same ways, even by the same individuals. Yet, for many evangelical Christians in the United States, including some in this study, Truth is biblical, singular, and immutable.
To draw once again from Quinn, the stories from Judges are jarring, and not only for the brutal murder of Sisera and the human sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter. If one is unfamiliar with biblical texts, with hermeneutics, with theology, with the ways in which evangelical Christians interpret and practically apply what many consider to be literature or a biased history, wrestling with the two stories may seem like nonsense. Yet, that is precisely how many of the participants in this study determine how they are to live and how they are to live with others. Just as participants in this study draw first from the Bible,
I also begin with biblical stories that speak to the themes of this dissertation: community, community boundaries, and the costs of those boundaries.
WHAT IS EVANGELICALISM?
Evangelical vs. Fundamental
When exploring evangelicalism and fundamentalism in any field, many begin with
George Marsden’s (1991) Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism.
Historically, he situates the two as movements, not categorizations, arising from the revivals of the Great Awakening. Marsden describes these movements as a “coalition of submovements, which are sometimes strikingly diverse and do not always get along” (p.
2). He describes a more contemporary understanding of evangelicalism and a subcategory,
5 fundamentalism, as including five specific beliefs. Evangelicals are those who believe in the Bible as the highest authority, God’s intervention in this world, salvation through the death of Christ, evangelism, and a life transformed (pp. 4-5). Defined as such, he points out that evangelicals can be found in most denominations within the United States. A
Fundamentalist, on the other hand, is described as “an evangelical who is angry about something” (p. 1). They are generally seen as any Christian “militant conservative” but
Marsden clarifies that most who self-identify as fundamentalist are more accurately a specific denomination: Baptist dispensationalists (p. 4).
Brantley Gasaway (2014) explores a different submovement of evangelicalism by tracing the rise of progressive evangelicals in American society as an alternative to the religious right. He contrasts the beliefs of progressive evangelicals on, for example, feminism, racism, poverty and war, to those of conservative evangelicals often associated with Fundamentalism, such as Jerry Falwell. His work represents an emerging focus on diversity within evangelicalism, particularly on the evangelical left (e.g. people of color, feminists, Queer, etc.) (Lee, 2015; Swartz, 2012). In contrast to portrayals of evangelicals in media and education research, what Gasaway creates, is an image of evangelical that is not only diverse, but politically fluid.
Discursively, however, evangelical Christians are often understood as white and conservative, an image that came to the forefront during the presidential election of 2016.
The 81% white, evangelical vote for Trump, then, the 80% white, evangelical vote for accused sex offender Roy Moore in Alabama seemed constant fixtures on news feeds.
More statistics began to pour forth as sociologists and other experts were consulted by 6 news outlets eager to understand this phenomenon: amongst Christians, evangelicals are most likely to view the U.S. as a Christian nation; over 50% of Southerners connect nationalism with Christianity; Alabama has one of the highest concentrations of white, evangelical Christians in the country (Bailey, 2017). For Prudence Carter (2017), the “half of America” that voted for Trump
are populations of individuals who are going to church… and mostly evangelical
church spaces where they’re being told by religious leaders various things that
actually undermine the democratic project. And so the question is…How do we
change those spaces?
As a voting bloc, white evangelicals in the U.S. have a significant impact (Wong, 2018a), and for many, especially those with marginalized identities, this fact is terrifying; however, before the transformation that Carter calls for can take place, perhaps a closer examination of evangelical spaces might reveal not only a more complex community, but perhaps change already taking place from within.
That there are progressive evangelicals, and evangelicals of color, is a truth that is forgotten, or ignored, even within the white, evangelical church (Campolo & Claiborne,
2017). In an interview following the presidential election in 2016, Reverend William
Barber objected to David Remnick’s description of evangelical as white and conservative:
Remnick: … the Evangelical white church has been growing more and more
conservative for decades…
Barber: You used a lot of terms I don’t usually use that way… I’m an evangelical.
The Black church has been traditionally evangelical. The term was hijacked 7 because in the Bible, theologically, there’s no such thing as an evangelical that does
not begin with a critique of systems of economic injustice. (Remnick & Wickenden,
2017)
In her study on the political behavior of U.S. evangelicals, Janelle Wong (2018a) concludes that “race matters in evangelical politics” (p. 37). Although evangelicals from non-white ethnic groups tend to be more politically conservative than their non-evangelical counterparts, Wong shows that overall, white evangelicals are far more likely to support conservative positions than non-white evangelicals. For example, while 27% of white evangelicals disagreed that the federal government should combat climate change, 9% of
Black evangelicals, 9% of Asian American evangelicals, and 10% of Latinx evangelicals disagreed. The assumption that evangelicals are a monolithic group best represented by the qualified political category, “white evangelical,” is an easy one to make in current discourse, and perhaps even serves to make quick sense of current political and social dysfunction in the U.S.
WHY THIS MATTERS IN SOCIAL STUDIES
Within Social Studies curriculum religion is often present as a historical and cultural artifact. Yet, as Rosenblith (2008) and Romanowski (2003) discuss, there are dangers in relegating the study of religions strictly within cultural, political, or historical frames. In addition to ignoring the core elements of religions (epistemological concerns), such a view can limit a student’s expression of identity. Another element, which has not been adequately studied, that perhaps should be considered in a secondary classroom, is
8 that religion is often a present and deeply personal choice. Even if unacknowledged, the religious or non-religious identities of students are already and always present in the classroom (Kunzman, 2015; Schweber, 2015). Additionally, as we live in a democratic, pluralist society, “to engage in meaningful deliberation with those whose ideas differ from our own, we must do more than understand them—we must care about them and about their perspectives” (Barton & Levstik, 2004).
Many social studies courses emphasize national narratives, or “origin stories,” that bind individuals into one society, or perhaps depending on the teacher and curriculum, bind humanity together as a global society. Western-centric narratives of progress and U.S. exceptionalism are dominant in history classes (Bolgatz & Marino, 2014; Halvorsen &
Hong, 2010; Keirn, Luhr, Escobar, & Choudhary, 2012; Noboa, 2012; VanSledright,
2008). Other subject areas such as economics tend to emphasize a “false neutrality” that obfuscates the structural and historical constructions that uphold the economic and social status quo of the U.S. (Shanks, 2017). These narratives provide for narrow and un-critical conceptions of citizenship, yet, as Janelle Wong’s (2018a) research clearly shows, they are not the only stories that inform how students determine who they will be as a citizen of their community, their nation-state, or the world. If social studies as a field is concerned with “help[ing] young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (National Council for the Social Studies, “What is Social Studies,”
2017), religion as a mainstream and/or disruptive force must be considered.
9 OVERVIEW OF CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
This study draws from three theories developed in the works of Sylvia Wynter and
Thomas Holt. As Wynter (2015) argues that human beings are “auto-instituting” (p. 210) or born into a society that has already determined what is acceptable on an individual and institutional basis, her “subjective understanding” requires study, outside the individual, of the many ways that culturally-specific behavior and discourse are made possible. One of the ways in which individuals are brought together into shared behavior and discourse is through the second part of this framework, the propter nos, a community, or an “us,” created by common origin stories based on nationality, religion, race, etc. According to
Wynter, the construction of a propter nos necessarily requires a “liminal category” that classifies some people as less human than those within.
The third component of this framework, everydayness, is Holt’s (1995) call to examine race and racism at the level of the everyday, the ordinary actions of ordinary human beings in reciprocal relation to the structures in which all are socialized. He emphasizes the ways in which individual actions and views can help shape the larger structures that determine how individuals function in the world. Bringing the three theories together in this dissertation, I seek an understanding of a Christian school community as its members work with those within and without the communal boundaries. Wynter’s subjective understanding requires a broad view of the community that encompasses the institutions and their narratives already in place around the participants, such as churches and theology, schools and curriculum, socio-cultural spaces and dominant images, context and ideology. Many of these institutions and narratives function to construct the boundaries 10 around the various propter nos of participants, whose buy-in serves to maintain borders.
By focusing on the collective and everyday behavior and discourse of individuals within the propter nos, I hope to illuminate how and why members reinforce and disrupt the seemingly eternal institutions and narratives.
OVERVIEW OF STUDY DESIGN
In this ethnographic study, I worked with the Missions department from a Christian school as they sent “teams” on short term mission trips: Taiwan, the Bishop Paiute
Reservation, and the Appalachia region of Kentucky. All participants are connected to
Calvary Lutheran High School as students, former students, parents, or teachers. The school, located in an affluent suburb on the west coast, was chosen for several reasons as the originating site for this study. The vision statement of the school as well as its denominational background, aligns with general characteristics attributed to evangelical
Christians. Additionally, the school and Missions department has shown an openness to myself as a researcher, as well as an earnest willingness to dialogue regarding my research interests around race and racism.
Data sources include field notes, reflections, jottings, and interviews collected during and after each mission trip. Data across all three trips were coded for themes that attend to the following questions:
1. How do ideologies shape the interactions between students, teachers, and “others”
on short term missions?
2. How might ideologies that name some as fully human, and others as not, shift?
11 In Chapter Two, I begin with an overview of how citizenship, including typologies, has been defined in school curriculum as well as how traditional concepts of citizenship have been challenged by several scholars of color. Focusing on one way that citizenship is taught and practiced in schools, I review how service learning and border crossing is commonly understood and how mission trips might compare. I then attend to how citizenship and evangelical Christianity has been conceptualized according to the Bible (what many participants consider to be the “highest authority”) with support from interpretations by biblical and theological scholars, including some revered by evangelical Christians. Next,
I examine how civic identity, membership and agency are understood in the published works of three self-identified evangelical Christian pastors who have extensive followings among evangelicals. Finally, I end the chapter with a review of research on Christian
(specifically evangelical) schools in the United States.
In Chapter Three, I outline my research design which is grounded in ethnographic methods. I define and explain the elements of ethnography that are pertinent to this study, including why those elements are useful in exploring my research questions. I then describe the contexts of the school, program, and locations in which I joined them as a participant observer. I also describe the selection of participants. Next, I discuss ethnographies that are influential to my work before explaining how I collected and analyzed data within my conceptual framework. I emphasize my positionality as a researcher in relation to my methods as well as the participants. I conclude with brief descriptions of two pilot studies that informed this dissertation.
12 Chapters four, five, and six encompass the findings of my research. In chapter four
I explore the stories that were heard and told by participants and the dominant paradigms revealed by those stories. Chapter five explores the boundaries that became evident on missions and at home, especially around the norms of missionary work and gender. The final findings chapter looks more closely at the stories of student participants of color and their experiences at Calvary Lutheran High School.
13 Chapter Two: Literature Review
… to provide for our posterity, is to followe the counsell of Micah, to doe justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, wee must be knitt together, in this worke, as one man… Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other's necessities. Wee must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekeness, gentlenes, patience and liberality. Wee must delight in eache other; make other's conditions our oune; rejoice together, mourne together, labour and suffer together, allwayes haueving before our eyes our commission and community in the worke, as members of the same body. Soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace.
The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his oune people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our wayes… For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us… (Winthrop, 1630, Sermon during the passage from Great Britain to North America)
“A CITY UPON A HILL”
As Winthrop exhorts his fellow passengers to share in work and suffering, to sacrifice for others, to show charity and unity, he outlines what it will take to become what
Jesus calls, “a city set upon a hill [that] cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14b, RSV). He envisioned a “New England” under God where citizens would come together. From such early conceptions of citizenship in the United States, how individuals come together to become a nation have often been bound up in Christianity and biblical ideals. Separation of church and state itself has frequently been justified by Christians through Jesus’ 14 command to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Matthew 22:21, RSV). This relationship, however, is far more complex than a simple equation of religion informing politics. The Christianity of John Winthrop, of the Puritans, of the founding fathers, of followers today, are historically and culturally contextual. That is, religion, like citizenship, is also informed by the needs of the state, the ideologies of the time, and momentous events of individuals and communities. Thus, religious and secular conceptions of citizenship in the United States can sometimes seem remarkably similar.
I begin this review of literature with traditional understandings of citizen and citizenship that largely speak to the experience of white Americans. Moving next to cultural citizenship, I focus on works that consider citizenship for people of color living within the constraints of institutions and systems that benefit white citizens. Specific to how understandings of citizenship are taught and developed in secondary school settings,
I draw upon scholars who have developed typologies of citizenship that can encompass school curriculum and its enactment by students, noting that much of the research on education for citizenship emphasizes the needs of a global and diverse society. Service learning and border crossing, as ways in which schools consider citizenship in a global and diverse society are next explored as one of the closest pedagogies to short term mission trips. What marks short term missions so different from service learning, however, is the obvious religious element. Students on short term missions enter into an additional discourse around citizenship than do those who enter solely into service learning. For evangelical students, or students who hold the Bible as an authority, biblical notions of citizenship far exceed the weight of any other, in theory though not always in practice. As 15 the participants in this study will encounter ideas of citizenship from their own reading of the Bible, from the pulpit, and from school, I conclude this chapter with an overview of how citizenship is understood in those spaces.
DEFINING “CITIZEN” AND “CITIZENSHIP” IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
SPACES
Knight Abowitz & Harnish (2006) argue that, “as powerful socializing institutions, schools reproduce civic republican and liberal discourses of citizenship; together, these construct the language, values, and norms of civic life in the United States today” (p. 679).
In the absence of more critical discourses on citizenship, such as feminist, cultural, and queer citizenship, in school curricula, many students may internalize extremely narrow conceptions of civic identity, membership, and agency. While some may never have reason to question these conceptions, others may have identities and experiences that cause dissonance with dominant understandings of citizenship. Regardless of where a student is positioned, the assumptions upon which much of civic education is based obscures the reality of many students.
Because civic republican citizenship identifies a civic membership “characterized by an exclusivity not seen in other citizenship discourses” (p. 657), the “common good” for which civic republicans call to action, refers to those within an individual’s narrowly defined civic community. Partially as a means to critique both the government and market, the community and its space, or “civil society”, (p. 658) is located within the public sphere.
More than a source for critique, however, civil society is the cradle for social capital,
16 specifically, “self-sacrifice, patriotism, loyalty, and respect” (p. 659) of its citizens. For civic republicans, social capital develops a “willingness to fight and if necessary to die for one’s country” (Habermas, 1994, p. 23), which is necessary since “those who are not members of our community… are potential enemies” (Oldfield, 1998, p. 81). In order for one’s own community to survive and compete globally amongst so many enemies, civic republicans look to a civil society that can produce “commonality, consensus, and unity”
(Knight Abowitz & Harnish, 2006, p. 659), around the values, norms, and symbols that effectively produce their ideal social capital. Parker (2003) points out that this drive for
“commonality” and “unity” (at the expense of plurality), is the most common conception of citizenship in the U.S.:
it is skewed off to one side, the unity side, by a garrison mentality that fends off the
other side, pluralism, fearing instability and, consequently, the fragile unity’s
collapse, and straining to narrow the range of allowable difference. (p. 17)
Difference, accordingly, leads to diminishing social capital. Thus, there is an impetus amongst civic republicans to unite, or to heal a “fragmented contemporary civil society”
(Knight Abowitz & Harnish, 2006, p. 658).
There is little acknowledgment in the discourse of civic republicanism that the
“fragments” within civil society may actually be “civic tensions and conflicts that spring from racial, ethnic, class, or gender divisions and hierarchies” (p. 660). The perception being, that strong identification with ethnic or cultural groups, as well as a focus on rights over responsibilities, has resulted in a civil society that cannot support a strong democracy.
Instead, an education based on civic republicanism revolves around knowledge of U.S. 17 history, government, and documents such as the Constitution. This knowledge is translated into action, or civic agency, which, in civic republicanism, emphasizes the responsibilities of citizens on behalf of the common good (the common good being limited to members of the community, not “potential enemies”). Within such dominant citizenship curricula, responsibilities are defined as actions within systems and institutions already in place (e.g. voting), ultimately maintaining social and political structures. Essentially, civic republican citizenship curricula should instill patriotism that does not question, and nationalism that unifies, giving greater strength and capital to the nation-state.
In comparison to civic republicanism, political liberalism, which has a far more diminished presence in K-12 education, acknowledges greater diversity in values, identities, and ways of exercising civic agency. Therefore, rather than emphasize cohesion, political liberalism in education centers autonomy and deliberation as essential elements of a strong democracy. Citizens should have the ability to critically examine their own convictions, as well as those in authority. Where civic republicanism and political liberalism come together is an emphasis on consensus. However, political liberal discourse characterizes a consensus that is built by autonomous individuals who think critically and together deliberate until a consensus is reached, or a supposedly temporary sacrifice is conceded by one side (Allen, 2004). Thus, “liberal civic virtues” such as those promoted by Galston (1991), “the disposition, and the developed capacity, to engage in public discourse… the willingness to listen seriously to a range of views… to set forth one’s own views intelligibly and candidly…” (p. 227), characterize a good liberal citizen.
18 Political liberalism, like civic republicanism, also highlights the need for civic knowledge, such as U.S. history and government; however, some political liberals also promote understanding of a multicultural country that students and citizens can link “with communicative and deliberative skills” (Knight Abowitz & Harnish, 2006, p. 665).
Essentially, civic education should produce citizens who can think critically and communicate respectfully in a culturally diverse community. Amidst such diversity, and the potential for divisiveness, what can unite and guide citizens in political liberalism is patriotism for ideas such as freedom, not a particular government, flag, or country. Where political liberals and civic republicans once again come together, is the location where knowledge and practice (or product) are expressed: in “‘civil society’… the space of uncoerced human association” (Walzer, 1992, p. 89) in its ideal form, or what Parker
(2003) identifies as “the public space [emphasis added] between government and private interests” (p. 19).
While Parker acknowledges a dominant cultural group, “middle-class Whites” (p.
12), as well as the threat of false neutrality, there is still an assumption that citizenship takes place exclusively within the public sphere, even for those who develop identity and belonging in entities confined to the private domain. For example, he praises the collective action of Latinos and African Americans in “demand[ing] inclusion in the larger, overarching public” (emphasis added) (p. 27). Additionally, in laying out the problems of citizenship education in its current forms, inequality and power are repeatedly brought up; however, by categorizing ethnic and cultural identities as Dewey’s “little publics” (Parker,
2003, p. 26), Parker associates these identities with “voluntary associations” (emphasis 19 added) akin to “hobbies, labor—interests of all sorts” (p. 26). Within structures of inequality and power in the U.S., ethnic and cultural identities are not always voluntary, nor is there “mobility” (p. 26) of association. Cultural citizenship, then, offers a conception that more closely examines the experiences of non-dominant cultural communities.
Cultural Citizenship
What Knight Abowitz & Harnish (2006) categorize as “critical citizenship,” shares a discourse that questions identity, membership, and access as understood by the more commonly taught civic republicanism and political liberalism. Cultural citizenship recognizes “identity” as defined by civic republicanism and even political liberalism, as upholding a western-centric notion of citizen that excludes, requires assimilation, or relegates “culture” to the private sphere (Flores & Benmayor, 1997). For many individuals, and groups, therefore, a cultural identity may conflict with a civic republican or political liberal identity. Yet, those who adhere to cultural citizenship “emphasize the role of conflict that produces new cultural and political forms” (p. 670) and center the experiences of those who have been culturally and politically marginalized.
Rosaldo (1997) notes that historically, U.S. citizenship has often been framed in terms of inclusivity; however, the ever-present flipside to inclusion is exclusion, with the boundaries that excluded people continuing in various iterations to this day. So too has the struggle to be included, to expand “the meaning and scope of membership of the community in which one lives” (Hall & Held, 1990, p. 175), continued. Cultural citizenship challenges dominant conceptions of citizenship by revealing the exclusionary nature of the
20 supposed “universal” citizen premised in civic republicanism and political liberalism.
Stretching even further back than the Naturalization Act of 1790 that defined this universal citizen as a “free white person”, “citizen” in the U.S. has never encompassed all people, therefore, the deliberation so important to political liberals such as Gutmann and Thompson
(2004) and Parker (2005) is irrelevant when:
one must consider much more than whether or not certain categories of persons are
present in the public square. One must consider categories that are visibly inscribed
on the body, such as gender and race, and their consequences for full democratic
participation. (Rosaldo, 1997, pp. 28-29)
Even when “legal” citizens come together to deliberate, there are communities that are marked (e.g. race, gender, ability, etc.) and so are rendered different and outside the universal where full citizenship is offered. Rosaldo, Benmayor, Flores, and Silvestrini draw from the experiences of the Latina/o community and put forth cultural citizenship as an alternative that acknowledges “the way citizenship is informed by culture, the way that claims to citizenship are reinforced or subverted by cultural assumptions and practices” (p.
35).
The more common approaches to understanding how non-dominant cultures and citizenship come together have proven unsatisfactory for those who argue for cultural citizenship. At one end, assimilation assumes that as difference fades, one who is marked as “different” will increasingly belong. Pluralism, which may seem the opposite, in actuality limits cultural and/or ethnic expression in the private sphere, “but that in the public sphere… we must put aside those identities and interact instead in a culturally 21 neutral space as ‘Americans’” (Flores & Benmayor, 1997, p. 9). That is, culture should be kept out of the public sphere, or civic life. The idea of assimilation, and even pluralism, to the extent that pluralism posits a “culturally neutral space” for “Americans,” “may be adequate for explaining the experiences of some European ethnic groups in the U.S. society, [but] it does not generalize well with respect to the experiences of non-white ethnic groups” (Kang, 2010, p. 13). Not only is full assimilation often impossible for those whose bodies are “inscribed” (Rosaldo, 1997, p. 28) with difference, but along with pluralism’s
(hence political liberalism’s) divide between a cultural and civic identity, is also unrealistic for and undesired by many. According to Silvestrini (1997), cultural citizenship for the
Latina/o community is distinct from an understanding of citizen as only a (legal) member of a state that confers certain rights and benefits. Instead, citizenship and its attendant rights, benefits, and responsibilities, are built from culture, or the community in which there is a “sense of belonging” (p. 43). As Rosaldo relates in his experience speaking during the controversy over the Quetzalcóatl statue in San Jose, his sense of full citizenship was in the context of a cultural community collectively claiming representation in a public space.
Cultural citizenship emerges from the meeting of these different conceptions of citizenship. As groups struggle to expand definitions of citizenship and “claim public rights and recognition” (Rosaldo, 1997, p. 36) and as others use violence (real and symbolic) to maintain rigid borders around “citizen,” unequal distribution of power creates the conditions for one’s dominance and the other’s marginalization. Cultural citizenship recognizes this reality in both individual experiences and structural inequalities. For 22 Rosaldo and many other cultural citizenship scholars, the study of citizenship begins with the experiences, perceptions, and hopes of those in the process of claiming full citizenship.
In doing so, new political subjects might emerge and perhaps “renew one’s social vision”
(Flores & Benmayor, 1997, p. 17). The cultural citizenship of these scholars, then, centers the agency of cultural communities as they are empowered to challenge structures that perpetuate inequality, and to claim the right to define one’s own community both in the public sphere (society) as well as in everyday life.
Though begun to better understand the dynamics of Latina/o communities, Flores
& Benmayor (1997) argue that cultural citizenship can be extended to “other ‘minoritized’ communities, which were sites not only of contestation, but also of affirmation and cultural production” (p. 9). Aihwa Ong (1996), situates cultural citizenship in the context of Asian immigrants and Asian Americans and adds complexity to the agency of “minoritized communities.” She argues that Rosaldo’s definition of cultural citizenship inaccurately portrays an ability for people to escape the labels of the state and other powers that define what it means to belong; that citizenship can be determined or claimed by one group unilaterally. Instead, she puts forth cultural citizenship as a “dual process of self-making and being-made within webs of power linked to the nation-state and civil society” (p. 738).
In addition to the ways that the nation-state surveils and restricts citizenship, Ong points to the ideas and history that have shaped the normative beliefs and actions of civil society today, ranging from exclusion based on supposed biological, or racial differences to cultural differences. She argues that the remnants of European imperialism and African
23 slavery inform modern society in ways that cannot possibly allow for self-definition outside of a Black-white spectrum nor the various “webs of power.”
Ong’s understanding of cultural citizenship also considers gender and class in the ways that non-white others are disciplined into white middle-class culture. Although she writes of a minoritized group with a different history—especially (im)migration history— than the Latina/o community of Rosaldo, Ong shows the ways that Asians and Asian
Americans must also claim public spaces; however, she writes that they often do so in ways that abide by the rules of global capitalism and western democracy (e.g. the “wish to buy symbolic capital in Western democracies” [p. 750]). Therefore, like Rosaldo’s cultural citizen, Ong’s citizens act agentically, but in confinement of, and constant negotiation with, the government and civil society.
Silvestrini (1997) discusses another such constraint in dominant conceptions of citizenship that do not allow for the more fluid practice of moving between legal and cultural citizenship for many Latina/o communities. Kymlicka (1995) therefore, argues that multicultural nation-states must accommodate “cultural groups” (p. 23), via “cultural rights” (p. 22) and to do so on a group level with group rights, not necessarily individual civil rights. Kang (2010), however, points out that “cultural rights” potentially define culture and cultural identity as fixed and static, and so defers to Rosaldo’s understanding of culture and cultural identity as always in process. Drawing from both Rosaldo and Ong’s conception of cultural citizenship, Kang considers citizenship for immigrant communities by centering the agency of immigrant cultural individuals and groups; however, she does so within the context of restrictive social, political, and economic systems. 24 Whether in white or minority-majority classroom spaces, cultural citizenship is not often found in official curriculum; however, acknowledgment and affirmation of different narratives, as well as narratives of U.S. failings, provide opportunities for students and teachers to engage in questions and histories that challenge the limitations set by the civic republicanism or political liberalism of traditional civic education. Salinas and Alarcón
(2016) describe how teachers can choose to subvert the official, tested curriculum by focusing questions and inquiries around “difficult histories” (p. 81), specifically, the struggles for citizenship in U.S. history as well as the lives of the students themselves.
Naseem-Rodríguez (2018) similarly shows that when teachers enact cultural citizenship in their curricular choices, for example by teaching counternarratives that center the agency and diversity of marginalized groups, students of dominant and non-dominant cultures will better see themselves as citizens who can transform society.
When relating the state of civic education in the United States, Parker (2003) asks whom this education is for. His answer is, students from both dominant and marginalized groups. He argues that those who will be in power must be educated in ways that will perhaps mitigate the oppression they can enact. He also points out that there is often an assumption that privileged students are receiving a good education. I would build on his argument of privileged school spaces by expanding beyond dominant/marginalized or privileged/less privileged binaries. For example, spaces of educational privilege may have students who are racially oppressed, but economically privileged. Without nuancing who is privileged and in what ways, a more critical civic education may unintentionally center white (or privileged) students who must learn to navigate a multicultural society. 25 Therefore, students of minority cultures in any public space are in danger of being further marginalized even within political liberalism. As cultural citizenship scholars show, civic identity and membership blurs together the public and the private spheres that so many political liberals and civic republicans claim are separate. Yet it can appear separate only for those whose private identities are invisible in public. Cultural citizenship, which centers the struggles and movements of groups fighting for full citizenship within “webs of power,” might offer a mirror for non-white and/or immigrant students, as well as a starting point for all students to glimpse what full citizenship means beginning with those for whom it is denied.
To be clear, I do not define “citizen” only by the boundaries of a nation-state, or by one’s stake in a specific political system (e.g. democracy). Instead, a citizen is any human being who shares a space with another, locally and/or globally. Specific to this study, what makes each participant a citizen is engagement with each other and others as they encounter shared and divergent histories, religious beliefs, ethnicities, race, nationalities, languages, and cultures. That is, I will explore how participants come together, or not, to become “an invisible whole… [which] might cultivate an aspiration to the coherence and integrity of a consolidated but complex, intricate, and differentiated body” (Allen, 2004, p. 17). Rather than the social cohesion of civic republicanism or the homogeneity of a melting pot, citizens coming together as a “whole” might build a public/private sphere with porous and expanding borders, or perhaps, with no borders at all.
26 CIVIC EDUCATION IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Useful Typologies
Westheimer & Kahne (2004) present a citizenship typology that emerged in their study of civic education programs, most of which fall within civil republicanism or political liberalism. They show a clear connection among the curricular choices teachers make, the type of citizen promoted, and student outcomes. For example, teachers who encourage a personally responsible citizen will enact programs that emphasize actions individuals might take to help others (e.g. donations) rather than collective, social justice movements.
The effects of an education that largely promotes personally responsible citizenship seem clear for Westheimer & Kahne in consistent low voter turnout, as well as the overwhelming majority of youth who viewed helping others as the most important civic trait. A participatory citizen, with regards to civic agency, may go beyond a donation and organize a fundraiser. The third level in the typology is a justice-oriented citizen who, in addition to enacting personal responsibility and collective action, will critique structures and systems.
Students in justice-oriented programs alone readily considered how issues of race and class impact civil society. Although the focus remained more on public institutions or outside forces that shape citizenship with less regard for how one’s community, family, or culture might impact their identity and agency in the public, the liberalism of Westheimer &
Kahne’s justice-oriented citizen provides greater space for diverse identities and beliefs.
Banks (2008) builds on the justice-oriented citizen and argues for “transformative citizens [who] take action to promote social justice even when their actions violate,
27 challenge, or dismantle existing laws, conventions, or structures” (p. 136). In citing Rosa
Parks and the students who sat at the Woolworth’s counter, as transformative citizens,
Banks’ transformative citizen who is willing to break laws should also be ready for the consequences. Although Banks does not explicitly state this, Danielle Allen (2004) notes that sacrifice, especially involuntary and forgotten sacrifice, has been a constant element of U.S. democracy.
Swalwell’s (2013) work at a private secondary school shows student understandings of citizenship that parallel Westheimer & Kahne’s typology, even when accounting for general privilege and a social justice oriented curriculum. According to
Swalwell, “the Meritocrat” (p. 5), like a personally responsible citizen, upholds Andrew
Carnegie as an ideal citizen who uses their earned wealth to benefit society. Additionally, any injustice and inequities in the world are not systemic, but the result of individual decisions (whether an unscrupulous person of power, or an individual stuck in a culture of poverty). Swalwell’s “Resigned” (p. 5) citizen has awareness of systemic oppression but is overcome by the seeming impossibility of transformation. Instead, the Resigned citizen does their part by living responsibly in their individual decisions (e.g. what they buy, how they treat others, etc.). “The Benevolent Benefactor” (p. 6) views “good” and “bad” citizenship synonymously with “good” and “bad” use of privilege. Privilege itself is not problematic, nor are they complicit in injustice. Rather, everyone should strive towards privilege, and use whatever resources they have to help others. Finally, Swalwell associates
“the Activist Ally” (p. 6) with the justice-oriented citizen, who acknowledges and confronts both systemic and individual injustices in solidarity with marginalized communities. 28 Bennett, Wells, & Rank (2009) pay particular attention to citizenship among the youth in light of changing generations and digital advancements. He categorizes two types of citizen, not only in the U.S., but in “most postindustrial democracies” (p. 14). The
“Dutiful Citizen” (p. 14) emphasizes duties and responsibilities towards the government, especially voting, the importance of civic knowledge, as well as civic engagement in more traditional organizations and mediums such as political parties and mass media. Dutiful citizens are most common among older generations and unsurprisingly, are often the ideals in civic education. The “Actualizing Citizen” (p. 14) has been used to describe the current generation of students who doubt the efficacy of traditional forms of civic engagement and instead look to more grass-roots and community efforts, or to engagement through social media.
Regardless of name or typology used to describe civic education, common to research exploring student understandings of civic identity and agency is the prevalence of
Westheimer & Kahne’s (2006) personally responsible citizen or participatory citizen (e.g.
Blevins, LeCompte, & Wells, 2016; Callahan & Obenchain, 2016; Feinberg & Doppen,
2010). While many schools and educators may purposely promote such ideas of citizenship, whether for pragmatic or political reasons, the intended outcome will be a maintenance of the status quo.
Authenticity and Civic Education for a Diverse and/or Global Society
Many scholars writing about citizenship or civic-ness in secondary schools argue for the necessity of multicultural education that acknowledges non-white students, and
29 often in preparation to live in a diverse society (Miller-Lane, Howard, Halagao, 2007;
Pang, Gay, & Stanley, 1995; Salinas, Vickery, & Franquiz, 2016). A concern that emerges, however, is how authentic a civic education (even one that is multicultural) can be to life outside the confines of traditional school in a diverse society. Although some posit that
“schools are still most likely the best place in the United States for young people to grapple with difficult and authentic issues… ‘civilly’ (Hess & McAvoy, 2015, pp. 174-175), schools are often spaces where the U.S. as a nation-state and as a powerful democracy is reified and centered to the negation of global interconnectedness and a global humanity
(e.g. migrations outside the U.S. and North America (Jacboson, 2006; Gabaccia, 1999); student understandings of East and Southwest Asia (Halvorsen & Hong, 2010; Keirn et al.,
2012) and the continent of Africa (Wainaina, 2005); gender studies (Wiesner-Hanks,
2007); and even human rights (Gaudelli & Fernenkes, 2004). Although education in many countries, particularly in social studies classes, will center their national narratives, the economic, political/military, and cultural reach of the U.S. makes this particularly important to consider when educating for civic agency.
Levinson and Branmeier (2006) contend that learning and practice is authentic when they take place in and across diverse contexts, “spanning the local to the national and even global purview” (p. 327). Others have pushed this further to argue for global citizenship education which at its core “is a recognition of our world’s shared humanity”
(Barrow, 2017, p. 164). Given the tendency of U.S. students to view “rights” within the narrow confines of individual or national rights (Gaudelli & Fernenkes, 2004), broadening student conceptions of humanity and rights beyond U.S. borders is indeed an important 30 task that may also impact how students view each other within the diversity of U.S. society.
Additionally, shared humanity and human rights should be the foundation of how we share the space of Earth, whose preservation will be contingent on a collective movement of global citizens (Gaudelli, 2017). As climate change and other human interventions (e.g. war over resources, economic exploitation, etc.) continue to drive and force migrations across borders (Cattaneo & Peri, 2015), human beings will have to choose between acting as national or global citizens.
Service Learning & Ideological Border Crossing
In response to worries about authenticity in education, service learning has been one avenue that educators have taken with their students. Several studies show the effectiveness of service learning in terms of learning outcomes for students (of both secondary and higher education) engaged in “service” (Billig, 2000; Campbell & Oswald,
2018; Wade & Yarbrough, 2007). Researcher have also focused specifically on how service learning might impact a student’s ability to think critically and to engage in issues of social justice (Chesler, Galura, & Ford, 2006; Snyder & Durham, 2012). What is common across many explorations of service learning, and so helps to define the concept, is personal involvement in a community and not necessarily politics (Kahne, Crow, & Lee,
2012), collaboration, student reflection (Ohn & Wade, 2009), and connections between service and academics (Slavkin, 2007). With so much focus on the student engaging in service, however, it is unsurprising that a significant concern is the potential of “patronizing or colonizing savior swooping in to aid the Other” (Swalwell, 2013, p. 3). In order to
31 mitigate the reinforcement of dominant relations of power, several scholars call for service learning that is premised on “partnerships between privileged and marginalized groups with the goal of mutual support and empowerment” (Miller-Lane, Howard, & Halagao,
2007, p. 567).
Many opportunities for service learning, whether as the benevolent other, or in partnership, require border crossing by students that can be both physical and ideological.
Overt or not, student ideologies become engaged as they leave home, or what is familiar, and encounter a community presented as different from them in some way as the reason for the engagement. Ideological transformation, therefore, must also be considered.
Although ideology is often viewed without much nuance or flexibility, (e.g. religion as ideology without including race, gender, class, etc.), the ideology one professes in one context may look differently in another. Thomas Philip (2011) identifies this as “ideology in pieces” (p. 298). When a parent participant asks why she can understand that poverty is a structural issue in Appalachia, but when she’s home and sees a homeless person, she assumes it’s their fault, she recognizes that there is some contradiction in her beliefs. If she processes this contradiction and can shift her beliefs at home, Philip would identify that as an ideological shift. Henry Giroux (1991) likewise brings up the possibility of ideological transformation in education.
Students cross over into realms of meaning, maps of knowledge, social
relationships and values that are increasingly being negotiated and rewritten as the
codes and regulations that organize them become destabilized and reshaped. Border
32 pedagogy decentres as it remaps. The terrain of learning becomes inextricably
linked to the shifting parameters of place, identity, history, and power. (p. 511)
For Giroux, ideological shifts occur when students encounter new or unfamiliar ideas, places, and people that will unsettle their set beliefs.
Short-term mission trips are literal border crossings and share several characteristics with service-learning, including and especially, potential pitfalls. There is always the danger that ideology will be further solidified by mission trips—that dehumanizing and demeaning beliefs about “others” will crystallize. As one participant shared during a small group class discussion, “I went to China and realized that America is the greatest country in the world.” This is a danger that will always be present whenever any human being crosses any border whether those of our neighborhoods, cities, and even our ideas. Such dilemmas become evident during mission trips because participation often reveals a great deal about how students believe citizenship ought to be expressed, as well as who should be engaged and how (civic membership and civic identity). As a citizen or member of a group, participants enter into “service” with an ideal life or society that at the very least, serves as the telos of their service, whether it be a strong democracy, a religious paradise, economic self-sufficiency, or equity. For many participants in this study, movement towards their telos, as well as the telos itself, should be inspired by “the highest authority,” the Bible.
33 “NOT OF THIS WORLD”: CITIZENSHIP ACCORDING TO THE “HIGHEST
AUTHORITY”
A design with the letters NOTW began appearing on car windows in California several years ago. Short for, “not of this world,” my assumption is that the creator was drawing from John 18:36 (RSV) in which Jesus claims, “my kingship is not of this world…” or Romans 12:12 (RSV), in which Paul writes, “do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” For the evangelical Christian, their primary citizenship is “not of this world (NOTW),” that is, if one defines “evangelical
Christian” by the four statements of belief as identified by the National Association of
Evangelicals (NAE) and LifeWay Research and featured in Christianity Today (Smietana,
2015): a. “The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.” b. “It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus
Christ as their Savior.” c. “Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty
of my sin.” d. “Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift
of eternal salvation”
Although evangelicalism, by definition, is more associated with belief than lived faith, identification as a Christian implies some sort of related human action in this world, not merely belief (e.g. “what would Jesus do” or WWJD). Belief and action come together in 34 theologian Miroslav Volf’s (2011) description of Christianity: “For this, in the end, is what the Christian faith as a prophetic religion is all about—being an instrument of God for the sake of human flourishing, in this life and the next” (p. 5). One way in which the evangelical Christian identity emerges as differing manifestations of a citizen is how one interprets “being an instrument” and how one defines “human flourishing.” If the Bible is the highest authority for what an evangelical Christian believes, then a biblically based interpretation and definition comes to bear even though there are risks in presenting an abbreviated biblical snapshot of citizenship: legalism and “gospel stew” (Bartchy, 1999).
In the former, action is given primacy over and separate from belief (as opposed to action and belief as inseparable). In the latter, I pick passages in the Bible most palatable to the pre-ordained argument I have chosen to make. Yet, a Biblical perspective is a necessary step to understanding citizenship from within evangelical Christianity.
Citizen of Heaven
According to Philippians 3:20, a Christian’s citizenship “is in heaven.” The primary identity of Christians, therefore, is not bound to a nation-state, but to heaven, where God’s
“will be done” and for which Jesus prays will be done on earth. (Matt. 6:10, RSV). Then,
“life on earth is to be governed by the heavenly commonwealth” (Elliott, 2000, p. 197).
Therefore, a Christian who adheres to the Bible as the highest authority will often speak of obeying God’s laws above the laws or norms of the nation when there is a conflict between the two. In the book of Daniel, the exiled Israelites, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and
Daniel all face persecution in the Chaldean Empire for their illegal worship of God. Jesus
35 also defies the laws of the Pharisees and the conventions of his time in healing a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-5). He asks the Pharisees, “Is it lawful on the
Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” (RSV). Jesus “restores” the man’s hand and so gives his answer: to do good, to save life is an imperative above any human law or convention.
That is not to say that all laws should be defied and that they should be broken in any manner. Paul writes in Romans 13:1, “let every person be subject to the governing authorities…” (RSV); however, Charles Cranfield (1985) points out that the original Greek word for “be subject” “denotes a reciprocal obligation,” thus,
it seems virtually certain that… what Paul is enjoining is no uncritical obedience to
whatever command the civil authority may decide to give but the recognition that
one has been placed below the authority by God… in which the Christian’s
‘subjection’ to the authorities is limited to respecting them, obeying them so far as
such obedience does not conflict with God’s laws, and seriously and responsibly
disobeying them when it does… (pp. 320-321)
Neil Elliott (2000) similarly interprets this verse in light of its historical usage. Beginning in the second century CE, Christian martyrs in the Roman Empire are credited with quoting
Romans 13.1 as they were sentenced. Take for instance, Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna who declares “for we have been taught to render, as is meet, to princes and authorities appointed by God such honor as does us no harm; but as for these, I do not hold them worthy, that I should defend myself before them” (Pionius, trans. 1990). Thus Elliott (2000) lays out the accusation: 36 That we should allow these verses to thwart even the most modest inquiries into
our government’s complicity in repression and murder is a staggering betrayal, not
only to the oppressed, but also of the holy man who traced his apostolate from city
to city with his own blood. Only the arrogant presumptions of our own privilege
have allowed us to hear these verses as a sacred legitimation of power. (p. 226)
Cranfield’s and Elliott’s interpretations of Paul’s exhortation seems likely in view of Paul’s use of the word “gospel” (euangelion), or what N.T. Wright (2013) calls “Paul’s counter- imperial Gospel” (p. 173). When Paul writes of the “Gospel of God,” he is referring to the grace and salvation one can receive through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
(Romans 1:1-5, RSV). When considered alongside the common use of euangelion during
Paul’s time, “the celebration of the accession, or birth, of a king or emperor,” his own use
“politically… cannot but have been heard as a summons to allegiance to ‘another king’
[i.e. Jesus Christ], which is of course precisely what Luke says Paul was accused of saying
(Acts 17:7)” (Wright, 2013, p. 174). The gospel that Paul proclaims further challenges
Caesar’s cult of the emperor and his “justice,” a pretension that can be seen in the calling of the goddess Iustitia, or Justice, “Augusta.” As Paul’s alternative, the gospel of God, reveals “the righteousness of God,” or dikaiosyne theou (Romans 1:16-17, RSV), which can also be read as the “justice” of God. “When, therefore, God’s righteousness was unveiled, the effect would be precisely that the world would receive justice: that rich, restorative, much-to-be-longed-for justice of which the Psalmists had spoken with such feeling” (Wright, 2013, p. 179). This restoration of God’s justice is one way of interpreting
37 Volf’s “human flourishing.” To be an instrument of God towards this flourishing, is to be a citizen first and foremost of heaven, not earth.
“An Instrument of God” for God’s Justice in the Old Testament
“’With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’ He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8, RSV).
Biblically, the kind of action a “citizen of heaven” takes matters, especially when their actions impact other people. Throughout the books of the prophets, the Israelites are consistently charged with breaking their side of the Abrahamic covenant through idolatry, extortion, robbery, and oppression. Take for instance Micah 6:8, which “spells out what
YHWH [Yahweh] was expecting but didn’t find: justice, kindness, and religious intimacy”
(Joosten, 2013, p. 450). In Micah 6:6-8, the Israelites seem astounded that “YHWH accuses us of neglecting our relationship, but look, we serve him in our cult; and if he’s not satisfied, we’re ready to serve him more!” (p. 450). The Israelites acted upon their belief of what
YHWH requires but are rebuked: animal sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22, Psalm 40:6, Psalm 51:16,
Prov. 21:3, Isaiah 1:11, Hos. 6:6, 8:13, 9:4, Mic. 6:6-7, Amos 5:22, Jer. 7:22-23), or songs
(Amos 5:23-24). As Bovati (1994) points out, Biblical texts do not point to “a completely bilateral structure (on the one hand the people which has sinned, on the other God who has
38 been offended)” (p. 201). Sins are against God, yes, but they take place within a “juridical structure” in which:
the people is divided into two camps: there are the wicked (overbearing, violent)
who commit injustice, and there are the victims (innocent, weak, defenceless). God
intervenes on behalf of those who are unjustly oppressed and his defence…
amounts to a kind of judgment that aims to re-establish perverted justice. (Bovati,
1994, p. 201)
The Ten Commandments also attest to this relationship that is both vertical (God and human beings) and horizontal (person to person). The first four emphasize a relationship with God: “You shall have no other gods before me… you shall not make for yourself a graven image… you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain… Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:2-8, RSV). The final six govern a relationship with others: “honor your father and your mother… you shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house… wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exodus 20:12-17, RSV).
“An Instrument of God” for God’s Justice in the New Testament
In The Mediation of Christ, Thomas Torrance (1992) proposes that the history of the Old Testament, God’s relationship with the Israelites, “articulate forms of human understanding and language to divine revelation” (p. 7) necessary to understanding the
New Testament. So, if God requires God’s people to “seek justice, correct oppression;
39 defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” in the Old Testament (Isaiah 1:17, RSV), a current understanding of God should be that God requires God’s people even now, to do the same. Jesus’ own ministry seems in large part to show this same regard for the marginalized. When Jesus healed the many who were sick or possessed, He was not merely restoring their health. He was removing whatever barrier (leprosy, constant menstruation, i.e. uncleanliness) kept people on the outskirts of a society that emphasized ritual purity.
Jesus was bringing them back in to community. That is not to say that Jesus condoned the separation of the sick and disabled as unclean. His healing activities were acts of compassion and restorative justice. Kenneth Scott Latourette (1948) points out, “Jesus did not ignore the social structures of mankind. He said much of the relation of individuals to other individuals and declared that the corollary of love for God is love for one’s neighbor”
(Matt. 22:36-39, 1 John 4:20). In Jesus’ own words, he brings together this love and justice when he rebukes the Pharisees, “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Luke 11:42, RSV).
In the story of the paralytic whose friends ensured he would meet Jesus to be healed by lowering him from the roof of a filled house, Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic man before healing his body. For Jesus, the man’s sins and his disability are separate; however, this may not have been so for the scribes who witnessed this since Jesus responds to their questioning hearts, “’that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic—‘I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home’
(Mark 2:4-11, RSV). Further evidence in the gospels suggests that Jesus is not reinforcing 40 the social structures of his time but is concerned with the inclusion of people who are disregarded by others. Jesus breaks down structures that classify people according to their social, economic, religious or political status specifically when he chooses to eat with sinners and tax collectors (i.e. traitors of their own people). Shared meals had enormous significance in the ancient Mediterranean world in that they upheld social structures not only in whom you associate with, but also how. One’s position at the table was a reflection of your status “relative to the other guests” (Bartchy, 2002, p. 179). Thus, “when they
[scribes] saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, [they] said to his disciples,
‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” (Mark:16, RSV). Even in Jesus’ parables, an invitation to the King’s table goes out to “the poor and maimed and blind and lame” (Luke 14:22, RSV). In his choice of table companions, Jesus was extending to the marginalized, to those deemed by society as unfit for God, a place in God’s family:
…questions of relative status, inclusion and exclusion, purity and impurity
intersected at the table. What one ate and with whom one ate… bore the heavy
weight of enormously important social and religious messages in the ancient world.
Table fellowship had to do with intimacy. To share a meal with others involved
including them as extended family, so to speak. To invite or not, to accept an
invitation or not—these questions had less to do with the quality of food to be
served and more to do with the quality of the people to be gathered. People did not
want to involve themselves at a table that would undermine their own status in the
wider community. (Green, 2014, p. 18)
41 Paul continues Jesus’s practice of inclusion when he rebukes the Corinthian church of abusing the Lord’s Supper by reinforcing the inequalities amongst them in how they come together: “When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing” (1 Cor. 11:20-22, RSV).
Reading the Bible with a focus on how one is exhorted to live in a community reveals common themes in both the Old and the New Testament. Theologically and biblically, equality is already present, first, in one’s membership in the House of Israel, and then, in that all human beings are sinners in need of a Savior who cannot be bought or earned but is freely given to everyone. What God seems to ask in the Bible, is for those who follow His laws to create a community without barriers and to actively include those whom society considers “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40, RSV).
PASTORAL INTERPRETATIONS: CITIZENSHIP FROM THE PULPIT
Mark Noll (1995) writes that “the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind” (p. 3). He refers specifically to evangelicalism in the
United States, inherited from the Reformation and the Puritans, and then forged by the
American Revolution, the revivals of the Great Awakening, and what he terms, “the intellectual disaster of Fundamentalism” (p. 109). Throughout this narrative, evangelical participation in public life was consistent: From abolitionist efforts that would rid the U.S. of “the leading obstacle to America’s becoming a fully righteous Christian nation”
42 (Marsden, 1991, p. 9), the social gospel movements of the late 19th century, the political aspirations of Pat Robertson in 1988, and to the court cases on marriage equality and reproductive rights that are prevalent today. Yet, as described in chapter one, evangelical involvement in the public sphere, or how evangelicals understand citizenship, cannot be defined by only one conception or movement. Drawing from three contemporary pastors whom evangelicals regard as leaders or authorities, I document perspectives from at least three large evangelical communities of how one lives a Christian life in this modern world.
That is, how one is both citizen and Christian.
Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback, a mega-church in southern California, wrote the immensely popular The Purpose Driven Life, a #1 New York Times bestseller with more than 30 million copies sold. His influence among evangelicals in the United States is undeniably immense, an influence acknowledged when in the midst of the presidential campaign in 2008, both then-Senator Obama and Senator McCain attended the presidential forum hosted by Warren. Francis Chan is the founder and former pastor of Cornerstone
Church in southern California. He wrote Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God which has currently sold over two million copies. While he is well-respected by mainstream evangelicals, he is also known for preaching a slightly more radical version of
Christianity (i.e. against materialism), in both his life and ministry. Reverend William
Barber II, former president of the NAACP in North Carolina, currently leads the organization, Repairers of the Breech, a non-partisan group that seeks to “[uplift] our deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of our country”
(Repairers of the Breach, 2017). A self-professed “evangelical” and “conservative” (Barber 43 & Zelter, 2014, p. 122), he published a series of speeches and sermons around the Moral
Monday movement. Despite the different approaches to evangelical Christianity amongst them, all three would most likely see themselves as conservatives in their interpretation of the Bible. While Barber would perhaps be viewed by many evangelicals as having a more liberal understanding, he suggests that “conservative[s] are actually quite liberal. Because while they talk religion, they liberally leave out any mention of the centerpieces and the heart of biblical faith; they leave out any mention of love for all people” (p. 122).
Identity: Private or Public?
Properly defining oneself, one’s nature, and one’s calling is a critical philosophical discipline that has penetrating practical implications. This task is particularly compelling when one is in crisis or facing seasons of challenge or confronting threats that seek to take one’s identity and/or redefine it.” (Barber & Zelter, 2014, pp 8-9)
Warren, Chan, and Barber all begin their works with an emphasis on identity. Of the three, Barber alone explicitly recognizes the divide between the public and private spheres of life as constructed, that what one believes in the private will shape how one is in the public. For Warren and Chan, the importance of a personal relationship with God falls very much within the private domain. Thus, they focus almost exclusively on a
Christian identity that is characterized by a vertical line between human and God.
According to Warren (2002), “you discover your identity through a relationship with Jesus
Christ” (p. 26). What this means is that an individual recognizes that they are created by
God with purpose and intention. Both he and Chan (2013) are emphatic that a Christian
44 identity means that one is known (“God knew me before He made me” [p. 59]) and loved by God. Chan adds an additional element by claiming a Christian knows who they are when they understand how “puny” (p. 40) human beings are in comparison to God. In many ways, both Chan and Warren advocate a citizenship that is within the private sphere, personal belief, in that they point towards the afterlife as a Christian’s true home. Warren
(2002) argues that “we all should carry spiritual green cards to remind us that our citizenship is in heaven” (p. 61), while Chan (2013) urges his readers to “do things that cost us during our life on earth but will be more than worth it in eternity” (p. 114). In essence, because “eternity” or “eternal life” is a part of Christian identity, their gaze on earth remains on what will see them into eternity: belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
Chan and Barber both connect a Christian identity with suffering and persecution.
That is, to be a Christian is to suffer. While Warren and Chan write of general difficulties and challenges that an individual may face in life (e.g. divorce, cancer, car accidents, etc.),
Chan and Barber point towards suffering that comes from obeying God. But again, Chan’s suffering remains within the private life (e.g. giving more money to charity than is comfortable, downsizing your home to give more money away, etc.), while Barber’s suffering takes place in both private and public domains. Barber writes, “from Moses to
Jesus, the Bible tells us that those who fought for justice—those who spoke truth to power, those who refused to accept that injustice and inequality had to exist… always found themselves hated, hounded, and heaped upon with false accusations” (Barber & Zelter,
2014, p. 9). Barber understands Christian suffering as arising out of the engagement between private faith and public expression. A Christian suffers when their faith confronts 45 public power, a meeting which begins when the Holy Spirit moves an individual to be saved, which is followed by a “quarrel with the way things are in the world” (p. 107). An individual who is “born again” (p. 107) will be driven to change the world into what God desires, a place where “everybody is taken care of” (p. 49). For Barber, a Christian’s eyes do not remain solely on attaining heaven, but on establishing God’s justice on earth.
Concern for the private—the state of one’s soul, devotion and praise of God, and personal morality, is a part of Barber’s Christian identity. However, if one confesses a belief in the Bible as the word of God, then the “heart of biblical faith…[is] love for all people, which in practice requires a deep commitment to justice and fairness in the public square” (Barber & Zelter, 2014, p. 122). Specifically, a Christian’s public life is measured by their private beliefs. For instance, if a politician is sworn into office with their hand on the Bible, the “use of their public power must be measured by the mandates of God’s justice” (p. 14). Barber’s conception of a Christian identity as spanning both private and public spheres clearly differs from Warren and Chan, both of whom are noticeably speaking to middle and upper class evangelicals. Not only are their home churches located in affluent areas, but there is a consistent emphasis on materialism and money as distracting
Christians from a relationship with God. In addition to different audiences, Barber, Warren and Chan, perhaps differ in their understandings of Christian identity as a result of their conceptions of community.
46 Membership: To Whom/What Do I Belong?
William Barber alludes to a dividing line between Christians and non-Christians.
In a sermon at Riverside Church in New York, he spoke of the “vocation of faith… for those whom God calls” (pp. 104-105). Whether or not he is of the reformed tradition in which one’s salvation or lack thereof is already known even before birth, Barber focuses more so on an inclusive community. In his civil rights work with various coalitions,
Reverend Barber intentionally partners with diverse groups, asserting that the unjust laws, decried by Biblical prophets, affect “black, white, Hispanic, old, gay, straight, people of faith, people of labor” (p. 44). In fact, more so than people of faith who have been called by God, the community to which he most often refers is “God’s human family” (p. 72).
For Barber, God does not differentiate between those who are Christian and those are not, at least in terms of who deserve social justice on earth. This community, then, in which
Barber is both Christian and citizen, is able to set and work towards common values that he draws mostly from the Bible (specifically the books of Isaiah, Micah, and Matthew) as well as the Constitution: (1) Economic sustainability and ending poverty; (2) Educational equality; (3) Healthcare for all; (4) Fairness in the criminal justice system; (5) Voting rights
(p. 11).
Rick Warren (2002), on the other hand, focuses almost exclusively on a community whose membership is determined not only by faith, but also by church membership. He concedes that “every human being was created by God” (p. 148), yet he goes on to write,
“but not everyone is a child of God” (p. 148). Instead of Barber’s “God’s human family,”
Warren sets up “God’s own family” (emphasis added) (p. 118). Further, Warren asserts 47 that “of course, God wants us to love everyone, but he is particularly concerned that we learn to love others in his family” (pp. 154-155). Thus, when Warren claims that a
Christian’s faith is not intended to be private, he implies that a public expression of faith should be on behalf of “others in [God’s] family.” In a nation that has elements of Christian culture embedded within (e.g. holidays, government prayers, the calendar, etc.), and one whose historical narrative situates the U.S. as a Christian nation, a Christian identity is generally not threatened in the public sphere. That is, an individual is free to be a cultural
Christian in both private and public spaces. It is unsurprising then, that Warren presents a more insular conception of where Christian identity and expression belongs, especially if his foremost concern is with the well-being of the Christian community itself. This may also influence Warren’s, and many other evangelicals’, steps into the public domain, when issues that they perceive as threatening to the Christian heritage of the U.S. arise (e.g.
California proposition 209; abortion; marriage equality; etc.).
Warren’s community narrows even further when he urges his readers to commit to a local church: “Many believe one can be a ‘good Christian’ without joining (or even attending) a local church, but God would strongly disagree” (pp. 165-166). For Warren, it is in the context of the local church that Christians are able to grow in ways that please
God. Specifically, each community, or local church, should be characterized by the following values: commitment, honesty, humility, courtesy, confidentiality, and frequency of meeting (pp. 146-150). These six characteristics will enable a church to be unified, a state that is pleasing to God since “our heavenly Father enjoys watching his children get along with each other” (p. 202). Another characteristic of Warren’s church community is 48 respect and appreciation for church authority. He writes, “we are commanded, ‘Honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!’”
(p. 209). For Warren, a Christian is an obedient and active member first and foremost, of a local church.
The community that Francis Chan (2013) envisions similarly has a dividing line between those who are Christian and those who are not. He draws from an interpretation of Jesus’ parables to mark the distinction between the two groups,
According to the account in Luke chapter 8, when a crowd started following Him,
Jesus began speaking in parables—‘so that’ those who weren’t genuinely listening
wouldn’t get it. When crowds gather today, speakers are extraconscious of
communicating in a way that is accessible to everyone. Speakers don’t use Jesus’s
tactic to eliminate people who are not sincere seekers. The fact is, He just wasn’t
interested in those who fake it. (italics in original) (p. 66)
According to Chan, a community based on biblical principles is one whose membership is offered to those who are “sincere seekers,” those who truly desire a relationship with God.
Chan also suggests an additional community. He begins his work with the exclamation,
“it’s exhilarating to be a part of a group of believers who are willing to think biblically rather than conventionally, to be part of a body where radical living is becoming the norm”
(p. 22). Like Warren, Chan’s community of Christians, houses another community, one whose members live in more “radical” ways, that is, Christians whom many view as too extreme in their faith and in their actions (e.g. missionaries, people who give up all their 49 possessions to help others, etc.). Where Chan differs from Warren, is his warning that no one can truly know the location of the dividing line. An individual must never assume that they are the “good soil” of Jesus’ parable, i.e. “good” Christians.
Agency: How Am I to Live?
Mark Noll (1995) notes that
evangelicals may be simply too activistic ever to sustain absolutely first-rate
thinking about politics. Yet despite (or maybe because of) the renewal of
evangelical political activism over the last quarter century, a steady growth in
worthy political reflection has been underway. (p. 219)
Warren, Chan, and Barber reflect different points of this shift that Noll suggests is taking place.
Warren and Chan present Christian agency in ways that often keep agency in the private sphere, for example, in character development. Warren (2002) states, “God’s ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development” (p. 217).
Chan (2013) suggests that “a person who is obsessed with Jesus is more concerned with his or her character than comfort” (p. 143). While for some evangelicals, like Barber, one’s character development may be an alignment of faith and actions, Warren and Chan both write about character as the state of one’s relationship with God: the time one spends with
God, the way in which one spends time with God (e.g. in silent awe). Although both make mention of actions, or agency, as an integral element of faith (i.e. being “doers of the word”
[Warren, 2002, p. 239]), Warren does so largely within the confines of serving in one’s
50 local church, or in every day acts of “open[ing] a door for others… pick[ing] up a piece of trash… or [being] polite toward a clerk or waitress” (pp. 54-55). Chan’s (2013) understanding of action begins at a similar point (“your part is to bring Him glory— whether eating a sandwich on a lunch break, drinking coffee at 12:04 am… or watching your four-month old take a nap” [p. 46]), but expands beyond character development and everyday acts to include personal sacrifices for the sake of others. He offers examples such as “downsizing so that others might upgrade” (p. 118) or Aspiring to the Median, a movement in which individuals and families donate whatever income is left over after the
U.S. median income. Few evangelical Christians would argue against the necessity of nurturing a personal relationship with God, developing moral character, serving in a community, and sharing one’s resources. As Chan claims, God desires the church to care for the needs of those less fortunate.
Where Chan and Warren’s conception of Christian agency becomes most public is in their emphasis on evangelism. Warren (2002) describes one of five main purposes for a
Christian: “you were made for a mission, so your purpose is to share God’s message through evangelism” (p. 386). Chan (2013) connects experiencing God with the action of sharing one’s faith. He encourages his readers to be “united for the advancement of the gospel” (p. 183). Both Chan and Warren uphold evangelism as bringing other people to acknowledge and believe in God as their creator and savior. This is, perhaps, the ultimate action Christians can take in publicly expressing their faith and relationship with God.
Instead of evangelism, Barber calls public actions that Christians take up,
“witnessing” (Barber & Zelter, 2014, p. 22), a word Chan and Warren might use 51 interchangeably with evangelism. While all three would interpret “witnessing” as acting out love for God and others, Barber understands the evangelistic message of Christianity as being a “witness” of God’s love and justice by being “a witness in the face of extremism and regressive public policy” (p. 22). Perhaps because Barber’s community is “God’s human family,” he does not focus on actions that would increase membership. Instead, he centers Christian action around work and values that would improve the lives of the community, i.e. everyone. Drawing from the gospel of Matthew, Barber re-imagines what
Christ might say to Christians today: “When I was sick, did you give me healthcare; when
I was hungry, did you help me have a job; when I was wrongfully in prison, did you fix the system?” (p. 45). To be clear, Chan, Warren, and Barber all share a belief that if one is separately Christian and citizen, a Christian identity comes first. Barber states, “the
Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with
God’s will, it is our Christian duty to take a stand against it” (p. 108).
What perhaps sets him apart from Warren and Chan is his recognition of structural and systemic injustice. Many evangelical Christians (including Chan and Warren) position themselves as counter-cultural, yet there is little questioning of the assumptions inherent in
U.S. culture (e.g. capitalism, meritocracy, color blindness, etc.). In contrast, Barber draws from Howard Thurman and calls on Christians not only to question and to “mistrust ideological rationalism that justifies subordinating persons” (p. 106), but to “stand against systems and policies rooted in systemic classicism and racism… personal prejudice… as well as institutional racism” (p. 10). Barber questions the systems and institutions in place, while Chan and Warren look solely to alleviate the effects. For instance, Warren (2002) 52 differentiates between “wealth builders [who] continue to amass wealth for themselves” while “kingdom builders… try to make as much money as they can, but they do it in order to give it away. They use the wealth to fund God’s church and its mission in the world” (p.
267). In his descriptions, Warren never questions how wealth is often amassed by the exploitation of others. He never questions whether capitalism or a free market system might be contrary to obeying God. Chan (2013) may go further in what he asks his readers to consider giving up, however, he also fails to challenge the root causes of injustice. Instead of fighting for livable wages or other labor rights, he advocates donating money for those who “live out their lives in dwellings that we would not consider good enough for our household pets” (p. 136).
Chan and Warren’s conceptions of Christian agency, I would argue, bears similarities to Westheimer & Kahne’s (2006) participatory citizen, in which one “organizes community efforts to care for those in need, promote economic development…” (p. 240), with “church” replacing the “community.” Barber’s understanding of Christian identity and agency seeks to transform society, even if it entails civil disobedience, aligning more closely with Banks’s (2008) “transformative citizen” (p. 8). What is important to note is that for Chan, Warren, and Barber, what is often confined to the private sphere in dominant discourses of citizenship (religious faith), is actually an identity and membership that informs how they engage in the public sphere.
53 CHRISTIAN (EVANGELICAL) SCHOOLS
Christian Schools in the 1980s: Evangelical and/or Fundamentalist
In addition to the discourse emerging from the pulpit, Christian private schools are also where the public and private spheres come together in the shaping of citizens. There are few studies on evangelical Christian schools in recent years that do not reference Alan
Peshkin’s (1986) work at Bethany Baptist Academy (BBA). From the title itself, God’s choice: The total world of a Fundamentalist Christian school, and within the study,
Peshkin makes clear that his research site is fundamentalist and nearly always refers to
BBA as such. Peshkin devotes an entire chapter to the doctrine of the school, hence
Fundamentalism, and the association with which the school is affiliated. He highlights beliefs, including inerrancy of the Bible, salvation through grace and faith, the second coming of Christ, and a spiritually transformed life. Peshkin also shows how these beliefs are manifest in the daily lives of Fundamentalists through the school curriculum, teachers, and administration who emphasize the proper behavior of Christians, especially obedience to authority, reading the Bible, and literal and figurative cleanliness. Ultimately, being fundamentalists entails a separation from the world, which they viewed as Satan’s domain.
While his footnotes include mention of the diversity within the evangelical “movement”
(of which Fundamentalism is a part), the diversity he exposes is within the student body of
BBA and the ways students may or may not take up the curriculum of the school.
Paul Parsons (1987) explores diversity amongst Christian schools and distinguishes between different types of Christian schools, defining fundamentalist schools as
54 “dramatically different” (10). Parsons definition of Fundamentalists echoes Peshkin’s definition in terms of beliefs and actions. He also traces a brief history of Fundamentalism, beginning in the early 20th century when churches either aligned with or rejected scientific and philosophical trends. What most differentiates Parsons’ work from Peshkin’s is his exploration of race, particularly the fact that “the majority of Christian schools in America are either all white or overwhelmingly white” (114) and the possible “racist roots” (113) of many Christian schools (i.e. white flight from integration).
Susan Rose’s (1988) approach to Christian schools leaves out race, but factors in class and the ways in which class affects religious belief and expression. Those beliefs, however are nearly identical to those described by Peshkin and Parsons. Her sites can be further labeled using J. Budziszewski’s (personal communication, 04/2017) differentiation of evangelical and fundamentalist. According to Budziszewski, the tendency of Lakehaven
Baptists “to withdraw from the world and do the best they can within their own community” (Rose, 1988, p. 5) classifies them as fundamentalists, which also fits with
Marsden’s observation that most fundamentalists are Baptist dispensationalists.
Evangelicals, according to Budziszewski, are those with similar doctrine who actively engage with the world in order to transform it. Therefore, Rose’s “Covenant people…
[who] feel they are responsible for countering what is going on in society” (p. 4), would be categorized as evangelical, but not necessarily fundamentalist. Whatever their classification, there are clearly differences in how scholars understand and define the groups that make up “evangelicals.” Rose (1988) accurately notes that
55 it is important to recognize that neither the Evangelical Movement nor the Christian
School Movement is monolithic. The fact that much diversity exists is important to
the identity of the groups themselves; to our understanding of their meaning and
significance; and to the political power they wield in contemporary American
society.” (p. 4)
Peshkin, Parsons, and Rose all clearly and quite thoroughly define what they mean when they use the categories “evangelical” or “fundamentalist.” They also differentiate between the two and expose a level of diversity either within a community or within the larger evangelical label. These three studies are among the earliest to examine the rise of fundamentalist and evangelical schools during the height of the culture wars. They are among the only studies that are referenced by successive research that centers Christian schools, especially with regards to citizenship in a pluralistic democracy.
An Unintentional Discursive Image
The studies on Christian education that chronologically follow Peshkin, Parsons, and Rose tend to describe evangelical and fundamentalist in one of three ways. Some, such as Hess & McAvoy (2015) and Feinberg (2006) draw directly from school mission statements or religious affiliations to define “Christian.” Others, such as Godwin, Godwin
& Martinez-Ebers (2004) connect an un-cited list of beliefs that distinguish a fundamentalist school to more general research focused on religious adults, or private schools. A third way in which more contemporary studies, such as those of Schweber
(2006b) and Mosborg (2002), address the categories of evangelical and fundamentalism,
56 is to leave them mostly undefined in the main text, and to add perhaps, a footnote that refers readers to Peshkin (1986), Parsons (1987), Rose (1988), and/or Marsden (1991).
Unsurprisingly, such studies often use the labels interchangeably (Guhin, 2016; Schweber,
2006a; Schweber 2006b). In one instance, Spector (2007) describes the fundamentalist school studied by Schweber & Irwin (2003) but does not clarify if her own participants self-identify as fundamentalist and refers to them simply as Christians.
Much of the current research in social studies education that focuses on Christian schools falls within the third way of defining evangelical and fundamentalist. Definitions are vague, secondary, outdated, or discursive rather than based on insider knowledge.
While references in such studies reveal a number of works on evangelicalism and fundamentalism beyond those cited within the text, nearly all have a similar approach
Christian schools: an etic perspective that critiques religious extremism. Schweber & Irwin
(2003) point out that “despite authors’ concessions that categories of race, gender, and sexual identity shift and change, fundamentalist Christians are typically conceived of, or at least written about as an unvariegated, monolithic block” (p. 1697). While they make attempts to push against this tendency, Schweber & Irwin’s references show an absence of diversity in perspectives. This may perhaps be due to a lack of scholarly literature prior to the 21st century, with most possible sources that reveal or explore diversity within evangelicalism being primary sources, or from within evangelicalism (such as the works of Jim Wallis or evangelicals of color). Therefore, future research within evangelical schools, must consider more recent literature from both etic and emic perspectives that explore contemporary expressions of Christianity. 57 A Christian Education Means a Christian Worldview
John Hull (2003) argues that Christian education “refers to an education transformed by a biblical perspective” as opposed to a system characterized as “Christians educating” (p. 222). He urges Christian schools to grapple with the question, “what can we do to make the education delivered by Christian schools more faithful and probably more distinctive?” (p. 222). Quite a few studies, however, show that Christian schools, specifically evangelical schools, are indeed delivering and applying a “distinctive”
Christian worldview. Peshkin (1986) notes how the Bible is woven into the curriculum at
Bethany Baptist Academy in ways that are both “dense” and “thin” (p. 114). Most of their textbooks and curriculum come from a conservative institution, Bob Jones University
Press, where creationism is the basis of science class, or in history, where students are asked to consider the American Revolution through questions such as, “did the king’s policies violate scriptural principles, and if not, should he not have been honored for his
Caesarean prerogatives?” (pp. 115-116). Even in classes such as P.E. and Driver’s
Education, where spiritual matters seem out of place, a Christian worldview persists:
‘Christian men ought to be men; they ought not to be prissy or out of shape so they
can’t compete.’ It also involves sportsmanship, attitudes toward winning, playing
by the rules, helping someone who is hurt, and not quitting when things get tough.
These are considered spiritual principles… How one drives affects one’s testimony.
If one drives poorly, one is not just a poor driver, but, from Bethany’s perspective,
a poor Christian driver whose behavior affects the fundamentalist Christian
establishment. (Peshkin, 1986, pp. 114-115) 58 A similar integration of religion and curriculum takes place at the two school sites examined by Susan Rose, Covenant and the Academy. In mathematics, for example, the
Covenant handbook explains how mathematical concepts reflect God. Furthermore,
“mathematics is an exact science and in this present age of ‘relative truth,’ it affords the
Christian school an excellent opportunity to teach each student how to comprehend the orderly world around him, created by God who present Himself as Absolute Truth (John
14:6)” (Rose, 1988, p. 42). In English, a Christian worldview means that “once we come to know Christ, that knowledge of Him must flow through us to others as we speak and write (Matthew 28:19-20)” (p. 42). That is, English classes are for the purpose of expressing faith and, most likely for evangelizing. What sets Rose’s study apart from many others is the correlation she posits between class and how this worldview will ultimately be expressed. The school set in a town of mostly working class residents interprets the goal of a Christian worldview through an economic lens that emphasizes obedience, discipline and self-reliance, essentially characteristics that make up “’good workers’” (Rose, 1988, p.
144). The school in a middle class setting sees a Christian worldview in education as preparing their students to go to college and eventually join a profession “though which they will be able to exercise their Christian influence” (p. 98).
Walter Feinberg (2006) describes how this worldview surrounds students in an evangelical, Lutheran middle school. At the foundation is a belief in the Bible as the inerrant word of God, thus, students not only learn the “literal” (p. 29) truths of the Bible, but are expected to memorize verses. Since literal truth is to be taught and memorized,
Feinberg found the classes, especially ones on religion, to be mostly absent of debate or 59 tension. In addition to a Christian worldview in the classroom, sermons and worship during chapel reinforce doctrine, as does the artwork that adorns the school. Feinberg notes numerous pictures of a white Jesus throughout the building, as well as paraphernalia specific to subjects. For example, “in a science classroom there is a bumper sticker with a picture of Darwin’s grave and the statement ‘Right now, even Darwin is convinced’”
(Feinberg, 2006, p. 30). A Christian worldview is embedded into physical and curricular spaces.
In studying race relations at an evangelical school, Candal & Glenn (2012) note that “everything at the school, from the curriculum to interactions between students and teachers is infused with a Christian worldview…” (p. 90). While there is an emphasis on unity and respect for others, including those of other religions, this focus stems from a belief that as Christians, they should equip themselves to “critique the wider culture and contribute to its reform” (p. 91). Likewise, Diana Hess & Paula McAvoy (2015) found that although one history teacher in an evangelical school teaches so that students would ask themselves, “could I be wrong?” (p. 150), his ultimate goal is to “help young people develop skills to evaluate the political messages and social norms they have inherited and to evaluate whether those norms are ‘an expression of Christianity’” (p. 143).
A Christian worldview also emerges in the fundamentalist Christian school studied by Simone Schweber (2006). Her research coincided with 9/11, thus her focus turned towards the interaction between history and religious instruction. What she found is that the teacher used a Christian worldview to interpret, or to explain 9/11:
60 a major point of 9/11, Mrs. Barett implied, was to catalyze the acceptability of
invoking God in the public sphere and to promote the relationships that publicity
might foster between people and God. In short, the events of 9/11 must serve a
Godly purpose since all of history does. (p. 405)
As evangelicalism is generally defined by beliefs, it is little wonder that an evangelical education emphasizes a disciplining of the mind to see the world through a distinctly Christian lens. In some cases, then, a Christian worldview requires that schools
“purify the curriculum and weed out what they consider to be corrupt ideas” (Rose, 1988, p. 179), or “unapologetically work to restrict their students’ cognitive associations ‘in order to avoid contact with people, books and ideas, and social, religious, and political events that would threaten the validity of one’s belief system’” (Peshkin, 1986, 190). A Christian worldview determines what is included in curriculum, how curriculum is taught, and the goal of nurturing and safeguarding evangelical Christianity (i.e. absolute truth, or beliefs) in students.
Faith Alone?
As with the intersectionality of identity, studies of evangelical schools have shown little consideration of other ideologies that have been intertwined with general white evangelical beliefs. Michael Apple is perhaps one of the few within the field of education who disentangles the mutually reinforcing relationships between neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and the new middle class, with religious fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism. He connects the seemingly contradictory selfishness of
61 neoliberalism with the absolute moral values of neoconservatives through the free market as the solution to moral decay:
Virtue was being lost because of government interference not only in the market,
but also into one’s home and schools. Morality was lost when government entered,
especially liberal government… Estranged from a culture ‘that seemed to trivialize
religion and exalt immorality,’ conservative Christians embraced not only the free
market but also the need for strong moral authority. Freedom here was the
combination of capitalism and what they perceived as the moral life as ordained by
God. (Apple, 2006, p. 14)
Conservative evangelical nostalgia for a Christian America and accompanying feelings of victimization, were perfect entry points for ideologies that challenged liberal governments and upheld absolute moral truths. While some scholars within education make brief mention of Apple’s work or cite him in footnotes for readers interested in a deeper analysis, most still center their analysis of religious schools on religious ideology alone.
Like Apple, Noll shows the influence of outside, non-religious movements that have shaped modern evangelicalism. Noll reaches further back into history and narrates a coming together of evangelicalism and the Scottish Enlightenment as a way to justify the
American Revolution while maintaining Christianity as the principal religion:
What weight could the traditional authority of the king in Parliament carry against
the “self-evident truths,” the “unalienable rights,” or “the laws of nature”
proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence? What need was there for a careful
62 rebuttal of authorities, or even a careful perusal of Scripture, to justify rebellion, if
it was transparent to the moral sense that such a rebellion was necessary? (p. 88)
According to Noll, these “habits” ultimately led to a twentieth century and contemporary
Fundamentalism that selectively chose parts of the Bible to develop an all-encompassing framework for truth that had no need for careful study or an understanding of its construction within a specific historical context (p. 127). What Noll and Apple bring to light is the need to situate evangelicalism and fundamentalism in historical context in order to understand how adherents are constructing their worldviews. Without untangling the different ideologies that influence conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists,
“Christian worldview” is perhaps an incomplete naming of what drives their beliefs and actions.
A CONCERN FOR DIVERSITY AND AUTONOMY
Does Evangelicalism Have a Place in a Pluralistic Democracy?
Historically, schools have been one of the main institutions whose purpose is to shape and prepare future citizens, and throughout much of the life of the U.S., the ideal citizen has been white, middle class, Protestant (Tyack, 1974), and heteronormative.
Godwin et al. (2004) conducted a study on the socialization of students at fundamentalist schools, concluding that by senior year, they show greater political tolerance, but lower tolerance for non-traditional lifestyles as compared to students at a public school. Though the sample size of Godwin’s quantitative study was rather small, single-issue voters (often
63 around non-traditional lifestyles) still form a bloc that can have an impact on elections.
Recent studies on evangelical or fundamental schools show this concern over the civic preparation of students at religious schools, specifically in a pluralistic, democratic society.
Simone Schweber (2006) asks, “If… believing students would rather not oppose unjust governmental decrees, given that they are saved regardless of the perils of our democracy, what kinds of citizens might they become?” (p. 411). Macedo (1995) argues that, unlike the Amish who almost completely separate themselves from general society, fundamentalist Christians still partake in a common life with others, thus, their citizenship has an impact on the rest of society. Schweber’s question, then, is of legitimate concern.
What kind of a citizen does a fundamental, evangelical school produce?
A Citizen Should Be Autonomous
Hess & McAvoy (2015) argue that “autonomy is a disposition that helps people flourish within a democracy, and democracies flourish when people are sufficiently autonomous” (pp. 133-134). They, and others, including Macedo (1995) and Feinberg
(2006), require diversity in education in order for autonomy to be attained by students. Not only has research shown that a lack of diversity within communities can often lead to intolerance (McCarty, Poole, & Rosenthal, 2006), but Macedo (1995) points out that “some level of awareness of alternative ways of life is a prerequisite not only of citizenship but of being able to make the most basic life choices” (p. 486). If students are not exposed to different ideas, and if they are raised to believe that alternative beliefs lead to an eternity in hell, scholars question whether they can truly be autonomous.
64 The assumption that fundamental or evangelical schools lack diversity, however, is questioned in several studies. Hess & McAvoy (2015) “found that there is a range of views within the school, while narrow, may cause students to engage in some autonomous reflection” (p. 135). Peshkin’s (1986) observations of fundamentalist students reveal a
“continuum of conformity ranging from true-blue believers, at the one end, to outright rejectionists, at the other” (p. 255). He also notes the ways in which students individually are “both deviators and conformers” (p. 256). The two evangelical communities that Rose
(1988) describes similarly shows that fundamentalists are not a monolithic group. Class, for example, determines the level of engagement with diversity in the religious schools she examines. Feinberg (2006) also points to diversity within religious traditions that is often erased from religious education. He suggests teaching the long tradition of deliberation within Christianity as a way to highlight diversity, which can lead to autonomy. Emerson
& Smith (2000), similarly, highlight the work of black evangelicals who worked tirelessly
(though mostly unsuccessfully), towards a vision that integrated acknowledgement of structural and historical inequities and of evangelical complicity. He includes the de jure and de facto segregation of schools. Like Emerson & Smith, Ek (2008) focuses on race when considering education and religion, though not specifically in a religious school. Her study follows a Latino as he navigates public school and a Pentecostal church, revealing that for at least one student of color, an evangelical space affirmed his language and his identity in stark contrast to a public school where many scholars assume diversity will lead to autonomy and tolerance.
65 Apart from Ek (2008), Emerson & Smith (2000), and one chapter in Parson’s
(1987) Inside America’s Christian Schools, race within evangelicalism or fundamentalism is almost never acknowledged, and certainly not examined with any depth beyond a description of school demographics (Feinberg, 2006; Godwin, et al, 2004; Peshkin, 1986;
Rose, 1988; Schweber & Irwin, 2003; Schweber, 2006a; Schweber, 2006b) or as a way to show the primacy of religious identity (Mosborg, 2002; Spector, 2007). Candal & Glenn
(2010) are one of the few works to fully center race and evangelical schooling; however, they do so without considering the voices of students of color, nor the possibility that perception of behavior problems in Black female students, as pointed out by their research and the teachers, is racially motivated. Evangelicalism, thus, becomes a white religion, erasing the experiences of evangelicals of color, and a potential opportunity to examine both diversity and intersections within.
Expanding on the Literature
In considering the inequality of power in citizenship, particularly in schools and especially around racializations, class, language, and issues of sovereignty, any type of civic education takes place within “webs of power.” Cultural and other critical citizenships clearly show that such webs render educating for a deliberative democracy idealistic at best and white supremacist at worst. In addition to contemplating the hope or telos of a truly equal citizenship, there must be the continued work of untangling the “webs of power” in the everyday as well as the extraordinary in order to “unmake” and “remake” (Wynter,
2015, p. 242) the ideologies that currently define a citizenship that renders some as full citizens and others as liminal. 66 Within a citizenship framework that accounts for power, the call for authentic civic education in a diverse and global society might point towards a praxis of being
“ecumenically human” (p. 194) in which humanity is defined at a species level. Yet, when this authentic learning extends into hallmarks of Social Studies education, service learning and crossing borders, there is a void in research that combines the dilemmas with possible solutions, within actual service learning or border crossing which this research attempts to bring together.
The evangelical and fundamentalist schools studied by the majority of scholars clearly reveals the reproduction of beliefs and values within such schools, as research sites from Peshkin (1986) through more recent studies show similar beliefs (e.g. Biblical inerrancy, a spiritually transformed life, evangelism, etc.) and expressions (e.g. a positivist framework, obedience, etc.). A fundamental concern within education, what kind of citizen is necessary in a pluralistic democracy? becomes, what kind of citizen emerges from religious schools? This question has not been explored with very much depth as most studies focus on curriculum, teachers, and administration, rather than how students take in and take up an evangelical worldview. The intersection of race and religion has also been left largely untouched in classrooms or school studies which not only silences the voices and experiences of evangelicals of color, but also neglects the diversity within evangelicalism. Given the numbers in the 2016 elections, 67% of non-white evangelicals voted for Clinton as opposed to 16% of white evangelicals (Lee, 2017), the intersection of race and religion is clearly a significant factor in evangelical civic engagement. Following the presidential campaign and election of 2016, the media has offered more nuanced 67 understandings by qualifying “evangelical” with “white evangelical” or “evangelical of color” (Center for Religion and Civic Culture, 2018; Griswold, 2018; Lee, 2015; Williams,
2020) with some journalists noting that so-called evangelicals are “more white than
Christian” (Griswold, 2018). Yet, research in education, especially Social Studies, has been slow to follow. I attend to this “theory application void” (Muller-Bloch & Kranz, 2015, p.
8) by centering a racial lens through Sylvia Wynter and Thomas Holt. In doing so, religion becomes one ideology of many possibilities that uphold the way a student might understand citizenship and race.
Further, outlining the concept of modern citizenship biblically, as many insiders do, reveals a split between citizenship in heaven and citizenship on earth. Participants express many ways in which the two are brought together with some focusing on heaven, thus on earth they center evangelism, while others may emphasize citizenship on earth and so live for social justice. A few balance the two and live a form of social justice informed by evangelistic beliefs. Drawing from regional or well-known pastors and theologians, citizenship and evangelism are the most prevalent. Not solely religion then, but these many iterations may be evidence of other ideologies or positionalities. If researchers are truly concerned with the role of religious schools in a pluralistic democracy, a reiteration of studies that center the submovement of fundamentalism, a static image of an evangelical who is solely religious, and white evangelicals, does little to address the concerns of intolerance, a lack of diversity and autonomy. Instead, seeking to understand an evangelical community through their own words, actions, ideologies and theologies as they work with
68 each other and “others” might be more revealing (hence transforming) of the community to both insiders and outsiders.
In questioning the ideals of citizenship and border crossing, and exploring beyond an “epistemological bias” (A. Falkner, personal communication, February 29, 2020) that simplifies and reduces religion to the sole ideology that drives intolerance and prejudice, my study is an attempt to trace the broad context that made the mission trips of Calvary
Lutheran High School possible through an examination of their everyday interactions with each other and “others”. While the context of this study is a religious school, Sylvia
Wynter’s “subjective understanding” requires an examination of the many stories/ideologies, including religion, that shapes a community’s presence and legacy in the world.
69 Chapter Three: Research Design
RESEARCH PARADIGM
Qualitative research often presupposes multiple realities that are constructed or at least differently interpreted, by individuals and communities. Thus, qualitative researchers
“seek to describe, decode, translate, and otherwise come to terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world” (Van
Maanen, 1979, p. 421). That is, a qualitative researcher interprets or attempts to understand the meaning that people have constructed of an event or an idea. Particular to this study, participants may refer to a “big-T Truth,” however, my approach to each individual, and the larger community forefronts the “small-t truths,” or constructed meanings, of each participant and the participants as a collective group. As an “on-going accomplishment”
(Fish, 1990, p. 191), this construction of meaning is dialectic. It takes place as participants engage with the world, with others, with each other, and with me, a participant and researcher they have allowed into their lives.
As a qualitative researcher, I must also consider my own truths as a filter through which this study has been imagined and has been constructed. Not only do my suppositions about epistemology, ontology, and teleology shape my research, but my position with regards to participants, the research sites, my experiences as a history teacher, a Korean
American woman, a child of immigrants, an evangelical raised in a fundamentalist church, all influence the questions I ask, the words and actions that pique my curiosity, and the relationships I co-create with each participant. 70 Ethnography
An ethnographer looks for patterns in the “everyday context” (Hammersley &
Atkinson, 2007, p. 3) of participants in a variety of sites (school, work, leisure, etc.); and in order to do so, she must also have extended time together with her participants on their
“home turf” (Agar, 1996, 120). Rather than observation from a distance, ethnographic research requires “immersion… both being with other people to see how they respond to events as they happen and experiencing for oneself these events and the circumstances that give rise to them” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011, p. 3). Once an ethnographer is immersed, whether as an insider or outsider to the group being studied, the ethnographic positioning of researcher as “one-down” (Agar, 1996, pg. 119), or one who must learn from community experts, still applies as individuals and groups within one community might interpret and take up “publicly available” meanings in vastly different ways. Although this position is dependent on context and participants, some of whom will see the researcher as the expert, and some with whom a relationship “will move to symmetry” (p. 120) or friendship, an ethnographer attempts to engage with participants without assumptions and theories pre-determining the interactions.
Why Ethnography
As Madison (2012) notes of Conquergood, “ethnographic, performative dialogue is more like a hyphen than a period” (p. 11). Although I may be familiar with the school site, with some of my participants as former students or siblings of former students, with the general discourse that defines white, evangelical Christians, and with the type of Asian 71 American stereotypes there are prevalent in the school context, my role as a researcher requires me, I believe, to be in a position of learner: to learn who they are and why they are according to their own words and as close as possible to their own perspectives; to acknowledge that they are more than my own experiences with them or others who share similarities. Also to learn and re-learn the ways that my own position affects all our interactions as well as the research itself. As Griffith and Smith (2005) show in their own work, an emic and ethnographic approach allows “freedom to learn in the course of doing the ethnography, as well as in the work of reflection and analysis” (p. 45). Not only did their research change shape as they learned from their participants, but their process of analysis and reflection became a source of learning how their research process might stifle a participant’s words and perspectives.
In Studying Up, Laura Nader (1972) writes, “we need simply to realize when it is useful or crucial in terms of the problem to extend the domain of study up, down, or sideways… most Americans do not know enough about nor do they know how to cope with the people, institutions and organizations which most affect their lives.” I would extend this to many communities who make up or will make up these institutions and organizations. Many may not be conscious of whose lives they affect, nor are they often aware of how to cope with the knowledge that they and the institutions they uphold, do
(Gaztambide-Fernández & Howard, 2013). With increasing economic segregation throughout the U.S. (Owens, Reardon, & Jencks, 2016) and with my participants in a private parochial school, do short term missions expose them to this knowledge? And would such exposure come at the cost of the receiving communities? This last question is 72 of particular importance to both myself as researcher and to the community I am studying.
As Madison (2012) emphasizes, “ethics must be based upon the common good for all, not just the elite… if common good is jeopardized, the state [or perpetrator] must be challenged” (p. 101). Short term missions and missions work in general, is complex and filled with tensions and contradictions. There are vocal supporters and equally determined detractors from both insiders and outsiders. The majority of participants fall within the former group, while I, as both researcher and Christian, vacillate between both. However, as one of the participants acknowledged, “if I can be persuaded that I’m wrong, then it’s a good thing, because then I can change.”
Ethnography’s focus on insider perspectives and knowledge—the attempt to understand the logic of a community before judging, offers an approach to “studying up” that has the potential to change communities for at least three reasons. First, regardless of the reality, conservative, white evangelicals feel under attack. By entering into research with them, by seeking first and foremost to understand (e.g. to listen and ask questions before analysis), participants may be more willing to speak authentically and more deeply during field observations and interviews. Second, by centering the voices of community members, including their perspectives and hopes for our collective home, perhaps there will be a greater willingness to consider the findings of this study. Last, while ethnography has had a history of presenting people and cultures as “suspended in an unchanging and virtually timeless state, as if the ethnographer’s description provides all that is important, or possible, to know about their past and future” (Davis, 1999, p. 156), critical
73 ethnographers attempt to offer a moment in time that is clearly only a part of a dynamic and complex dialogue, or “transient examples of shaped behavior” (Geertz, 1973, p. 10).
If a researcher’s hope is the humanization of all people (Freire, 2014), even those in a position of power and privilege, portraying people as always becoming and as complex beings is one way to do so. From the perspective of Martin Buber (n.d.), the humanization of all people is made possible through love:
in the eyes of him who takes his stand in love, and gazes out of it, men are cut free
from their entanglement in bustling activity. Good people and evil, wise and
foolish, beautiful and ugly, become successively real to him; that is, set free they
step forth in their singleness, and confront him as Thou.” (p. 15).
CONTEXTS
School and County Space: The Sunbelt
I planted, Apol’los watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor
he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6-
7, RSV).
While God, the Son, is the center of Calvary Lutheran’s purpose, that students might “internalize the gospel message of salvation in Christ Jesus,” those who planted the seeds so that Calvary Lutheran might grow, offer an origin narrative that binds together the past, the present, and the future of Calvary Lutheran with the school’s mission: Over forty years ago a group of men and women would gather to discuss building a Lutheran school
74 in their community. At the end of each meeting, a hat would be passed around, and whatever change was in their pockets and purses ended up in that hat and whatever faith and hope they had, they put in God. Just as the seeds they planted for the school allows for the current students and teachers to grow, so too do the lives and contributions of current students and teachers, plant seeds for those to come. Every student who walks through the campus can feel that they are a part of a divine purpose. Even if the founders of Calvary
Lutheran never knew the students who would come, God did and does.
Economically, five of the twenty wealthiest cities in the U.S. are within county borders (county newspaper). Although the five cities are spread out across the county geographically, the school draws many students from them, with some commuting an hour each way. The tuition at Calvary Lutheran is the lowest among the private schools in their athletic division with tuition set at a five-digit figure, not including books, required technology, and other fees. $2.5 million dollars is allocated annually to need-based financial aid, with almost 350 families receiving some benefit (school website). During an early phase of this dissertation, several students expressed a general awareness of the image of wealth both for the county and the school. One student shared in class,
they consider us rich… one of the things that my uncle says to me, and I know he’s
joking, but he says you’re a Pacific County boy… he says, I see all these people,
they want to be treated like kings and queens in Pacific County. (Field Notes,
November 3, 2016)
While there is clear income disparity in Pacific County, the gap between the top 10% and the bottom 10% is among the lowest in the state (Bohn & Danielson, 2016). 75 We’re An Addidas School
Calvary Lutheran High School serves approximately 1,350 students grades 9-12, with on campus or online class options. Theology is mandatory every year for all students, as is chapel attendance four days a week. Academically, the school has theater, art, and
STEM programs that have brought in a number of students and awards. The student population at Calvary Lutheran has higher percentages of white (66.4%), Black (3.8%), and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (11.9%) students, than the county average, with lower numbers of Asian (8.5%) (Asian or Asian American is unspecified), American
Indian/Alaska native (0.2%), and Hispanic (9.2%) students (National Center for Education
Statistics, 2015). The school is located in a historically conservative county on the west coast. Politically, the county was instrumental in the rise of Nixon and Reagan
Republicanism as well as the cultural conservatism of that era, on the Pacific coast
(Duchuk, 2011). In response to the perceived growth of West coast liberalism in the 1960s and 1970s, evangelical Southern migrants who moved west for wartime and post war industrial opportunities, joined the efforts of evangelists such as Billy Graham. A bastion of the Republican party since the Great Depression, 2016 was the first presidential election in eighty years that the county voted Democrat (county newspaper), with the 2018 midterms providing a blue wave, or a “historic sweep of the conservative bastion” (Graham,
2018) reflecting increasing numbers of Latina/o and Asian American residents across class levels.
76 In a conversation with one of the missions teachers, Michaela, she brought up an interaction she had with a parent at a football game about Calvary Lutheran sports switching from Nike to Adidas:
I don’t know the whole story, and I don’t know if it was actually because of the
Kaepernick thing, but one of the dads said really proudly, “we’re an Adidas
school!” I hope that’s not the reason and I hope that’s not the message being put
out there. (Field Notes, November 19, 2018)
Regardless of the actual reason for the change, Michaela clearly saw the possibility that the school, and many families, would openly oppose Kaepernick’s protest and stance, despite, as she pointed out, how that might affect “half the football team” who were students of color. A large majority of teachers and administration, in addition to the student body, at the school are white. A point that I once mentioned as a teacher, and a student subsequently tweeted on a popular thread: “Calvary Lutheran is so white, even my Korean teacher makes fun of it.” As the only Korean American, and one of two Asian American teachers at the school, everyone knew exactly who the tweet referred to. Similar to the general faculty, all but one teacher in the Missions department identify fully as white; however, the missions class enrolls more students of color than the school average. Yet, as the director of the program stated in an interview, “I would say that people of color feel more comfortable in our program than other things, but does that mean they feel comfortable?”
77 Missions at Calvary Lutheran
The Missions department is led by a staff that includes academic teachers as well as full-time Missions teachers. The department offers a Missions class
designed as a theoretical and practical introduction to the nature and implications
of Christian mission, with particular emphasis on social justice and ecological
responsibility. The purpose of these courses are to explore the mission mandate of
Jesus Christ and how Christians are implementing it today, as well as to equip
students to actively and joyfully participate in Christian mission. All students in
this class will play a major role in the planning and organizing of Missions events
and activities. (school website)
In addition to engaging with readings and activities around cultural intelligence, students complete projects such as research on injustices they see in the world, campus recycling, chapel services, and prayer. Shortly after the start of this study, they included a new project that requires students to interview an individual who is fundamentally different from them in some way (e.g. religion, race, generation, etc.), with the goal of helping students to listen to the stories and experiences of people with perspectives that may be radically different from their own. The department also plans and leads various short term mission trips throughout the year. As the vision of the Missions department is to partner with local churches and Christians in areas to which they travel, trips tend to be annual, or of regular intervals when possible. Since 2009, the program has sent annual teams to the Appalachia region of Kentucky. Beginning in 2012, teams of students have traveled to Bishop, CA to work with the Paiute Tribe twice each school year. During spring breaks, short term 78 mission trips are planned for Asia (generally alternating between Vietnam, Cambodia,
Taiwan, and China). Summer trips tend to be of longer duration and have included locations such as Romania, Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, as well as domestic destinations such as the Crow Nation in Montana.
Although preparation for, and the nature of each trip depends on the teachers who lead the teams, the purpose of all short term mission trips should fall within the overall vision of the Missions department:
… our focus in our efforts to serve others is twofold: encouraging others (believers
and nonbelievers alike) with the hope of Christ and empowering them with the
resources and training to find God’s calling on their life and live it out. It is very
important for us that we not simply give “hand-outs” to those we minister to.
Instead, research has shown that it is far more beneficial to give a “hand up” and
help others stand on their own. Through this approach we can avoid unnecessary
dependence and foster an attitude of responsibility and independence in those with
whom we work.
Lastly, we are more than aware that we do not engage in mission work knowing all
the answers. We rely heavily on local ministries and churches in the areas that we
serve. Clearly, the local people, particularly local Christians, know how to minister
best to their own people, so our goal is to partner with existing ministries and
support them in their on-going work. Similarly, on a deeper level, we understand
that God’s work in a given location is advancing well before we arrive and will
continue well after we are gone. We are simply a link in a very long chain of His 79 work. Beyond this, we understand that our culture and our ways of understanding
and living out the Christian life are far from perfect. Other cultures and Christian
communities around the world have much to teach us… (school website)
Whether and how students might take up the vision of the Missions department varies along a wide spectrum with some referencing their experience on short term mission trips abroad as the inspiration for more humility towards other cultures and people, while others spoke of the same trip as reinforcing their belief that “America is the greatest country in the world.”
Parent involvement is extensive in both the school and program. As a teacher there,
Back to School Nights were standing room only and I made sure to contact the parent/guardian of every student I had within the first three weeks of the school year. In my experience, as long as parents knew that I wanted the best for their children, they were as supportive as any teacher could want. There were, however, a few families who would approach my department chair when they were unhappy with the content of my world history class. Although outright censorship was infrequent, I was on occasion asked to change or temper “controversial” lessons (e.g. climate change, the military industrial complex).
Parent involvement is also extensive in the Missions program, as they make up the bulk of chaperones, prayers, and contributors of time and finances to various trips and projects. At their recent “Missions Family Reunion,” where past and present students and families gathered to worship together and to promote the department’s current vision, parents and their children volunteered the entire weekend with cooking, preparation, clean- 80 up, speaking, etc. While the Missions department staff have spoken of the strong support they have always felt from the administration, they also related instances where parents may have voiced concern over some of their aims, including educating students on environmental responsibility. When asked how they resolved these challenges, the director of the department confidently stated that everything they did was biblically based, and so whenever parents contacted him with concerns, he could easily respond. A recent conversation with a parent volunteer confirmed this as an ongoing issue when she shared that another parent told her she was concerned with how “liberal” the Missions program was becoming. Yet, because of support from administration, as well as the confidence felt by the staff in providing a biblically based program, parent concerns/fears do not direct the program despite such heavy involvement.
“Somewhere Totally Different”: Taiwan
Excerpt from fieldnotes (Afternoon of April 1, 2018)
I walk with and talk with Margaret Ann to the school site. Our hotel is on a busy
street. Cars and scooters zoom past us as we wait for the walking sign at the signal
in front of Family Mart. The sidewalk is made up of both flat and textured stones
or bricks. I think the bricks with knobs and rows sticking up are for people who are
blind. There are lot of trees… there’s green everywhere. Margaret Ann and I walk
by the many shops and restaurants that line the street. She says how beautiful it is
here in Taiwan. I ask her how and why it is beautiful and she mentions how it’s
green and the shops along the street create such a “cool atmosphere.” I ask her
81 what she thought Taiwan would be like, and she says that she thought it would be
more rural but really had no idea what it would be like because she’s seen pictures
of Japan and China and they [lead teachers at Calvary Lutheran] showed her some
pictures of the mountains and stuff in Taiwan. She also said how she can’t
understand some things and so it is beautiful. I ask her if, for example, the written
language seems more artistic because she can’t understand it. She says yes. She
also says that Taiwan reminds her of Jackie Chan movies. “It’s picturesque.” “I
thought it would be more rural.” “It’s so different from America.”
The conversation between Margaret Ann and I illustrates some of the common perceptions that many students held regarding Taiwan. The usual response to the question,
“why did you decide to come to Taiwan?” often started with “I don’t know. It just felt right” and then would expand to “it’s so different from home.” Apart from the lead teacher and his family, who had done missionary work for several years in Taiwan over a decade earlier, one student whose music teacher is Taiwanese, and one student participant (no longer at Calvary Lutheran) who with his mother had recently emigrated from Taiwan to the U.S., participants had little to no prior knowledge of or experience with Taiwan or anyone from Taiwan.
Concordia Middle School in Chiayi: Taiwanese Lutheran Education
The history of Protestant Christianity in Taiwan is more closely tied to the
Presbyterian church which began evangelizing in Taiwan beginning in the 1860s when treaties with European countries protected western missionaries (Tsai, 2015); however,
82 other Protestant denominations became more prevalent after the 1950s when China’s move to communism led many Christian missionaries to re-focus missionary efforts on Taiwan
(Chao, 2013). Early evangelism came in the form of humanitarian institutions such as hospitals and schools. In this study, one such organization is of particular importance, the
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). The U.S. born and based LCMS partnered with the China Evangelical Lutheran Church (CELC) in 1966 with the current goal of expanding the evangelistic reach of the CELC (i.e. planting more churches, increasing numbers) in addition to providing financial and theological support for the CELC (Askins,
2018). Concordia Middle School (CMS), established in 1967, and the more recent addition to the campus, Concordia English Language Academy (CELA), are highlighted by the
LCMS as supporting “one of the CELC’s most vital evangelistic tools for reaching all segment of the Taiwanese population” (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Taiwan, 2018).
The common discourse among the Christians (local and U.S. missionaries) associated with CMS and CELA positions Taiwanese Christians and Christianity in several ways: Christians as 1) a minority population, 2) a socially persecuted group, and 3)
Christianity as incompatible with East Asian culture (e.g. Confucianism, ancestor veneration, etc.). Although exact data on religious identity in Taiwan may be difficult due to the practice of excluding questions about religion on any census in consideration of privacy, the percentage of self-identified Christians (both Protestant and Catholic) among
Taiwanese is estimated at less than 5 percent (Chao, 2013; Laliberté, 2016). Laliberté
(2016) notes that the government does not ban any religions, including East Asian practices such as the Falungong, that are outlawed in China. While public opinion does not always 83 agree with this freedom of all religions, the practice of identifying with multiple religions
(excluding Christianity and Islam) is common.
In addition to being a small portion of the Taiwanese population, Christians can face some social stigma as ancestor worship is considered an essential element of family obligations. Conversion to a religion that prohibits worship of any other person or deity, thus
is viewed as violation of family identity and breaking the intimate relationships
between family members. It is sometimes regarded as an act of betrayal in the eyes
of one’s compatriots, even though Western Christianity has been the pioneer in
promoting modern medicine, secondary and higher education, and social welfare
in Taiwan, and has thus earned very high prestige. (Chao, 2013, p. 109).
Given these conditions, one might expect current Taiwanese Christians to bear similarities to early converts who were among the indigenous and other marginalized communities.
Modern Christians in Taiwan, however, tend to have higher levels of education and wealth than the general population (Chao, 2013). More so than at other mission sites explored in this study, the context that participants step into at the churches and at CMS in Chiayi share some socioeconomic and cultural characteristics as their home.
Indigenous in Taiwan
Excerpt from fieldnotes (April 5)
84 When the bus driver told me the pouch around his neck was a part of his traditional
dress, I asked how a group in the mountains got a hold of sea shells. He said they
used to live on the coast, but were pushed into the mountains.
A portion of the mission trip to Taiwan took place in Alishan (Ali Mountain), which became the home of the Tsou People as ethnic Han Chinese colonized the island. The b&b where we stayed was owned by a Tsou family; however, our first stop in Alishan was a restaurant owned by a South African woman (white) married to a Tsou man. Over a lunch made of locally grown ingredients, she shared her story of trying to teach the local Tsou about environmentalism and sustainability. When asked how the team from Calvary
Lutheran could partner with her efforts, she asked that we pick up trash along the streets so that at the very least, her Tsou neighbors would see our example. Regardless of the accuracy of her representation of the Tsou people, what was missing was the historical context in which the economic development of Taiwan as well as the ensuing environmental efforts were at the cost of Indigenous rights and resources (Chi, 2016; Tai,
2007). In the exact case of a Tsou village in Alishan:
Eagerness to solve socio-economic problems drove the community to consider
development projects, rather than conservation, as utmost priority. However, both
development and conservation projects confronted an extremely unsupportive,
external institutional environment in the 1980s. Development projects were not
allowed in strictly protected national forest. Even autonomous conservation
initiatives were not supported by the authorities concerned, if they aimed to rebuild
85 a local CPR [common pool resources] regime that would openly conflict with
national property rights of land and natural resources. (Tai, 2007, p. 1190)
Following rapid industrialization and economic growth in the 1970s, many Taiwanese, across class and ethnicity, turned their political and social focus on to the environment
(Grano, 2015). Although little substantial change has occurred regarding historical dispossession of Indigenous land, some efforts towards addressing indigenous claims and environmental concerns were made in 2002 when the government began the process of creating a “people-park relationship” (Chi, 2016, p. 273) by mapping traditional
Indigenous territories and placing lands, resources, and parks under Indigenous management. Not all Tsou villages have achieved the planned-for partnering of conservation and development. But there are continuing and spreading pockets of awareness and movements among the Tsou and other Indigenous peoples regarding their immediate and long-term needs stretching back over thirty years (Hsaio, Lai, Liu, Magno,
Edles, & So, 1999).
Access to lands and resources were not the only aspects of Indigenous movements that culminated in the 1987 “Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Taiwanese.” In the
1990s, the government extended some political voice to Indigenous peoples, reserving them six of the 113 seats in the government (Chi, 2016). Shortly thereafter, the Taiwanese constitution was amended to promote the languages and cultures of the Indigenous peoples that had been suppressed in favor of Chinese, as was standard through the 1980s. Thus, even in 2018, one of the pastors we met in Alishan focused much of her efforts on preserving the Tsou language among the youth through the church. Politically, the 86 Indigenous groups of Taiwan share struggles with those of the U.S., not only in their efforts to regain and retain language and culture, but also to gain political and legal self- government. Just as in the U.S., the Indigenous tribes of Taiwan must gain recognition by the national government.
“The Other America”: Appalachia In 1964, poverty in the United States took on the faces of families in the
Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky. Lyndon B. Johnson’s “war on poverty” was broadcast throughout the nation in photographs, articles, and newsreels depicting an unemployed father in Kentucky in his “ramshackle” home (Cheves, 2015). But even before these iconic images relegated the Appalachian region to “the other America”, reformers such as William Goodell Frost (1899) had already described “the mountain folk” as
“lacking the intelligence” that characterize contemporary Americans and in need of “the intervention of intelligent, patriotic assistance” (pp. 8-9). His call upon fellow modern citizens to help pull these “mountain whites” (p. 1) from the “colonial times” positions the people of Appalachia as wards or children who must be protected from the “unprincipled vanguard of commercialism [that] can easily debauch a simple people” (p. 9). This continued narrative, Kiffmeyer (2011) argues, is “rooted in the idea of a ‘culture of poverty’” (p. 363) that seeks to detach the people from a deep-rooted history with the land, the resources, their language, values, and customs. He attributes these types of attempts to the past and current resistance of many Appalachians towards reform efforts that come from outside their own communities.
87 Popular culture has done little to counter portrayals of Appalachians as a people and culture distinct from (“other”) and inferior to the mainstream U.S. The singular focus on Appalachia as a region of extreme poverty is present even in fashion magazines (Blades,
2016; Shnayerson, 2006). Movies such as Deliverance or Wrong Turn are commonly referenced when people hear that I will be travelling to Appalachia. Popular television shows, such as Bones, featured scenes of a rifle wielding grandfather shooting haphazardly at anyone trespassing on his land contributing to the idea of Appalachia as “synonymous with violence and social conflict” (Billings & Blee, 2000, p. 5), that is, Appalachia as a
“community of lawlessness” (Shapiro, 1978, p. 106). While those within and outside of the community do not deny the need for transformation in terms of access, healthcare, education, and so forth (Baldwin, n.d.; Blackley, Behringer, Zheng, 2012; Paskett, 2018;
Rader, 2017), the positioning of the people and their culture as the problem continues even among those who claim the region as home. In Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance (2016) speaks as an insider whose personal and family history shows both tragedy and success emerging from Appalachia; however, scholars and others from Appalachia see in his perspective the culture of poverty that Kiffmeyer noted in the writing of scholars throughout the 20th century (Carrol, 2017; Hutton, 2017; Theobald, 2017).
A Sovereign Nation: Bishop Paiute Reservation
What our people need is a restoration — of our voice, lands, waters, and sacred
sites. We ask for access to the places that we, and our ancestors before us, have
been stewards of for centuries. Our role as stewards comes from knowledge that
88 has been handed down from generation to generation. What we ask for is simple:
access to the waters and lands that we have watched over since time immemorial.
This is vital not only for our cultural identity, but also for the survival of our people.
Our people will be at the shores of our riverbeds, joyfully and eagerly welcoming
the arrival of our paya (water) back into the Payahüünadü. (Hohag, 2017)
Scrolling through pictures of past Calvary Lutheran trips to the Paiute Reservation,
I came across an unexpected photograph of students at Manzanar, one of several camps used to incarcerate Japanese and Japanese Americans during WWII. The landscape surrounding the students seemed desolate, dusty, cold, isolated. How was this region once called Payahüünadü, or “the place of flowing water” (Hohag, 2017)? I recalled that two years earlier, the director of the Missions department at Calvary Lutheran spoke to me about water rights as absolutely essential to understanding the history of the Paiute tribe.
Drawing also from the work of a citizen of the Round Valley Reservation, William Bauer
(2012), water rights and place are integral to Paiute history and identity: “Paiutes related their ethnogenesis to a specific river, which enunciated their relationship with water, and identified the location of springs as a way to define a historical consciousness that depends on place rather than chronology [emphasis added].”
The Bishop Paiute Tribe begin their story as “descendants of the ‘Nu-Mu’, the original people of the Owens Valley” since “forever” (Bishop Paiute Tribe website). By the 1860s, however, the land that had provided food and water for the Paiutes was taken over by white settlers who grazed their cattle on agricultural fields, and diverted water used 89 in Paiute irrigation systems (Piper, 2006). Through archived interviews, Bauer (2016) brings forth Jennie Cashbaugh’s account of how settler colonialism affected her people early on:
There were times when we scarcely had anything to eat, when especially the white
men never knew or stopped to realize that it was our land that they settled
themselves on and when we went to gather food that we thought was ours, the white
man did not want us to disturb his land which produced our only means of living
and would chase us away, brutally hurt our Indian members and trouble would
begin or one of our men may chance to hurt them. (p. 81)
With each encroachment, Paiute tribes resisted through warfare and legal action. Despite their efforts, the military and economic power of the United States led to the forced dispossession of land, first by white settlers and the California Volunteers (a military unit) in the 1860s, then to the 67,000-acre reservation designated by the federal government in the Owens Valley in 1912 (Kahrl, 1982, p. 353), and again in 1932 when “President Hoover revoked the 67,000 acres reserved land and placed the lands in watershed protection status for the City of Los Angeles” (Bishop Paiute Tribe History).
The current geographic boundaries of the Bishop Paiute Tribe continue the narrative of settler colonial dispossession. Although the Bishop Paiute had an agreement with the U.S. government regarding water rights, “the federal government failed to secure them from Los Angeles” (Bauer, 2016, p. 119). The city proceeded to answer the “Indian problem” (Porter, 1936, p. 15) with a land exchange that remains contested to this day.
Current activists such as Harry Williams, an elder of the Paiute Tribe, continue to fight for 90 legal access to water and land (Cockrell, 2015). Most recently, LADWP’s plan to build a solar ranch in Owens Valley was contested by both the Big Pine Paiute Tribe and the
Manzanar Committee (an organization committed to educating the public about Japanese
American incarceration). While the Paiute peoples were dispossessed of their land,
Japanese and Japanese Americans were dispossessed by being placed onto the emptied land:
It purposefully and violently emptied the space of Indigenous peoples, who were
contained to reservations to make room for settlers, and it was emptied of water as
the population of Los Angeles grew beyond its own supply. It was an “ideal” area
to incarcerate Japanese Americans because the state had already made it that way.
(Yamashita, 2016, 133)
Not only have both communities come together to oppose the solar ranch which would continue native dispossession and destroy the historical significance of the “carceral landscape” (Yamashita, 2016, p. 122), but a relationship has begun where there is acknowledgement of continued native dispossession by the Manzanar Committee, and recognition by the Piaute Tribe, of a Japanese American chapter in the long history of violence in Owens Valley.
That the NART (Native American Reservation Trip) mission trip brings together
Indigenous and Asian American histories provides for opportunities to disrupt dominant narratives of place, history, and citizenship. Indigenous people are not “extinct”
(Lomawaima & McCarty, 2002, p. 280) and tribal sovereignty remains a contested legal right (Brayboy, 2006; Grande, 2002; Villegas, 2015). Japanese Americans were wrongfully 91 incarcerated, not “interned” (Camicia, 2008; Rodríguez, 2017), and access to citizenship continues to be raced, classed, and exclusionary (Hsu, 2015; Ngai, 2004; Parker, 2015).
Pang, Gay, & Stanley (1995) write about the necessity of these narratives if schools are to contribute to a healthy democratic and diverse society:
The oppression, victimization, and domination that various ethnic groups in the
United States have experienced cannot be denied. The scars, distrust in national
values, and the effects of these experiences cannot be underestimated; however,
faith in democratic principles must be reaffirmed for everyone. An essential
element of this reaffirmation and renewal is an honest and open confrontation with
historical atrocities that are contradictory to constitutional rights and universal
human values. (p. 315)
Because many participants in this study may not be a member in a group that has known systemic oppression, acknowledgement and “open confrontation” is essential for the identities of fellow students/classmates/participants from marginalized communities as well as for participants/students who have little or no knowledge of these “difficult histories” (Salinas & Alarcón, 2016, p. 69) and yet must share common spaces.
SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS
Time and Place
In this ethnography of a religious school community, the patterns I observed took place in the everyday context of students, teachers, and parents when they were on short
92 term mission trips. Although these trips were not for extended times, but were seven to ten days in length, I was with the participants as an adult chaperone almost twenty-four hours each day. The initial mission trip to Taiwan was by invitation from the director of the school program. I selected the two subsequent mission trips (Paiute Reservation in
California and Appalachia) that took place in late fall of 2018, from recommendations by participants who went to Taiwan.
Short Term Missions
According to Hammersley & Atkinson (2007), “in organizing the sampling of time, it is important to include what is routine as it is to observe the extraordinary” (p. 37). To a certain extent, a school mission trip is more of an extraordinary occasion than an ordinary, everyday context. However, short term missions are condensed spaces and time already constituted with meanings and norms around theology, Christian culture, civic identity, and civic agency. For instance, participants expect most of their time on short term missions to be spent in “quiet time” (individual time spent with God in prayer, journaling, reading the Bible), and “ministering to others.” Once back home, there is often talk of combatting a “missions high,” a period of heightened spirituality that carries over from the actual mission trip before quickly dissipating. Before and during the trip, team unity is also of great concern as we all occupy the same space nearly all hours of the day. Thus, for many short term mission groups, divisiveness is one of the primary ways the devil can derail the purpose of missions. Overall, the time participants spend on short term mission trips may seem out of the ordinary; however, Christian ideas of how one ought to live, how
93 one ought to live with others and how one ought to live for others (e.g. sacrifice) are particularly heightened, providing insights into the beliefs and norms regarding civic identity and agency.
People
The participants in this study are students, teachers, and parents who join short term mission trips through Calvary Lutheran High School. While not every participant consider themselves evangelical, or even Christian, I focused on members of the Calvary Lutheran community who hold to evangelical beliefs such as those outlined in chapter two:
a) The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.
b) It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus
Christ as their Savior.
c) Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty
of my sin.
d) Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of
eternal salvation
While Christianity Today and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) define evangelicalism by those beliefs, there are many Christians who hold to those same beliefs, but do not identify as evangelical, but instead may more closely align with their specific denomination or church system (e.g. Coptic, Lutheran, Calvary Chapel, etc.)
A potential challenge regarding the selection of people within a community that welcomes me as an insider (for the most part) is the complication of friendship. Almost
94 every day in the field, I experienced moments where I told myself, “I can’t do this anymore.” As I came to care for my participants, as our relationships became more
“symmetrical,” I felt that studying them was a betrayal of their trust. What continuously compelled me to return to my research were the participants themselves. When I interviewed, or member-checked with students, parents, and teachers, their honesty and their thoughtful interest reminded me that they also see this community as home and believe there could be and should be transformation. I began to add in my interviews the question, “If you define home as Calvary Lutheran High School, Pacific County, or the church (i.e. Christians in general), what would you want transformed in your home?”
Focal Participants—Students
Amina: Now an undergraduate student at her top choice university on the east coast,
Amina first entered into this study as a participant her senior year at Calvary Lutheran. She was the only Black female student on the mission trip to Appalachia, and one of several
Black students on Spring NART. Teachers spoke of her as being bold and honest. Amina’s mother shared their opinion:
She's a confident speaker. Vivacious energy and creativity. Loves God. Fearless in
her efforts to engage her friends, all people, no matter who they are in gender, sex,
gay, straight, white, Black and all to bring them to church. I pray that she's not
afraid to tackle this world.
Issa: While a teacher at Calvary Lutheran, Issa was one of two Black students in my AP history class (70 total students in her year) for two years. From her freshman year, she was
95 a steadfast student, responsible, studious, and well-spoken, though not very talkative.
When she did speak, her words were always measured. She was heavily involved in track as well as the missions program. Issa was the first participant to speak openly about race with me, but only when off campus.
Peyton: Nicknamed Moana for her striking physical resemblance to the Disney character,
Peyton, a sophomore, conversed easily with her teammates while on Spring NART, no matter their age, grade level, gender. A passenger in my van, she kept everyone entertained and laughing with stories about how she chose names for the two pineapples she grew in her backyard. Peyton is biracial, white and Japanese American. Whenever she spoke, she spoke passionately, using her whole body to communicate.
Jeremiah: A student-athlete, Jeremiah had already signed with a university for fall after he first agreed to be a participant during Spring NART. He shared openly about his experiences and perspectives, with little patience for those he regarded as immature, divisive, or “stupid.” Like Peyton, he is biracial, identifying as Latino and African
American. Accepted on both sides of the family, he nonetheless was “on his own” to figure out what it meant for him to be Afro-Latino.
Lauren: Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt with their families when they were unable to find employment as Coptic Orthodox Christians. Her aunt explained that with
Christian names, they faced discrimination. Lauren and a close group of her friends, all sophomores, decided to go on the Taiwan mission trip together. Actively involved in her church, Lauren had been on several mission trips before. With both her church and family, she has travelled extensively throughout the world. By the time of our last interview, 96 Lauren was unhappy at Calvary Lutheran and spent most of her time with her Egyptian
American friends at church.
Focal Participants—Teachers
Luke: Originally a science teacher at Calvary Lutheran, Luke created and currently leads the Missions department. He has experience working at churches, which, unfortunately, gave him the opportunity to witness dysfunctional and unhealthy ways of being a community of Christians that he seeks to counter in his own faith as well as in the program.
He openly admits the mistakes he and the program have made historically and currently, and the well-worn books in his office are a testament to his constant efforts to seek God’s heart more faithfully. Luke identifies as a white male.
John: John, a white male, was born and raised in a Lutheran family. His entire education was within the Lutheran church, and he shared that much of his early exposure to non- white communities was as an athlete at his university. A theology teacher at Calvary
Lutheran, he has been a chaperone on multiple mission trips, always going to the same locations.
Michael: One of the leaders of the Missions program, Michael is a young white male who, with his Christian community, has done a great deal of research and work in understanding race, racism, and reconciliation from a faith-based perspective. He grew up in a diverse community, that included indigenous classmates, and he continues to work closely with the Paiute tribe throughout the year.
97 Focal Participants—Parents
Lizzy: Lizzy and I connected very quickly when we first met while waiting for our flight to Taiwan. She frequently travelled to South Korea on missions and worked with a professor from the same university where my aunt is also a faculty member. Her daughter,
Jessica, became a participant in this study when she was a sophomore going to Taiwan.
They both also went to Appalachia. Although Lizzy works in a corporate setting, she devotes much of her time as a missions leader to her evangelical church where her husband, a Latino, is a music leader. Lizzy identifies as white.
Sofia: Sofia is Egyptian American and first came to the U.S. from Egypt in her teens. Upon moving to Oklahoma, she learned that in the U.S., she is a “person of color.” Energetic, witty, and open hearted, Sofia was a favorite among the students who went to Taiwan.
Many of us gravitated towards her throughout the trip. She acted as confidante and mother to several students, especially for one who had recently lost her mother. A self-professed supporter of the Republican candidate in 2016, she spoke of her wish to have lived in the
U.S. during the 1950s.
DATA COLLECTION & TRUSTWORTHINESS
An ethnographer’s immersion in a community during data collection pulls away the veneer of distance and perfect objectivity in research. Much of the data, whether field notes or interviews, are both obviously and subtly from the perspective of the researcher even when the content centers the experiences and words of participants (Emerson et al., 2011).
Ethnographic data collection accounts for this by including the researcher’s “own 98 activities, circumstances, and emotional responses as these factors shape the process of observing and recording others’ lives” (p. 15). Open acknowledgement that the data I attend to, the data I choose to ignore, the data I do not see, and how I approach this data, are contingent on my perspective, requires transparency:
if you do document your learning with some procedure that publicly displays some
of the experiences you had that led to the conclusion, and that potentially might
have falsified that conclusion, you can at least show that your bias was supported
by something somebody did or said (Agar, 1996, p. 99).
In addition to careful documentation, consistent member checking both in and out of the field can mitigate the potential for conclusions unsupported by the actions, words or perspectives of community members. As an adult chaperone, I have observed that there are numerous occasions when chaperones gather and discuss issues that have arisen amongst the students (e.g. student complaints about activities, other students) as well as their observations of what is going well, what needs to improve, and team dynamics. What has been most helpful in member checking is that much of their observations are patterns they see taking place. For example, one particular pattern many of the chaperones notice, point out, and address is how some students are often marginalized within the team: Whenever the girls are in a group talking, Anabelle stands by herself. No one talks to Justin. Have you noticed how the students don’t know how to interact with Winston? I texted my daughter about how she needs to make an effort to include people like Anabelle. Whenever these conversations arise, I have the opportunity to ask for elaboration and to check for any
99 common perceptions: I noticed that Winston doesn’t seem to fit in too… why do you think that is? (Field Notes, April 2, 2018).
Influential Ethnographic Work & Findings
My dissertation, specifically the stance with which I approached analysis of data, draws inspiration from the work of two ethnographers in contexts outside of education,
Andrea Louie and Aimee Cox. In Chineseness Across Borders (2004), Andrea Louie examines how Chinese and Chinese American participants involved in the “In Search of
Roots” program negotiate their identities as “Chinese” within specific conditions: China’s open door policy, PRC-sponsored activities, program discourse, popular culture, and media. Not only does she tease apart the ways in which ideas of Chinese identity shift according to region and class, but the ways that Chinese and Chinese American identities interact with and shape each other. In the same way that Louie notes the importance of a social, political and cultural context when her participants were making sense of their experiences, yet still emphasizes the deeply personal process of understanding and articulating identities, my study looks broadly at the ideological contexts of participants, as well as the personal narratives that drive some towards reflection and agency. Similarly, as Louis notes a reciprocal relationship between Chinese and Chinese American program participants, each site in my research involved a mutual give-and-take in which both insider and outsider have agency within the relationship.
Additionally, Louie observes that “due to the program’s focus on family history, the curriculum deemphasizes China’s contemporary political and economic situation” (p.
100 77). My research also takes into consideration what the missions program focuses on at both discursive and behavioral levels, and how this may likewise deemphasize significant elements that impact their goals of social justice and service.
In Shapeshifters (2015), the depth to which Aimee Cox experiences life with the young Black women at the Fresh Start Homeless Shelter is a commitment to a community that perhaps ethnographers should all strive towards. In narrating the personal stories of the women, she lays bare the assumptions and stereotypes that are clearly constructs of the social, economic, and political context in which they live. In doing so, she is able to critique the larger context and disrupt commonly held, but violent, perceptions of her participants.
While my own dissertation does not match the length of time Cox spent with the women, she makes clear the challenges that I faced in attempting to deeply and broadly understand the students, teachers, and parents who participated in my study. In my efforts, I found myself relying on specific participants who caught my attention because either they sought me out (e.g. racial comradery, interest in my research), or their words and actions disrupted the norms of the group, but in ways that did not result in discipline by the collective, at least not overtly. In focusing on the stories of these students, I hope to situate their experiences and thoughts within the community I studied, as a way to describe the larger community and its relation to “others” when on mission trips.
Field Notes and Jottings
As a participant observer, most field notes were written at the end of each day with continued reflection notes each morning. Throughout the day, I used a notebook and a
101 voice recorder to record “jottings… [of] scenes, observed actions, and dialogue” (Emerson et al., 2011, p. 29) whenever I had a moment to myself, or an opportunity to take notes unobtrusively (e.g. during worship services, presentations, team meetings, performances).
In seeking to understand how students embody civic identity and agency on short term mission trips, I focused on how students express their identities in relationship to others (both insiders and outsiders), including myself. As groups or communities in this study are defined as sharing “ethico-behavioral” (Wynter, 1995, p. 13), and “symbolic- representational” (p. 13) systems, as well as common narratives of origin and myth, participant discourse, theological beliefs, ideological tendencies, and their behavioral expressions not only set up the parameters of what is possible, but also what is acceptable.
That is, “situated vocabularies” (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 145). But beyond how a group defines itself, civic identity concerns membership within an entity that consists of a center, a periphery, and an outside. Thus, observing who is fully accepted, who is marginalized, who is outside, and how this is expressed and known by all three was highlighted in field notes. Specifically, through Durkheim’s understanding of deviance in structural functional theory, I sketched out patterns of belonging among the participants.
Durkheim (2014) describes one function of deviance as outlining the normalized behavior of the group:
If I do not conform to ordinary conventions… the laughter I provoke, the social
distance at which I am kept, produce, although in a more mitigated form, the same
results as any real penalty… Here, then, is a category of facts which present very
special characteristics: they consist of manners of acting, thinking and feeling 102 external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of
which they exercise control over him. (p. 21)
To illustrate how this function played out in this study, the morning we landed in Taipei, several students and I stood in a cluster with our suitcases as we waited for the entire team to collect their bags. Having met most participants for the first time just eighteen hours before, I was still trying to learn everyone’s name. As I struggled through my first attempt with six female students, I joked that I was having a hard time because “all white people look the same.” There was an audible gasp, a sputtered laugh, then silence. I looked around and saw widened eyes, some open mouths, and no smiles. With a heated face, I began to explain, “you know how people always say that all Asians look the same?... Never mind.”
I was mortified and I knew immediately that I had done something wrong. Whether my bad joke went against student expectations of how teachers or adults speak, or if I broke a rule of colorblindness, or perhaps violated behavioral norms of near-strangers getting to know each other, I knew that I would not joke about race again until I could learn exactly which rule I had broken.
Informal Interviews and Oral Accounts
As a participant observer and adult chaperone, I was with participants at nearly all times, including the evenings depending on sleeping arrangements. Thus, there were many occasions for informal interviews and “unsolicited and solicited oral accounts”
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 90) with both individuals and groups. Mealtimes, travel, and free time yielded the most opportunities. During these times, background or
103 demographic information occurred naturally as we got to know each other over the course of the trip. Also, considering the locational context (outside of home), opinion statements and questions arose as we all encountered cultures different from what is most familiar to us. In many cases, one led to the other as it did during one meal in Alishan, Taiwan. As we sat together at a table, a white, male student began identifying and trying all kinds of food that were unfamiliar to many of us on the team. When I asked him how he was enjoying
Taiwanese food, he began to talk about his Japanese grandmother, all the types of East
Asian food he grew up eating, and how a meal without white rice does not feel like a real meal (a distinctly Asian American experience). Although he identifies as white, and looks very much like a stereotypical blond, blue-eyed surfer, I came to find that he and I share many cultural experiences around food.
Given that short term mission trips are infused with expectations of “quiet times,” participants may be more reflective and willing to share their personal narratives. In the course of a casual conversation that might begin with, “how are you doing today? Do you feel like you’re adjusting well?”, a simple question often follows, “why did you decide to come on this trip?” At times I was the one asking this question, and at others, a participant asked this of me and I reciprocated. Participant answers were often concise and along the lines of “it just felt right,” or “I heard it’s a good way to make friends,” but on occasion participants shared deeper narratives about a parent who passed away, or a personal battle with cancer that reveals a great deal of how they understand suffering, familial roles, community support, and meaning in life. Ultimately, in conversations with the participants,
104 whether formal or informal, “the interviewee is not an object, but a subject with agency, history, and his or her own idiosyncratic command of a story” (Madison, 2012, p. 28)
Formal Interviews
For the smaller groups of participants, such as with Taiwan (eighteen participants total), all students, teachers and parents were asked for formal interviews. These interviews often served as “confirming” or “disconfirming” (Patton, 2002, p. 239) emerging theories from observations and informal interviews (e.g. one of the two students of color who were a part of the Taiwan team brought up race and racism in the school community, which echoed findings from the pilot study). For the larger trips, I was placed as an adult chaperone with a specific group of students chosen by the Missions department staff
(usually with logistics and prayer in mind). In those cases, all participants (chaperones, students, and teachers) in the group I was assigned were asked for a first interview. In addition to “confirming” or “disconfirming,” the initial interviews were structured to document “perspectives or discursive practices” that are common to the community
(Hammersley & Atkinson, 2011, p. 106). Any subsequent interviews were with those “who have the knowledge desired and who may be willing to divulge it” (p. 106). Participants outside of the group I was assigned were asked for formal interviews, in a manner similar to “opportunistic or emergent sampling… which involves on-the-spot decisions about sampling to take advantage of new opportunities during actual data collection” (Patton,
2002, p. 240).
105 Most participants were interviewed individually; however, all participants were given the option of signing up for interviews in pairs or groups. All first formal interviews took place in person after each trip (within one to two months of returning), with second or third interviews usually conducted via facetime, phone, or email. Although the “degree of forgetting” (Madison, 2012, p. 41) may have increased the further we moved away from the actual trip, “it is also important to understand that the purpose of the interview is often not simply to help the interviewee remember, but to see how memory is expressed” (p. 41).
DATA ANALYSIS
As “the formulation of precise problems, hypotheses, and an appropriate research strategy is an emergent feature of ethnography” (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 151), early field notes included reflections on the data in question more than statement form alongside careful reflection and documentation of my own emotions and responses. As research progressed, reflection notes included more analytic memos, attached to field notes and interview reflections, that acted as tabs for theories, and potential codes or patterns:
106
Figure 1: Sample field notes and reflections
At the end of data collection, and once all interviews were transcribed, I began with open coding, including analytic memos written in the field as both a source and a potential code. In this way, I was “more likely to develop new analytic categories and original theories from [the] data” (Emerson et al., 2011, p. 172). Field notes, jottings, and analytic memos will already skew towards my research question (e.g. how students interact with each other and others; what are the bounds of acceptable behavior and discourse), my positionality, and the conceptual framework that guides this study; however, the added dimension of engaging with participants and the reciprocal sharing of perspectives aided 107 in “creating analytic categories that reflect the significance of events and experiences to those in the setting” (p. 175).
In the initial phase of open coding, I created codes as data related to themes around citizenship emerged. I highlighted any instance or quote around how participants viewed or interacted with other people and cultures. As an example, I coded “different” when participants noted a person, group, or cultural expression that they spoke of as different from their own or reacted in surprise, fear, or shock to a “squatty potty” for instance. As more codes emerged, I would return to earlier data to add codes as needed. After this first phase, I selected codes that appeared across trips and participants. I then went through all data a second time with the selected codes. During this second round, I began to expand several themes to include sub-themes. For example, I divided “different” into “different good” and “different bad” which were then further divided into “culture,” “language,” and
“behavioral norms.” From this second reading of data, I initially chose themes with the most occurrences. I then picked out codes that had the fewest to analyze whether or not an absence of data revealed an important theme (e.g. little to no excerpts that combined student participant with whiteness or race). During a third review of data, I moved towards focused coding with chosen themes. I then went over data a fourth time and collapsed related themes together (e.g. “white/whiteness” and “race/racism”; “concrete help” and
“faith = action”).
Following early analysis of data, I member checked, with three groups: teachers, students, and parent chaperones. During these sessions, I took notes of which codes and themes drew the most attention, as well as what kind of attention they drew (disagreement 108 or disbelief, surprise, agreement, curiosity, etc.). Additionally, I asked participants for their insights and explanations around the themes they reacted to most strongly.
Students Teachers Parents Focal Time in Data Participants Field
Missions 75 6: white NA 6 students (5 Nov. 3-4, -Student artifacts Class white, 1 Black) 2016 -Demographics/ Political tolerance survey -Group & Individual interviews -Field notes -Video recorded classes Taiwan 14: 3: white 4: All March 29- Field notes & 1 Taiwanese 2 white April 8, reflections 2 Egyptian- 1 Egyptian- 2018 Group & Am Am. individual 11 white 1 Taiwanese interviews Fall NART 36 8: 2: 6 students (5 Sept. 30- Field notes & 2 Latina 2 white white, 1 Black) Oct. 3, reflections 1 biracial 3 teachers (2 2018 Group & 5 white white, 1 Latina) individual interviews Appalachia 168 8: 33 6 students (1 Nov. 14- Field notes & 1 Latino Black, 5 white) Nov. 20, reflections 1 biracial 3 teachers 2018 Group & 6 white (white) individual 3 parents (white) interviews Spring 166 7: 34 7 students (1 March 27- Field notes & NART 1 Latina Afro-Latino, 1 April 1, reflections 1 biracial Japanese 2019 Group & 5 white American/ white, individual 1 Latina, 4 interviews white) 1 teacher (white) 2 parents (white)
Table 1: Participants, demographics, time in field, and collected data
109 Home & Culture
Historically, ethnographic work may have begun with the belief that “its subjects and its audience were not only separable but morally disconnected” (Geertz, 1988, p. 132); however, as Geertz quickly points out, this notion no longer holds for many. As I travelled with students, teachers and parents, physically and metaphorically, I view my research as a collective journey, especially since, to a certain extent, the participants in this research make up what I consider to be my home, the community in which I am an insider. Although
“home” is made up of diverse peoples, there is a common discourse that is historically and geographically contextual regarding how these communities not only identify, but how they are created and maintained (Wynter, 1995). Thus, as we are all working out what it means to be some identity or identities—religious, occupational, familial, racial, ethnic, national, etc., individually and collectively, we do so within shared boundaries, or what
Swidler (1986) may refer to as “culturally organized capacities for action” (p. 283). While these “capacities for action” are not uniformly embraced, they are “publically available” and are resources from which members can draw to guide their actions. Throughout this study, I sought to locate common discourse, shared identities and boundaries, and
“capacities for action,” within Gutiérrez and Rogoff’s (2003) call to understand culture not as inherent within an individual or group, but as patterns of approaches and actions that are historically situated.
110 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
From my first year at Calvary Lutheran in 2012, I observed that Christianity, patriotism, and the military were tightly intertwined for many of the faculty and students.
After a particularly unsettling chapel in which the speaker equated the work of soldiers in
Iraq to the work of Christ on earth, I asked my students to consider the following quotes:
“There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.” (Camus),
“If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live”
(King)
“There are many causes I am prepared to die for, but no causes that I am prepared
to kill for” (Gandhi).
I had hoped that regardless of whether or not they agreed with the quotes, my students would think a little more deeply through what they heard at chapel, and ultimately, what they themselves believed between war or non-violence. Re-visiting this scene at Calvary
Lutheran now, however, I am left with a greater sense of disquiet and discomfort for myself and my students. I believe that those two days reveal much more than a binary political stance. When Sylvia Wynter (1995) asks us to consider, what makes something possible— in this case war and martyrdom—ultimately, I believe she is asking us to do the work of unraveling why someone is willing to die, and simultaneously, why someone is willing to kill. That is, who do we name as fully human, and who do we name as “humanity’s” negation.
111 The Function of Ideology/Cosmogony/Origin Story
… one finds oneself caught up in an enormously revalorized sense of what is it to
be human. A kind of awe at the way in which we auto-institute, auto-inscript
ourselves according to the same rules, from the most “local” and ostensibly
“primitive” nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to our own vast contemporary
global techno-industrial own. Further, you experience a profound co-
identification, a sense that in every form that is being inscripted [and/or auto-
instituted], each of us is also in that form, even though we do not experience it. So
that human story/history, becomes the collective story/history of these multiple
forms of self-inscription or self-instituted genres of being hybridly human, with
each form/genre being adaptive to its situation, ecological, historical, geopolitical
(Wynter, 2000, p. 206)
Sylvia Wynter’s theories broadly capture the deep ambivalence between anguish and hope in the work of transformative justice. Her hybridly human is named and mired within structures and ideologies that negate the humanity and physical lives of entire communities. Yet, as she makes evident throughout her work, she is adamant that we are more than the physical and discursive differences that are imagined, magnified, or distorted to divide humanity by race, nation-state, religion, class and so on. Instead, what makes us human, and therefore what ought to bind humanity together, is that we function and construct reality as a story-telling species. Though our stories may differ by context, she maintains a fervent hope in the possibility of the “revalorization” “of what it is to be human.” Her re-defining of human, one that encompasses all humanity, requires that our 112 stories and subsequent constructed realities be made transparent, so that, “that which we have made we can unmake and consciously now remake” (Wynter, 2015, pg. 242). My dissertation is premised on the ability of people to shift (unmake) and to transform (remake) within a society where Thomas Holt’s (1995) racism in the everyday and Delgado &
Stefancic’s (2000) “master narratives” make up our lived realities.
Subjective Understanding
In 1492: A new world view, Sylvia Wynter (1995) applies a theory from artificial intelligence, “subjective understanding,” to deconstruct the historical moment and the modern perceptions (dominant and counter narratives) of Columbus’ first voyage.
Wynter’s “subjective understanding” takes as its starting point, the notion that human processes of perception and thought are guided or bounded. Just as artificial intelligence is contained within its ranked goals and the process of achieving each goal, with each sub- goal as a necessary condition or factor to advance to a goal above, human beings are similarly contained within “a mode of subjective understanding” (p. 13). They “normally think, imagine, feel, act, and know” (Wynter, 1990, p. 33) based on whatever cosmogony or origin story they were born into. For Wynter (1995), this subjective understanding is made manifest in human reasoning and the resulting behavior (“ethico-behavioral” [p. 13]) as well as discourse (“symbolic-representational” [p. 13]). Thus, a triangulation of reason, behavior and discourse at a given time can give shape to the subjective understanding of a given individual, event, or time period.
113 In unraveling the subjective understanding that made Columbus possible in 1492,
Wynter presents a western point from which “our present single world order and single world history” (p. 13) can trace its origin. Drawing from various historians, she locates a precursor to Columbus and a shift in European life that set the conditions necessary to his voyage and its aftermath. Prior to 1492, a European understanding of the world was based on a geography inherited from ancient Greece, Rome, and medieval Christianity that divided the earth into inhabitable (Europe) and uninhabitable zones. The former being within God’s grace, and the latter as beyond God’s grace. Yet, as Portuguese sailors began to venture beyond inhabitable boundaries in search of rumored riches flowing through the
Islamic world, they challenged European beliefs of geography.
The key change that unsettled and unmoored European thought, however, was humanism. Whereas human behavior and discourse revolved around Christian salvation in the afterlife before the humanist shift (homo religioso), the ultimate object around which a humanist life was oriented, became present-life, specifically, the growth and maintenance of the state which could facilitate the needs of the present life (homo politicus). In other words, the binary that governed European understanding was no longer flesh (sinful human nature) versus spirit (God and divine nature), but the irrational versus the rational.
Accordingly,
this new goal was to be achieved primarily through the individual’s actions, as a
rational citizen, in ensuring the stability, growth, and competitive expansion of the
state. It therefore called for a new behavior-orienting ethic. This new ethic was that
of reasons of state. (p. 14) 114 Based on “reasons of state,” the violent aftermath of Columbus’s arrival to the Americas was legitimated since the value of all people who were not Christian, was based on their utility to the state. The land they inhabited could be taken away in the name of a state, and the people themselves made into subjects of the state, or the enlaved. Wynter identifies this
“subjective understanding” as “oriented about the then-emerging statal-mercantile and this-worldly goal of rational redemption” (p. 15). This driving force of “redemption” was not solely “rational,” or “degodded” (p. 13).
Wynter points to millenarianism, or the belief in Jesus Christ’s second coming, as a significant belief not only for Columbus, but for Europe during his time. The urgency to find a quicker route to the East was fueled by the desire to recapture Jerusalem before
Christ’s return, and to do so through uninhabitable zones was argued by Columbus as possible through God who’s rule on earth would be over “one sheepfold and one flock” (p.
28), connected by navigable seas. Not only was this movement considered divinely ordained and inspired, but it was also in line with the shift from a world created by God for
God and fully unknowable by humankind, to a world created by God for humankind
(“propter nos homines” [p. 27]), thus knowable by humankind (i.e. governed by rules). It was both theological and philosophical shifts in Europe that made possible Columbus’ challenge of set ideas around God and geography.
In some ways, the bleeding together of religious belief and state interests exemplified by Columbus, is one that continues today for several religious communities, including many evangelical Christians and participants in this study. As the athletic chaplain at Calvary Lutheran once preached, U.S. soldiers in Iraq “are fighting against evil, 115 just as Christ came to earth to fight against evil.” Unraveling the subjective understanding that allows the naming of people as “evil” is an undertaking that considers narratives that govern citizenship, or how we live with others.
Creating a Propter Nos/a Referent We
If the earth was created for humankind (propter nos homines), the question that unfortunately often follows is, who is humankind? Or, who is included in nos, “the us for whose sake, and in whose name we act” (p. 30)? Wynter outlines an understanding of nos that is defined as the “us” or the group with which one identifies, and to whom we will be altruistic, or whose good we will pursue.
Wynter shows the system of classification used by Columbus in the Americas outlined a nos that included all Christians, meaning, that on the other side of a bounded nos were non-Christians, or idolaters. Additionally, the Christian nos was the only nos. That is,
Columbus’s nos was synonymous with “humankind”. In doing so, Columbus, and all others who shared in his nos, could act in a way that disregarded the humanity of Indigenous peoples and those from the African continent. Combining this religious notion with the motivations and justifications of state and economic expansion was, and I would argue still is, a powerful system. Back then, as it is now, the nos must be maintained. Therefore, whatever “truths”, laws, symbols, etc. that set up its boundaries must remain untouchable and unquestioned even if they are harmful to members within the nos. When the boundaries begin to stretch to accommodate unforeseen consequences of previous classificatory schema (e.g. Christian vs. Idolater when the “idolater” becomes Christian), a new construct
116 will take its place. Indigenous people as “idolaters” was soon replaced by an “essentially
Christian-heretical positing of the nonhomogeneity of the human species” (p. 34). In the case of Columbus, this schema was no longer based on theology or caste, but on perceived hereditary or genetic differences, i.e. “race.” The universal human, then, became bounded by
the physiognomy, black-skin, way of life, culture, historical past of peoples of
Africa and Afro-mixed descent… [who must] be represented consistently as the
liminal boundary marker between the inside and the outside of the ostensibly
genetically determined and evolutionarily selected mode of ‘normal being. (p. 43)
The nos, positions people as “liminal boundary marker[s]” that reveal social structure, or hierarchy, as well as the limits of acceptability, mimicking the medieval order of inhabitable areas within God’s grace, and uninhabitable areas that are outside God’s grace.
Auto-Institution and the Resulting Social Reality
Drawing on the work of feminist scholars, themselves anthropologists, Wynter critiques the discipline of anthropology for a tendency to scrutinize and evaluate other communities and cultures as though the scholars themselves are outside such constructions.
She makes clear that all are born into origin stories—that “we humans cannot pre-exist our cosmogonies or origin myths/stories/narratives anymore than a bee, at the purely biological level of life, can pre-exist its beehive… they [cosmogonies] function even more crucially to enable us autopoetically to institute ourselves as the genre-specific We” (2015, p. 224).
117 Not only do origin stories determine the boundaries around “We” (i.e. nos, those who are fully human), but they also categorize in “good/bad terms” (p. 222) all behavior and discourse on the basis of what is most beneficial for the replication and reification of itself (i.e. the origin story), even to the point of self-sacrifice by individuals auto-instituted within (e.g. soldiers). This reality is contingent on remaining hidden—
opaque to ourselves—including the reality of our empirically being directly
responsible for the “goods” and the “bads” of each such societal order. This
opaqueness therefore functions as the non-negotiable condition of the continued
existence of our genres of being hybridly human, their correlated fictive modes of
kind, and the dynamic enactment and stable replication of our respective societal
orders as autopoetic living systems. (p. 225)
Particular to this dissertation, Wynter’s naming of “extra-human agents” (p. 227) as a necessary, projected source for our social orders is literally “extra-human”, that is, divine.
Many of my participants invoke God as directly responsible for the “goods” and the “bads,” rendering the social order beyond questioning (unmaking) and transforming (remaking).
What is important to recall and acknowledge, however, is that Wynter firmly sets that whether the extra-human agent is divine, or perhaps a concept such as Democracy, human reason, or even inherent human rights, we are all auto-instituted into an order that we constantly create and maintain.
Wynter lays bare the economic and political consequences, for example disparate global distribution of resources, of the social reality built by origin stories that name some as fully human and others as not, along a color-line. Emerging from the context of 118 colonialism and independence in the Caribbean, this “dysgenic Other” is set against
Wynter’s (2002) universal “man” of Europe’s humanist revolution, who is western and white and in part responsible for “’the rise of Europe’ and its construction of the ‘world civilization’ on the one hand, and, on the other, African enslavement, Latin American conquest, and Asian subjugation” (p. 263). Of particular concern is the effect of this racial nos on those who are classified as “dysgenic Others,” that is, non-whites, specifically those with Black skin. Citing Franz Fanon, Wynter puts forth a firm testament to the necessary study of origin stories that govern human life. As “all native and colonized subjects had been conditioned to experience themselves as if they were, in fact, as genetically inferior as the hegemonic ‘learned discourse’ of contemporary scholars ostensibly represented them” (p. 45), the human individual is always [a] sociogenetic subject” (p. 47), made up of the biology and psychology of the individual as well as the systems that socialized them into the liminal boundary.
Wynter’s analysis of the current racially bounded and constructed world order has been important in revealing some of the connections among race, colonialism, and slavery and the resulting effects that continue to unfurl into modern times. In uncovering a “third space” (A. Brown, Current issues in Social Studies discussion, February 5, 2018) in the
Columbus debate, she shows not only the incompleteness of much of the constructed history we learn in schools and churches, but the consequences of consuming without questioning what made that history and its current narrative shape possible (i.e. the seldom questioned continuation of humanism and liberalism as the basis for modern western thought). What is needed, then, is greater vigilance in examining behavior and discourse 119 that give “access to the specific mode of ‘subjective understanding’ in terms of which we normally, even when dissidently, perceive our contemporary sociosystemic reality as well as conceive the past that led to it” (Wynter, 1995, p. 13). As pertains to this study, what makes it possible for students, parents, and teachers to embody ideologies of citizenship
(e.g. live with others, live for others, determine who is “other”) as they do when encountering “others” on short term mission trips? And what makes it possible for those ideologies to shift?
Transformation
Wynter suggests that we cannot move outside our origin story unless we have a
“counter-cosmogony whose narrative structures serve to utterly de-legitimate” the existing paradigm (pg. 208). In defining “the human as a hybrid story-telling species” (2018, pg.
3), Wynter presents a counter-cosmogony that simultaneously reveals human agency and offers a species-level, or “ecumenical,” conception of human being. Further, as a story- telling species, she asserts that our stories, hence our social orders can self-correct, along the notion of Aime Cesaire’s “’science of the Word.’ A cognitively open science… of humankind’s representations of origin and/or origin stories… yet of whose laws of functioning we have hitherto, even while behaviorally enacting them, had no knowledge”
(2018, pg. 12).
Drawing from her history as a once “native subject,” Wynter (2000) understands the necessity of a counter-cosmogony, for “as long as there is no counter-voice, we too are trapped in that [British imperial] conception” (p. 131). With a growing number of critical
120 scholars in Social Studies education working tirelessly to provide and also critique counter narratives, including the frequent co-opting into the dominant or master narratives, Wynter might have us ask beyond does the narrative counter the dominant paradigm, to does the counter narrative de-legitimate the dominant paradigm?
Looking once again at Wynter’s understanding of colonization and independence in the Caribbean, she discusses how a colonization of the mind was shaken for her:
Sylvia Wynter (SW): …stereotypes are not arbitrary. It's not a matter of someone
get up and suddenly being racist. It is that given the conception of what it is to be
human, to be an imperial English man or woman, you had to be seen by them as
the negation of what they were. So you, too, had to circumcise yourself of yourself,
in order to be fully human.
David Scott (DS): Do you think that there's a way in which that transformation of
the imagination depended on that displacement in London?
SW: That was very important. I've always felt a certain sympathy for students at
the University of the West Indies because they don't experience that displacement.
That displacement is very jolting because from that moment you can no longer
coincide with yourself.
DS: So that, displacement has a hermeneutical function?
SW: Very much so. Because the ground on which you stand, from which you had
interpreted the world around you, is now shaken; all of the certainties, that you had
taken for granted in the Caribbean are now gone (2000, p.132) (emphasis added)
121 In our current context of a racially constructed reality, de-legitimating the dominant paradigm requires a closer examination of race. When an origin story positions Black people as a “liminal boundary marker,” Wynter argues that the liminal is not merely a margin, but a foundation to the entire structure. As she stated in the above interview, “to be an imperial English man or woman, you had to be seen by them as the negation of what they were.” If the structure is to change, so that humanity is seen as a single species, the liminal must shift.
Table 2: Simplified conceptual framework for Sylvia Wynter’s theories
Everydayness: What the Liminal Must Shift From
Thomas Holt’s (1995) notion of “everydayness” (p. 7), of multiple levels of racism, offers a way to examine the “rules that govern the individual and collective behaviors” that holds both ideologies and individuals accountable. Holt refers to the process of 122 racialization as “marking” (p. 2) both the individual by how they are represented, and history by how racial narratives are constructed. In essence, race and racism are not only revealed through epic historical moments or large scale systems and structures, but also through what happens in everyday life that may be historical only to the individuals who experience that moment. While he acknowledges the work of scholars who have charted genealogies of race and racism, he adds a dimension to their studies that illustrates what
Lowe (2015) refers to as to an “absence [that] marks a rupture where some new and other type of knowing might emerge” (p. 174). Drawing from DuBois, Holt posits that to truly understand human beings, one must look at different levels of social life, from the structures and institutions that govern entire groups, to everyday life lived by “ordinary”
(p. 3) people.
According to Holt, the words and actions in the everyday lives of ordinary people inform and are informed by, the more structural iterations of race and racism such as those seen in race riots and the Holocaust. As such, neither should be centered above the other.
Rather, Holt’s use of “everydayness” refers to how both levels are linked. For example, how might everyday discourse manifest in larger historical events or structures, or vice versa? Holt posits that linkages can be found by studying how an individual responds to structural or systemic racism, as well as how the individual is socialized, or according to
Wynter (1995), how an individual is a “sociogenetic subject” (p. 47). Both begin with an understanding that individuals are socialized by what Wynter may refer to as discourse or the “symbolic-representational” (p. 13), and what Holt (1995) calls “historicity” (p. 9), or the social and historical context of the individual. 123 Citing the work of Henri Lefebvre, Holt demonstrates how “major activities are born of germs contained in everyday practice, because it is at that level that the group and the individual can and must plan and organize their time and apply their means” (10).
Through Lefebvre’s story of a woman who buys sugar, Holt connects her individual, everyday act to a larger system in which colonialism, imperialism, labor, and race, are all implicated. She both “expresses” this connection, but also “makes possible a global structure” (p. 10). Her participation in such a global structure through her everyday, ordinary action of buying a pound of sugar, is possible because society, through “cultural elements-signs, symbols, images, proverbs, myths, and stories” (p. 11), makes those structures possible, however racist.
Holt, however, argues that one starts “with self-emancipation because the self was the first victim of the politically correct racial orders in which they lived” (p. 20). This begins with a study of which “cultural elements… mediate” (p. 11) between the individual and their social context. That is, what specifically socializes individuals? He looks to the study of Nazi Germany as an example of the ways that government laws and policies were taken up or resisted by everyday people in their everyday lives. In the context of the U.S.,
Holt uses minstrelsy to show how everydayness both informs and is informed by larger systems in the racialization of both Black and white people. By locating “the peak years for minstrelsy… in the decades when the nation was racked by political and economic tensions” (p. 16), he presents minstrel shows as far more complex than racist entertainment.
If studied in the context of U.S. immigration history and labor needs, for example, minstrel shows were a means for manipulating the white working class and white immigrants by 124 distracting from, or answering important questions about identity in the U.S.—“white men at least reassured themselves who they were not—not black, not slave” (p. 16). Beyond its peak years, the racist images, stories, and stereotypes of minstrel shows continue into contemporary society.
If the problem of marking reveals itself, as Fanon describes it, in "a thousand
details, anecdotes, stories," or as Du Bois suggests, in jokes, songs, public media,
then one appropriate response would seem to be to rewrite the stories, to expose to
searching scrutiny the insidious content and injury of the jokes, songs, and
anecdotes, to provide the means for people to think of themselves "otherwise." (18)
Holt offers at least one way to challenge the way that race and racism has been constructed in the U.S. in both structures and everydayness. He urges historians and scholars to rewrite stories that have “marked” Black people in official and unofficial narratives. Holt’s theory of “everydayness” re-conceptualizes notions of race by bringing together and bringing to greater light, scholars before him (such as DuBois and Fanon) who have written around the study of race and racism in both structures and the everyday. His work contributes also to the use and significance of “ordinary” stories that express the ways that race and racism function in society, as well as the ways these stories can be illuminated in historical narratives. Although he wrote over two decades earlier, his own context in which “criticism ridicules and demeans the victims of stigmatization as being merely
"politically correct" and thus less deserving of the community's concern...” (p. 19), is sadly too relevant today. Therefore, in recognizing through “everydayness” that “the seemingly trivial act is often not so trivial, either in its real effects on people or in its relation to the 125 realization of more global and sinister designs” (p. 19), conceptions of race are made more complex and more visibly present.
Holt makes clear that within the context of political correctness and more generally,
“structures and relations of power are unequal, ever tilted to the side of the victimizer rather than the victim. The arena in which we struggle is not simply a marketplace of ideas, unmediated by wealth and power” (19). In this way, Holt’s “everydayness” adds to understandings of citizenship that situate individuals in systems of unequal power that they experience and resist in their everyday lives. Civic identity and membership have clearly been racialized in the United States from its very founding (e.g. Naturalization Law of
1790). As Holt notes, the studies of related policies and structures are often abstract, and
“yields atrophied, lifeless, passionless depictions” (p. 11). In terms of action, civic agency is often unacknowledged in the everyday acts of citizens, and society is left with absence, or with social change-makers who are inimitably heroic.
In examining the links between everyday life and structures that uphold race and racism, and in studying the “subjective understanding” that makes possible the origin stories that include and exclude some as human and some as not, perhaps a more nuanced understanding of race, citizenship, and at least one evangelical community, might be attained—one that draws from the larger structures, discourse, and systems, as well as the everyday experiences in which they are intimately and reciprocally connected. Thus,
Nader’s call to “extend the domain of study up, down, or sideways” in order to expose the structures that keep us from truly understanding how connected we all are, can begin with an aerial view of what makes Calvary Lutheran and these mission trips possible, through 126 Sylvia Wynter’s subjective understanding. Then, focusing on a specific origin story and its subsequent nos and how they are constructed and maintained in the everyday can reveal the center, the boundaries, and the elements of home that both nurture and harm a common good without borders.
RESEARCHER POSITIONALITY
In any ethnographic work, the positionality and background of the researcher matters as “doing fieldwork is a personal experience. Our intuitions, senses, and emotions… are powerfully woven into and inseparable from the process” (Madison, 2012, p. 9). Clearly, my position as an evangelical Christian, a Korean American woman, a former teacher, and a divinity school graduate shaped my emotional responses, what I noticed during my field observations, the questions I asked, and ultimately the initial stirrings of analysis, as I participated in Sunday worship in Taiwan:
Field Notes Excerpt from Taiwan (10 am Sunday):
Service begins in Mandarin. Reverend Wu reads the call to worship line by line. Filling up seven pews at Taipei Lutheran Church, the team from Calvary Lutheran High School follows the Sunday service with relative ease (e.g. they know the hymns in English and according to Cathryn they recognize the pastor vestments) as the service is structured in traditional Lutheran liturgy and eventually transitions to English and quite a few white people (missionary families, English teachers, Lutheran officials). Reverend Charles
Ferry, the regional director of Asia for LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod)
International, delivers the sermon in English. Both he and Reverend Wu wear traditional
127 Lutheran vestments: white robes with a belt of rope and a colored stole. He speaks very slowly and in a booming voice. His tone is very dramatic (up and down, up and down) and is accompanied by sweeping motions with his arms. Reverend Wu translates into
Mandarin. “God works all things out for the salvation of mankind” even though “human beings are continually failing. You continue to do so today. But we are here today. God succeeds because it is his will to succeed. He will not abandon you to your sin and failure...” God will succeed even in spite of the human beings he uses to accomplish his will. He will not be stopped by our limitations and failures…As he grants faith in your hearts and the hearts of others” (hearts of others = evangelism?).
Identities The following are organized from Field Notes Reflection (9 pm Sunday):
Identity One: Christian I kept wondering, shouldn’t I be experiencing this as communal worship and think about the Holy Spirit being present? Should I be encouraged by the fact that this worship style and hymns feel so familiar? If I believe that short term missions should be about learning from communities, what can we learn from this church? Do I even believe that short term missions or missions in general are what God wants?
Identity Two: Asian American How does being Asian American vs. Asian play out? What would be viewed as more oppressive in a majority Asian society than in a majority white society? i.e. is it more or less of an issue in Asia than in America, that the service feels so whitewashed (I thought 128 about Asian vs. Asian American reactions to the whitewashing of Hollywood roles? How do Asians feel about it?)
Identity Three: Researcher As a participant observer, what should I be doing? Shouldn’t I be trying to experience this as others do? How can I get a better view of everyone’s facial expressions? Why did the missionaries choose to come to Taiwan? What are their stories? How do they identify
(nationally, racially, etc.)? What would other academics think if they knew that I had participated wholeheartedly in short term missions when I was younger that were incredibly problematic?
Identity Four: Teacher I kept fretting over how these students would take this all in- we’re in Asia, but why is everything still so Western styled in liturgy and also why are all the leaders they are meeting IN TAIWAN, white? Do they notice this? What does it mean to them that they don’t see many or interact with many or even hear much from actual local Taiwanese people or leaders?
Identity Five: Divinity school graduate I kept picking apart his sermon. Why is he using “you” instead of “we” when he refers to general humanity? He should have said “He will not abandon US to OUR sin and failure.
Is Lutheran theology similar to the reformed tradition? I kept thinking about the reformed doctrine acronym, TULIP where T = total depravity of humankind.
129 Identity Six: Korean heritage What would my family in Korea think about this if they were here? They’re already so anti-
Christian and think about Christianity as a western imposition. I felt embarrassed at the thought of what they might think about me sitting here.
Identity Seven: Woman Do they allow women to teach? Why are there not more women participating in the liturgy?
Access as an Insider & Outsider When I first met with the administration of Calvary Lutheran High School seeking permission to conduct research, the assistant principal assured me, “I’m not worried, you’re one of us.” I was surprised and felt warmly grateful for his words, but also troubled. I suppose many would consider me an “indigenous insider” (Banks, 1998, p. 7) since I identify as evangelical, I grew up in the same county and socio-economic class as most of the students and faculty, and I was employed as a world history teacher there for three wonderful years leaving on excellent terms in order to pursue a graduate degree; however, the reality from my perspective, was far more unsettled. I had always felt the possibility that I could easily be rendered an unacceptable outsider whenever my political or racial views and experiences diverged from the overt practices and beliefs of the school (e.g. the invasion of Iraq vs. Operation Iraqi Freedom, the unrest in Ferguson vs. “the riots,” climate change as controversial vs. climate change as scientific). Essentially, I feared becoming a contextual version of what Antoun (1992) refers to as an “internal enemy” (p. 56) one who
130 claims to follow the same Jesus, but has “cavort[ed] with members of the secular society”
(p. 56) too deeply and has become too liberal.
Additionally, several incidents during my tenure at Calvary Lutheran highlighted my status as a forever foreigner (Tuan, 1998): co-worker assumptions that I could speak all Asian languages, a student trying to trick me into saying “white power,” a fellow teacher referring to a group of Asian American students visiting for a science competition as “your people,” etc. At the same time, I was often overwhelmed by the support, the openness, and the care offered by the vast majority of my students, their families, and my co-workers. As
I came to know the people around me more deeply, I began to realize how many assumptions and stereotypes I also carried, and in some cases, continue to carry with me, specifically about “conservatives” and “conservative Christians.”
Amira de La Garza’s fourth ethic, community, “implies that once we step forward with an ethnographic tale, we can no longer feign separation from those with whom we have shared that story” (Madison, 2012, p. 113). Therefore, whatever my perceived positionality or the positionality of my participants (by myself, participants, or others), stepping into research with them connects me to this community and in that sense I seek to
“understand every individual as a valuable being worthy and deserving of understanding, fair judgment, and our caring attention” (p. 125). Further, as my position in this community goes deeper than simply a participant researcher, Aimee Carrilo Rowe’s (2005) description of ethnography also comes to mind: “Our ‘homework’ is to examine these connections— between self and community, between community and theory… Doing our homework is about making the familiar strange, or revisiting home to unearth what is at stake in its 131 making” (emphasis added) (p. 15). While I am in no way the only individual who is both insider and outsider to this community, as a researcher who straddles both identities
(separately and simultaneously), I seek to understand how one community I call home is created, what and who is “at stake in its making,” and how transformation might take place from within.
PILOT STUDIES
I have completed two pilot studies that focused on citizenship and religion in secondary Christian school settings. The first was a case study that took place in Missions class at Calvary Lutheran High School one week before the presidential election of 2016.
An analysis of data showed that constructions of civic identity amongst evangelical students in this study are more complex than is shown in dominant images of evangelicals in education research. Although their civic identities were occasionally constructed with a religious lens, most revealed a mutually reinforcing entanglement of civic republican and neoliberal ideology with occasional elements of evangelical theology. Yet, throughout discussions, students showed that their civic identities are not static, but shift from one moment to the next, and sometimes in contradiction to each other. At the outset of this study, the racial identity of students was not a focus; however, data revealed both overt and underlying racial currents around Black Lives Matter, immigration, and social justice.
A second study took place in a senior theology class at a secondary Christian school in the Southwest. Using ethnographic methods, I entered the classroom as a researcher who also taught, observed, and participated in the class. While the focus of the teacher and the
132 class remained firmly on strong biblical foundations and a personal relationship with God as the primary focus of life, both teacher and students were open to new perspectives once trust was established. In seeking initial access, I was straightforward regarding the theology
I practice, the racism I experienced and hoped to confront in Christian communities, and the purpose of my research—to portray a Christian community from the perspective of an insider, but also to discover and transform spaces in which God’s love for all people is not the guiding tenet. The teacher and I disagreed on several fundamental theological issues, but ultimately, he believed that Christians need to grapple with the questions I was seeking to answer and the problems I wanted to acknowledge. Throughout the study, the classroom space remained firmly within conservative evangelical boundaries in terms of theology
(e.g. inerrancy of the Bible, spiritual warfare, salvation by grace), but community members were permitted to take up this theology in different ways that proved politically diverse and often shaped by racialized or classed experiences.
These two studies were guided by the same motivations that brought me to this dissertation: to examine and transform the “home” in which I am both insider and outsider.
What the pilot studies revealed is an openness to questions and doubt, and a willingness to listen that, in truth, I did not expect.
133 Chapter Four: Receiving and Telling Stories
ALISHAN, TAIWAN
Pastor Helen met us at the front doors, welcoming us into the church with a big smile. We filed past, waving hello or bowing our heads in greeting, and settled into the first three rows of the wooden pews. We faced a raised altar covered with white and purple orchids flowing out of vases. A nativity scene with white figures surrounded by purple curtains flanked one section of the front wall which was dominated in the center by rough wooden planks radiating out from a wooden cross. “It’s pine. Built by a pastor who retired” explained Pastor Helen, through our translator Sun Rose. Our original plan was to stop by the church to shell coffee beans that they sold to raise funds, but with only an hour or two to spare, she decided to tell us about her ministry instead.
“The Tsou tribe is less than 20,000 people. We’re the smallest of the sixteen tribes and we’re losing our traditions quite fast so now we’re doing whatever we can to preserve them. With modernization, we just lost our… taste.” As we looked from her to Sun Rose,
Pastor Helen took two books from the front table and passed it to those in the front pew.
For seventeen years, she and others in the tribe worked to translate the Bible into the Tsou language. The second book was a book of songs, also in the Tsou language. “Now the new generation, they rarely speak their mother tongue. That’s something the church is trying to promote, to preserve the culture. I’m doing my best.”
Pastor Helen picked up a carved bamboo shoot with holes cut out like a recorder.
“Now there are only a few people who know how to manufacture this instrument and how 134 to play it. A lot of our instruments were lost for many years, but we recreated them from pictures taken by Japanese people. Now, more and more people learn how to perform this instrument. The church is one of the few places where you’re able to see and hear this kind of performance.” She drew the instrument up to her face and pressed the top against her nostrils. Taking a deep breath through her mouth, she blew through her nose and played
Amazing Grace. The students sat still, leaning forward to hear her play. Ruth, one of the parent chaperones leaned over to me when she finished. “That was incredible,” she whispered as everyone applauded. Pastor Helen beckoned students forward and had them try out the instrument. Everyone laughed as some managed a few squeaks. When the last student handed the flute back to her, she played a traditional Tsou piece about two people who love each other. “One of them died in a barley field, so when the boyfriend sees a barley field, he feels sad.”
Earlier that week, we had attended a Taiwanese Lutheran church in the city of
Chiayi where the liturgy, the vestments, the instruments, the speaker were all distinctly
Lutheran—western, and Lutheran. Sitting in this small Catholic church in Alishan, we were experiencing something quite different. I wondered how many of us saw the distinction.
“It’s my wish,” said Pastor Helen, “to teach children how to make and perform the instruments. Every Sunday, the kids from the village come here for singing.”
Before we left, several girls from Calvary Lutheran sang a modern rendition of
Amazing Grace for Pastor Helen to thank her and to share “a bit of our culture” explained our team leader, Dan. She thanked them and asked for the musical score before
135 accompanying them on her flute for a final hymn. Sun Rose closed our time together with a prayer in Mandarin and then taught us how to say “thank you” in the Tsou language.
The moment we left the church, the teachers turned to me smiling. Dan exclaimed,
“I bet this will be so cool for your research!” We spoke generally of the amazement we felt for Pastor Helen’s efforts, and the teachers brought up how Christianity is often seen as a western incarnation—or at least the western incarnation is seen as the only Christianity— completely discounting its history, and the many expressions such as what we had just been shown. At some point Dan spoke of making sure to keep in touch with Pastor Helen so that when they returned in two years, they would be able to spend more time working with her ministry.
Martha or Mary: To Act or To Listen?
A common theme that emerged from interviews with student participants who went to Taiwan was the difficulty they had with a mission trip where they “didn’t really do anything.” The night before we met Pastor Helen, a group of the girls lay in their beds talking about dating and marriage, or as one of the parent chaperones, Sofia, advised them,
“courtship.” The conversation eventually turned to more present matters, however, and the students expressed frustration with our schedule in Alishan. “How are we going to do missions here?” they kept asking. We did not have a set schedule. Instead, we went wherever our Taiwanese and Tsou hosts thought we should visit: a beautiful hike in the mountains, a Tsou village that had been destroyed by flooding, but recently rebuilt. Much of our time was spent listening, watching and eating together.
136 One month later, when most of the interviews took place, all but two students brought up an understanding they developed in hindsight. Any lesson learned required their reflection more so than a typical mission trip where they would have had “immediate reward” through a newly constructed house or the exhaustion of having taught English for a full day. Violet and Margaret, two seniors who went to Taiwan, were perhaps the most vocal during our time there regarding a lack of active work:
Violet: I think in my past [missions] experiences I felt like a change while I was in
it because it forced you to go outside of your daily routine. But [Taiwan] just felt
so much like a daily routine that I didn't feel any personal growth I think until I
came back and started like forcing myself to reflect on it. I think like the most
important experiences are the ones that force you to think… I think more than just
like an initial feeling. Yeah, cause I think when we think about Taiwan it's more of
like a mix of everything that happens. And you have to like… we talked about like
self-reflection. Like you have to spend the time to think and be like, so what does
this all mean?
Margaret (nodding): Like what did I get out of it.
Violet: What did I get out? What did they get out? And so I think I found this a lot
more important than any time I've ever had. Like an epiphany, Jesus moment almost
thing...
Margaret: It leaves you thinking.
Violet: Yeah. And I think that creates a more lasting impact on you.
137 Ultimately, what students emphasized once back in Pacific County, were the relationships they built, or the “seeds they planted” for future teams. While teachers and parent chaperones encouraged this outlook, there was also a disconnect or a missed opportunity that the teachers took in and expressed, but the students did not. In the posture of the teachers, and their expectations for students, there was an emphasis on listening. While students did take this up in some ways, very rarely did it seem that they listened to learn even when the opportunities to learn were many: the history of an indigenous community whose people and culture had almost been eradicated; an indigenous church that saw their ministry as preserving their culture; the environmental responsibility in a pathway carefully constructed to blend into the landscape of a preserved natural space.
Throughout their time in Taiwan students were consistently attentive to people, including their own teammates, when there was a practical application. While in Chiayi, students taught English classes at Concordia Lutheran Middle School over two days. The students from Calvary Lutheran were split into groups of three and assigned to English language classes. Some periods were more of a struggle than others, generally depending on the English skills and confidence of the students from Concordia, since Calvary
Lutheran students, save Winston, could not speak any Mandarin. It became evident at the end of the first day and throughout the second, that the students from Calvary Lutheran paid careful attention to the conversations and interactions they had with the Concordia students. As they gathered the first evening to prepare for the next day, they came up with activities like Trashketball because they learned how much the male students loved basketball. Steven, remembering he brought his Kobe Bryant shirt, made sure to wear it 138 the next day so that he could more easily start conversations with Taiwanese students, which he did often by gesturing to his shirt. As they all continued to compare notes, they also found common topics that engaged Concordia students such as Taylor Swift or the game Call of Duty. Lauren shared that her students “really liked it when [she] asked them to write something in Chinse and [she] tried to imitate it.” The next day, several began to do this in small groups, noting that their clumsy efforts put the Concordia students at ease, and they seemed more willing to speak to them in English.
By positioning their students as experts, and themselves as learners, the students from Calvary Lutheran facilitated easier engagements with Taiwanese students. It was a method they consciously used to improve their teaching. Only one of them thought to use such a method intentionally because she believed she had much to learn from students at
Concordia. Margaret Ann, the only female freshman on the team, sat with a group of students and asked them about Taiwan. Even a month after this interaction, she still remembered details about Taiwanese currency and one of the leaders featured on a bill: “I learned so much. One guy, one like seventh grader, gave me like a whole history lesson on
Taiwan. It was so cool.”
The teachers and many of the parent chaperones saw themselves similarly to
Margaret Ann. Their posture of listening was one of humility and respect. This became evident after our first Sunday service in Taiwan when one of the Lutheran-Missouri Synod leaders in Asia, a white U.S. citizen, and several other white Lutheran families, took over much of the service from the local Taiwanese congregants. As Dan described it:
139 That was like these annoying new, white people who just moved to Chiayi with
their big-ass families taking over the place. That's what that was. Everybody was
uncomfortable with that… That did not feel like that church. They bulldozed that.
They bull in a china shop-ed that place.
For he and the two other teachers, reflecting on positionality was a significant aspect of how and why they seek to be humble and respectful as learners. For Dan, there are a multitude of culturally learned habits and thoughts that often create an arrogance particularly in U.S. citizens:
It's embarrassing, but like when you talk to people who don't speak English, you
assume they're dumb. It's impossible to comprehend that you could do that to a
person, but you do. So, it’s just things like that, like be aware of that. You know
that you can do this in any scenario. There's a thousand of those, you know, to try
to unearth and be aware of and sensitive to.
Another teacher, John, conveyed a similar idea through Star Trek. He described an episode in which Captain Picard of the Enterprise is stranded on a deserted island with a captain from a different species, the Tamarians. They must join forces against a beast threatening to kill them; however, they cannot effectively communicate with each other since
Tamarians speak only in metaphors that are contextual to their history, such as when the
Tamarian captain constantly says, “when the walls fell.” Frustrated, they both struggle the whole episode until Picard figures out that when Tamarians say “when the walls fell,” they are referring to a moment in history when many walls collapsed and many Tamarians died.
“When the walls fell,” therefore, means sadness. Finally able to communicate, both 140 captains share stories of their homes hoping that the two species will be able to overcome their differences and work together.
John relates this story to our religious and cultural attachments that are specific to geographic and temporal contexts. He spoke of our inability to be completely objective:
None of us are right? Whatever worldview we have. So, the challenge is, can we
strip away as much as possible—and who knows to what extent that’s possible—
everything that we’ve learned. Everything we’ve assumed to be true. Everything
we’ve been taught growing up and look at what is and see where that is leading to.
John implicitly acknowledges the construction of culture when he argues that if we are to effectively come together with those who are different, we must deconstruct our cultural worldviews that trap us within assumptions of truth. When we are able to “strip away as much as possible,” Wynter would posit that what will be left is homo narrans, a hybrid human, a story-telling species. Stories, specifically origin stories, construct the social reality that prompts us to view some as, in the words of Dan, “dumb” because they do not speak English. And as John implies, the constructed-ness of stories, or assumed truths, are obscured from view. Missions for both John and Dan are opportunities in which what is obscured might be made evident.
Such stances were built into the schedule of the trip to Taiwan, leaving much of the time open to what the people, such as Pastor Helen, the Tsou family we stayed with, and the principal at Concordia Middle School, would invite us into, with some of the main interactions centering on us listening and learning about the history and work of each. Apart from the scheduling, however, very little was communicated directly with students beyond 141 “planting seeds” for the future. As one of the most commonly used phrases throughout every mission trip, “planting seeds” in this case seems to reflect both a faith in the autonomy of students and in the power of God. The notion of planting seeds is evident in the space that the teachers gave for students to reflect on their own, rather than expressly telling students what they should be learning or thinking. As interviews show, many students did take the time to figure out the meaning of their experiences and in ways that they believed would be longer lasting.
Planting seed in terms of the people in Taiwan meant evangelism through even brief interactions of kindness with students and the Tsou people. Through such kindness, God can perform miracles within people’s hearts that we may not necessarily see but will have been a part of. This perspective offers comfort for those who want to believe that what they are doing is meaningful even if there is no immediate and tangible product as evidence.
That many students came to this conclusion on their own is worth notice in that they chose to struggle through understanding the purpose of their service and of mission trips in general; however, what must be noted is that the conclusion of “planting seeds” can be a direct line to absolving ourselves of any responsibility or care for the long term effects of mission trips in addition to any social injustice that people face on an everyday basis. In both instances, we plant a seed, whether of evangelism or towards a social justice issue, and then we leave, often forever, feeling fulfilled and confident that God will finish the work ultimately in heaven. What happens here on earth to others, therefore, is far less important once they are saved. This perspective completely erases any complicity Christian or U.S. communities have, historically and currently, in the injustice many live, as well as 142 the antagonism felt towards Christians. In light of Thomas Holt’s everydayness, which highlights the importance of connecting our actions in ordinary life with structural and historical racism, as well as John’s Star Trek episode, without an understanding of historical context, true communication and collaboration between others is unlikely.
THE BISHOP PAIUTE
An emphasis on historical context was most prevalent on the Native American
Reservation Trip (NART). All but one student in my assigned car and team were able to talk, at the very least, about the history of water rights in the Owens Valley between the
Paiute tribe and Los Angeles. During an interview, Luke, the director of the Missions program, explained his approach to social justice around Indigenous communities:
the first thing we would do… is take a tremendous amount of time to research.
Research, all the different points of views and then take a lot of time to pray. “Okay
Lord, what is it that you want us to teach on with this?” Cause there’s so much…
But giving [students] as much information from as many points of view. So, with
water rights, I know when we talk about the Paiute reservation, it’s going back and
saying, “okay, here’s the history. This is what happened. In 1906, they bought up…
kind of secretly bought all the water, all the land rights on the side of the Owens
river, and then converted or subverted the entire thing to Los Angeles. Is that right?
Well, it was legal. Is it right? And do the people of Los Angeles have the right to
all of the water from the Owens Valley. If you lived in the Owens Valley, you
certainly wouldn’t think so.”
143 Given a choice between viewpoints, when students spoke about this history, they often did so in the context of Los Angeles having “taken” or “stolen” water. A part of this may be due to their frequent trips to the Paiute Reservation. Zavier, a junior who had been on
NART multiple times compared his actual reaction to the Covington High School student who confronted Nathan Philips, a citizen of the Omaha Nation, in Washington D.C., with what it probably would have been without his experiences on NART. In his interview, he stated:
Especially being that the whole event was an Indigenous People’s Rally I think it
would be respectful, even if they disagreed, to observe instead of getting involved
because by turning the attention to themselves they, in a way, overlooked the entire
purpose of the rally, to celebrate the Indigenous People march. And also being
associated with a movement [MAGA, and March for Life rally] that in a way
indirectly opposes the rally. Being a Calvary Lutheran student who has been on
trips and interacted with Native American Tribes, I think it’s important and has
been reinforced on many of trips of the history between the Settlers and Native
Americans and how it’s going to take time to heal and how the fragile relationship
between the two can easily be broken again if not careful or respectful… if I had
not gone on the NART trips I probably would not have had the same emotional
reaction to the story or overlooked it. The story would still have had an effect on
me but only for a brief period, and I think this is a result of me growing up as a
minority in America and my culture having not the prettiest history in the entire
scheme of American History. 144 As a Black male, Zavier connects his own community’s history with that of Nathan
Phillip’s as a reason for any acknowledgment of or feelings of solidarity for what had happened in D.C. Yet, he admits that the emotion and interest would have been brief had he not heard and seen the narrative of settler colonialism and Indigenous history. Although settler colonialism first began long before Calvary Lutheran began going to the Paiute
Reservation and even before the students were born, Holt would likely argue that the structures set up by that history steeps us in complicity in the same way that an individual coffee drinker’s use of sugar is connected to a global framework of exploitation. Therefore, repeatedly emphasizing the historical context of the Bishop Paiute was clearly an important pedagogical choice made by the Missions teachers.
Students also drew on what they had learned in classes at Calvary Lutheran beyond the Missions program. During one of our drives in Bishop, Lena, a freshman, brought up her English class:
We learned about the stereotypes of Native Americans and how they were
considered barbaric and cruel. Heartless. And that’s not true. I met one named
Rowan just this week, and he was telling a story about his origins and how they
came to the valley and it was just cool… Not cool, but it was… it was… he
struggled so much and his family to get here and… it’s like a pain in your heart,
you know?
Lena’s conversation with her team touches upon the dominant narratives around
Indigenous peoples that continue in our society. Although Lena’s English teacher revealed these narratives as stereotypes, she is fully convinced only after she “met one” and heard 145 his story. The experiences of Lena and Zavier together might illustrate how Holt’s everydayness could be identified by students themselves through historical context and current iterations (e.g. initial settler colonialism and the stereotypes we continue to carry).
“We Don’t Do that Around Here”
Our first morning in Bishop started as usual with a whole group meeting before splitting off into individual time with God. There were quite a few announcements for the day since team projects had not been decided until the afternoon before, and in some cases, that very morning. When we first arrived at the campground in Bishop where we would live for the next few days, Luke and another teacher, Michael, made some phone calls that fell into the following pattern:
“We’re here, what’ve you got for us?... We have about forty-five students… I left
a message with _____ and I’m waiting to hear back from him/her…” Three contacts
came through with work for the teams: Bishop Headstart, the Cultural Center, and
Rowan who was constructing a Paiute dance studio.
After going over team responsibilities for the day, Luke reminded students of the history or context of each location. In the case of our team, he pointed out, “elders and the elderly are very well respected in native culture. Seeing the elderly as worthless is a very western view. So, we’ll be working in the Elders Garden which is set up by the native community for their elders. It’s a great gathering place for them and a place where they can get lunch.”
146 Work at the Elders Garden started with a meeting with one of the staff at the Owens
Valley Paiute Shoshone Cultural Center where she briefly went over the purpose of the garden and then pointed out what needed to be done. She asked half the group to go across the street to another plot of land where we would work with Tony. After introductions, he led us to a large chicken coop, showing us spots along the edge that were vulnerable to predators that were sneaking in and killing chickens. We spent the day with him cleaning the coop and then laying fresh wiring, boards, and rocks along the edges. The labor was intense and the air was dusty with the smell of livestock, but every student contributed without complaint and we were finished within a few hours. “That would have taken me two or three days all by myself,” Tony told us. After giving us the spiciest pepper he had brought back from Mexico—students had asked him about some of the plants he was growing, including his pepper collection—he told us there was nothing left to do at the
Elders Garden. We headed next to Bishop Headstart where Andy, the groundskeeper, wanted to prepare the garden for spring planting. We joined Luke’s team who were putting up slats in the fencing with some parents who were volunteering for the day.
Standing side by side with a mom and a dad volunteer, freshmen students Robert and Cammie found a big spider on the fence. Robert flung it to the ground and began stomping on it. The father turned to Robert telling him to stop. “We don’t kill creatures around here,” he told him sternly. There was an awkward and tense pause in conversation and work as the father bent down and picked up the spider carefully in his hands and placed it away from the fence where it would be safe. Cammie watched as he did this and broke the tension by asking him questions about wildlife in the area. Cammie, more so than 147 Robert, seemed to take to heart what she had learned during NART preparation, when Luke explained “it’s really important that you care for God’s creation because it’s a blessing that he’s given you. But [the Paiutes] do it way better than we do. Why would they listen to us about Jesus if we don’t care for the creation that God gave us? So, we’ve really, really pushed that on our NART trips, and our training is we have to care for creation.” More so than the trip to Taiwan, teachers on NART were explicit about what students needed to be mindful of as they entered Paiute spaces.
“We Are All One People”
Each NART, Calvary Lutheran invites members of the Paiute community to share a meal. On one of those occasions, two members spoke with the students during the evening meeting. Rowan, a renowned dancer of Paiute and Taos Pueblo descent, wanted to thank the students for helping him build his dance studio for Paiute youth. Dressed in his regalia, he demonstrated a hoop dance, sometimes speaking as he went through complex motions:
The thing about the dance is that you have to be given the right to do it. When I
was young, I worked hard to earn that right. And with that right you are able to
share it with people. The laughing is the medicine of the dance. To see the hoops
and how they’re everywhere and move in every space. Represents all the different
people, different beliefs yet when it comes down to it, we are all one people.
In the cramped tent, student cheers and applause throughout his performance was deafening. They often turned to each other with mouths open in amazement. When he called on one student to join him, he slowly took him through the steps of one of the simpler
148 movements. At first clumsy and laughing, Evan eventually succeeded in manipulating the hoops to form eagle’s wings. Through everyone’s laughter and clapping, Rowan shared that dancing is a form of healing for his people, and for many indigenous communities throughout the world. He reminded us once again, “the laughing is the medicine of the dance.”
As Evan sat back down, Luke walked up and thanked Rowan. Making sure he had everyone’s attention, Luke slowly and emphatically spoke, “it’s an incredible blessing to be with our friends here. He shares his culture with us… He is known all over the world for his dance. You have to earn the right to dance. Each part of his regalia is earned. So,
Evan, for him to allow us to be able to do that dance is such an honor. It’s also him welcoming us into his culture which is a huge blessing for us.” A characteristic of NART that stood out across both trips is the consistency with which teachers reminded students that the trip is only possible by the invitation of the Paiute, an astonishing relationship given what Luke refers to as the “hatred and mistreatment in the history” between “natives and non-natives.” Not only does this become evident in student reactions to current events around Indigenous communities (e.g. Zavier), but in the ways that many acknowledge the injustice of water rights in the valley. Although still distant from issues of indigenous sovereignty, as well as the history of cultural genocide by Christian-led Indian boarding schools in the region, the teachers at Calvary Lutheran have made clear that not only must their agenda be subordinated to that of the Paiute community, but that they must respect the boundaries the Paiute place around their own history.
149 Respecting Boundaries
Michael, one of the teachers in the Missions department, sometimes takes students to pray over specific spots of land in Bishop that are important in Paiute history. Through conversations with locals, and sometimes accompanied by locals, he would learn about areas where a massacre had taken place, or a battle between white settlers and Paiutes.
While both he and the Paiute who might accompany him believe in prayer over land that needs healing from historical trauma, he just as often encounters silence or suspicion.
“They’ve had multiple people come into their community in the past and asked for their story, and they share it because they’re excited that their story is going to get out… But then the people asking the story end up turning it into a financially lucrative documentary.
And so they got their story used with like no concern for them.” Calvary Lutheran’s first few years going to the reservation were usually met with yells of “get off the reservation!
You don’t belong here!” Over time, however, as the school showed up twice a year every year without entering until an invitation was extended, the same people who once told them, “there are two types of people I hate the most: Christians and white people,” began engaging in conversations and extending invitations to join in their work.
The Paiute community were never passive victims of historical atrocities, nor the benevolent condescension of white missionaries. Whether through war, legal means, or other forms of resistance, members of the Bishop Paiute found ways to survive and reclaim their cultures. Although some may view the relationship between the Bishop Paiute and
Calvary Lutheran solely as a negotiation of resources and access, there are elements of the engagement that indicate a level of trust and collaboration. On one of the earlier trips, the 150 Paiute community was reeling from the sudden deaths of three youth connected to almost every family. The teams from Calvary Lutheran were in Bishop at the time but kept a distance from the community after making sure the Paiute knew they were present. Muriel, a community leader among the Bishop Paiute asked Calvary Lutheran to help set up for a
Powwow and the cry ceremonies that were to take place. Not until several students were invited to partake in those ceremonies to mourn with the Paiute community, did Calvary
Lutheran step further into Paiute spaces. When planning for subsequent trips, Muriel helped them coordinate with the community, telling them, “we remember what you did for us and when you showed up.”
During an evening meeting at the most recent trip, a Paiute member who is also
Christian spoke with the students before giving a blessing. He encouraged them saying,
“someone told me, ‘there’s a school from Pacific County and I hear they’re here because they love God.’ Better that than to pray and give a pamphlet. It is in doing that that God is glorified… It is listening to what is going on. As I look through the valley and look at our people, we struggle. Struggles I wish we didn’t have to deal with. When I see how God through his love and power can heal our community, it is what the community needs. You are all a piece of that healing.” For the Paiute members who spoke with Calvary Lutheran students, both presence and listening are a part of the healing already taking place in the community. It was also through presence and listening that respect for boundaries was conveyed, facilitating the first and continued invitation into the work of the Bishop Paiute.
151 “NOT EVERYONE HERE IS A HILLBILLY”
Our first morning in Appalachia, the teachers and our host, Kevin, made a point of emphasizing “people not the project.” They urged everyone to work hard on the various projects of winterizing homes, building access ramps, or helping teachers at schools, but our priority must be the people. Kevin and Luke both exhorted the students to listen.
“Listening is very important here in Appalachia. It’s very important to listen to people, to listen to their stories… Ask questions about these people. Talk less. Listen more. Ask them what it’s like living in eastern Kentucky. Talk less. Listen more.”
As a driver-chaperone, I was assigned to a public elementary school, where we would be teacher’s aides. Three girls, Alice, Mariah, and Katerina volunteered to join me and after packing our lunches, I drove us the ten minutes to Manchester Elementary School.
The principal greeted us in the front office and had a student teacher lead us to a first-grade classroom where we would end up for the week. Each day we entered her classroom, Mrs.
Jessica, the teacher, had us help students with math problems as she worked one on one with students at her desk. When she taught English or science, we would sit on the floor with the children unless she had work for us to do, such as cutting out and laminating materials for the class. The students from Calvary Lutheran were eager to help her without being a distraction for the young students who vied for attention and affection from each of them. Alice, Mariah, and Katerina quickly learned everyone’s names and without hesitation, jumped up to help any students who raised their hand. The children were eager to share their stories and we quickly learned who lived with grandparents, who lived with parents, or how many brothers or sisters each had. 152 On our third day with Mrs. Jessica, the students had computer class and filed out the door with their computer teacher. Mariah sat near the teacher’s desk and began talking with Mrs. Jessica about where she was from, and how she became a teacher. For the first time since we entered her classroom, Mrs. Jessica noticeably relaxed, smiling at us directly for the first time. She talked about how she grew up in the area and decided to return after college to help her community. She gestured outside the window describing her house just down the road where she and her family raised chickens for fresh eggs. On our drives back to our camp site, Mariah, Alice, and Katerina expressed a great deal of respect for Mrs.
Jessica and her care for her community and her students, whom she clearly knew very well.
They witnessed firsthand what Kevin asked them to consider: “Not everyone here is a hillbilly. Dead broke, dumb. Just because we live, talk, and are different doesn’t mean that we are less than you. What I hope you realize is that we have a lot of positive aspects here.
We have a lot of intelligent people but don’t have access to a lot.” Although this time with
Mrs. Jessica and the students were significant in disrupting stereotypes of people in
Appalachia, there were no obvious “God moments” that the girls felt compelled to share with the larger group. Stories about a miracle, some sort of drama, or meetings with people who were “so grateful for our presence,” were most often shared as “God moments.”
Hunting for Treasure
Every evening meeting in Appalachia began with an ice breaker and then time to share “God moments” that students experienced throughout the day. A common type of story that students shared across all evenings emerged from an activity called “treasure
153 hunt.” On a treasure hunt, each individual prays and then writes down whatever words come to mind. The group then goes and “hunts” for those words with faith that God is leading them to a specific person, place, or revelation. A typical treasure hunt story was shared by Alexis:
We did a treasure hunt today. We were with a group that went to the park and when
we got there, none of us were feeling that was the place to go. So, we stayed for a
little bit and hung out there and we were all imagining being in a house. We all kind
of lost hope and were driving back and Mrs. Terra turned around and said, “we’re
going to [Norma’s] house.” We had visited Norma’s house during house visits. We
all prayed in the car for the visit and Norma comes out and said, “my husband’s
dying.” And someone had written “death” on her card. Someone had “slippers,”
“soda,” and “orange” [written on her card], and Norma had slippers on and gave us
soda and had an orange flashlight on her table. Someone wrote “no teeth,” and
Norma had no teeth. Right when she needed us, and God was showing us what we
wrote in our cards.
PARADIGMS
As our ‘stories’ are as much a part of what makes us human – of our being human as the imperatively artificially co-identifying, eusocial species that we are – as are our bipedalism and the use of our hands” (Wynter, 2015, p. 217), the stories received and told throughout the missions trips are revealing of much more than what students remember of their experiences. Wynter’s hybrid human is auto instituted into
154 the limits of the degrees of subjectively experienced, psycho-affective
inclusiveness defining of each such inter-altruistic, fictive mode of kind (or referent
We(s)) are themselves set by the limits of each genre-specific origin-story. Each
such story thereby functions at the same time as the imperative boundary of psycho-
affective closure defining of each such referent We/Us as over against the They/not-
Us. (p. 220)
Essentially, it is stories that define who we are. Specifically, origin stories define “we” and those who are the negation of “we,” that is, the liminal. Origin stories determine who is fully human and who is not fully human.
In challenging those origin stories that divide between white (fully human), and
Black (liminal), rich (fully human), and poor (liminal), critical legal and social studies scholars will often refer to counter-storytelling or counter narratives. Sylvia Wynter (2015), however, writes of a “counter-cosmogony whose narrative structures… utterly de- legitimate” (p. 208) the dominant paradigm. Without doubt, the students from Calvary
Lutheran encountered first-hand a number of counter narratives. The mission trips provided opportunities for students to “come into contact with many persons of radically different race or social station” (Delgado, Stefancic, & Harris, 2017, p. 28). This contact that critical legal scholars point to as necessary to developing empathy, was short, but intense as personal stories of loss, suffering, and hope were shared by participants and the “others” they met on missions. Stereotypes of rural Asia, “savage” Native people, or “hillbilly”
Appalachians were unsettled for many students. Whether these narratives were counter
155 cosmogonies, however, requires a closer examination of all the stories shared across the mission trips.
Drawing from Erika Lee’s (2008) intervention in the study of Chinese exclusion in the United States exploring a shift in what is centered when she begins the narrative where scholarship has traditionally ended the story. She explains that traditional scholarship always ended with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, centering white anti-Chinese sentiment. When the narrative begins with the Chinese Exclusion Act, she shows that instead of white anti-Chinese movements, it is the experiences of Chinese in America that are centered. Her work reveals the importance of starting and ending points for narratives and how much they reveal about the story’s underlying paradigm or what Thomas Kuhn might refer to as “defin[ing] areas of relevance” (Pajares, 2012). Therefore, I measure the paradigm of stories told by participants and “others” by where, when, and with whom their narrative begins and ends. I consider the following questions:
1) With whom does the story begin and end?
2) When does the story begin and when does it end?
3) Where does the story begin and where does it end?
4) What idea or purpose is centered in the story?
Applying these questions to the treasure hunts, it becomes clear that the narrative told by the students begin and end with themselves. They prayed and were given words by God and at the end, God revealed their words to them. That is, they are the protagonists.
Temporally, the narrative begins when they meet the “other,” often a stranger, and the narrative ends when they leave the “other.” Spatially, their narrative begins and ends in 156 Appalachia with no mention of home. The idea or purpose that is centered in the treasure hunt is faith in a God who is active in our lives. In a way, treasure hunts are trust exercises.
I am not exploring the act of treasure hunting itself. I cannot judge what each person, including Norma, receives in this engagement. What I seek to examine more closely is the telling of the story, what the telling of the story itself conveys as well as what made the story possible (i.e. Wynter’s subjective understanding). The treasure hunts described by student participants tend to neatly box in religious stories where the main character is the individual self with an appearance by a secondary character whom God uses to reward faith. Any interactions with “others” begin and end in a space that is temporary for the protagonist. Treasure hunt narratives never continue into the homes of participants but remain in Appalachia. Not one participant brought up treasure hunts when interviewed back at home. There is a theological danger in constructing such narratives.
As one parent chaperone warned, “if you stay in your own box, you think God only exists in that box.”
Treasure hunts closely echo the theology of Rick Warren and Francis Chan discussed in chapter two. The dominant theology of many Christians in Pacific County, the
Christianity of Warren and Chan is limited to middle- and upper-class individuals who would regard as “other” anyone in need of money, or evangelism. They make this clear in their target audience of “kingdom builders” who amass wealth for God’s church and mission (Warren), and Aspirers to the median who donate their income left over after the
U.S. median (Chan). The poor are to be saved by the generosity of Christians, and so are present only as vessels, similar to individuals encountered in treasure hunts, through which 157 true Christians can show their faith and love for God. This paradigm that centers the self, and restricts the role and mobility of “others” helps create the conditions for the attitude of giving and teaching without learning that arose most overtly in Taiwan. Thus, even when a counter narrative or counter-cosmogony was offered, many students may have missed their significance in favor of interpreting “God moments” that fit within the most familiar paradigm that centers the self.
Applying the same measure to the narratives shared by “others,” a different paradigm emerges as the self is de-centered and time and place expand infinitely. Many of the stories that emerged from the communities Calvary Lutheran was invited into, centered community, not the self. Rowan’s work with the dance studio, and the sharing of the dance itself were meant to bring healing not only to the students from Calvary Lutheran, the
Paiute and Taos Pueblo community, but indigenous groups globally, with whom he works.
Pastor Helen’s work in the church revolved around the resurrection and preservation of
Tsou culture among their youth. Even Mrs. Jessica in Appalachia spoke of her community as the reason for her return. Across these stories, what is most valued is not of individual, but communal healing.
A deeper look into these narratives also reveals an extension of time and place beyond the context of the narrator. Rowan describes his work within historical narratives of genocide, boarding schools, and current issues facing may indigenous nations and peoples worldwide (Langley, 2017). Pastor Helen’s narrative of cultural teaching and preservation is similarly embedded in a history of settler colonialism and a present and future reclamation of an identity that was taken away. Although specific to the Tsou tribe, 158 by situating her work within the Catholic church and sharing the preservation of the culture with those willing to partner in the work, expands the reach of her narrative into global networks. The personal narratives that Rowan and Pastor Helen offer to the students, teachers, and parents of Calvary Lutheran, chronologically begin before their own entrances into the stories, and their work anticipates or ensures a continuance of the narratives beyond their own lives.
In these ways, the narratives offered by “others” to Calvary Lutheran mission teams align with the theology presented by Reverend William Barber. For Barber, “others” do not exist, as every individual is a member of “God’s human family.” Thus, his efforts attend to the many narratives that stretch back into history and create current conditions of injustice. Theologically, he situates his work within the plans that God intends for the world, similar to the ways that Calvary Lutheran students saw their time in Taiwan as
“planting the seeds” that God would cause to grow. The two diverge, however, in several ways. For Barber, community is never bounded, and so he can never step outside of a community. The concerns of others are always his concerns. In contrast, every student from
Calvary Lutheran who went to Taiwan and were interviewed spoke of the complete separation between their experiences in Taiwan and their everyday lives at home. A second difference is perhaps best explained through differing interpretations of the Bible, specifically, a line in the Lord’s Prayer. I would state that when William Barber prays, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” his understanding of “thy will” is that God’s justice and love be present for all people on earth as it will be in heaven. For students at Calvary
Lutheran, the very act of missions is not only to “serve others” and exercise one’s faith, 159 but ultimately, missions is to evangelize. God’s will for people to be saved, therefore, is more about belief, not action, and the next life in heaven, again, releasing a Christian from responsibility towards God’s will in this life.
Narrative, Counter Narrative, or Origin Story?
Returning to the paradigm of treasure hunts, Wynter (2015) might question whether a narrative is an origin story, if the center is the individual self. The stories of treasure hunts do not necessarily reveal “the fictive modes of kind, their/our respective referent We(s) and correlated genre of being hybridly human” (p. 213). The stories of treasure hunts may reveal one type of “other”, but they do not disclose the “liminal” nor those who are included in the “we” or the propter nos. In contrast, the stories offered by Pastor Helen, Rowan,
Mrs. Jessica, and countless others, clearly delineate the “referent We” as well as the current and hoped for social reality constructed by the maintenance of this “we.”
In addition to standing as origin stories, the narratives given by “others” on mission trips can be categorized as counter narratives or counter storytelling as understood within critical race studies as well as social studies. They disrupt dominant narratives that erase, marginalize, or stereotype those with less power. They reveal also, the agency of the communities. To an extent, some may also be the counter-cosmogony of Wynter’s vision in that several narratives upend a schema that centers the individual self and limits narratives to a set time and place. Yet, students changed these counter cosmogonies to fit into their dominant narrative schema of the self and stranger. Student stories became an expression of an actual origin story that has set up a social reality making that specific
160 “God moment” possible. That is, a deeper ideology shapes student stories. One of the
Missions teachers, Michael, thought through what could happen when the deeper ideologies of stories are not considered:
I've heard it from the white side or the dominant culture side, “Okay go learn the
story so you can use your power to share it or do something.” But I don't know, it
always seems to get twisted somehow by the dominant person because they have
the power.
Speaking of the context at home, Michael notes that stories can be shaped by power, specifically around race and racism. The ideologies, or origin stories that determine who is fully human and who is liminal, are perhaps most explicit when considering the boundaries of home rather than the expressions of counter narratives received while abroad. In the next chapter I seek to trace these boundaries, locating who is within and who is without.
161 Chapter Five: Boundaries of Home & Missions
PRACTICING SELFLESSNESS
At around 9:30 pm in Appalachia, my small group and I went to one of the girls’ rooms and found a small space surrounded on three sides by bunks three beds high. We sat in a circle, some laying on their stomachs, others sitting cross legged and leaning against the open suitcases and bunks littered with clothes and towels. They were all seniors, all women, and all concerned that once home, they would go back to the way they had lived before the Appalachia missions trip. Speaking from their experiences over three years, they all wanted so much to figure out how to continue “keeping their eyes on Jesus” even when home. Equating a focus on Jesus with service to others, Elaine reasoned, “it’s hard to continue missions when home because we have so many purposes there. But when on missions, our only purpose is to serve.” While they all agreed that the purposes they pursued at home were not inherently “bad,” they also compartmentalized God so that God was not a part of their every moment. Elaine suggested, “maybe we can listen to sermons on podcasts or hymns when we drive.” Still processing her thoughts, Lily slowly explained that perhaps the joy she found in meeting new people here, would be a joy that she would continue at home by building on those relationships. Throughout our conversation, many of the women continued to shift between strengthening belief in God and acting in God’s will. Though not explicitly stated, they clearly understood faith as being lived, not merely thought.
162 In equating “keeping their eyes on Jesus” with serving others, they and many of their classmates frequently brought up selflessness, or their disappointment in selfishness.
During our small group time, several of the seniors expressed frustration with some of the underclassmen who seemed to want only to socialize rather than help out. Angelina was
“bummed out because I was so excited to be on this trip and then I meet all these people who talk about how they don’t want to be here or their mom forced them to come, or they don’t show up for clean-up duties.” Actions, according to the seniors, must be paired with right motivation and attitude, which is where the mental or thought aspect of faith is necessary. Keeping our eyes on Jesus would align attitude, motivation, and action precisely because our eyes would be fixed on a point beyond ourselves.
In Taiwan, students saw beyond themselves when they referred to their experiences teaching English at Concordia Middle School in Chiayi, as one that gave them a new appreciation for each other and their own teachers. In addition to planning lessons in the days before, they were exhausted after teaching three periods. Gathering in the school conference room that served as a lunch and break room for the Calvary Lutheran team, the students sat slumped in chairs, shaking their heads at the realization that teaching is not easy. Dan, the team leader, laughingly told them he would provide them with thank you cards to write for their own teachers and then brought up that there was an unexpected class to teach and if anyone would be willing to volunteer. All but two students said they would go. After the room emptied of their classmates, the remaining two, Sage and Jaime, looked at each other. Sage said, “everyone is tired and it wouldn’t be right to not teach.” They both got up and joined their team. 163 On mission trips, had Sage and Jaime chosen to rest while their teammates worked, they would have been the outliers and would certainly have been made to feel so.
Cheerfully serving, no matter the circumstance, emerged as the norm on mission trips.
There were official and unofficial ways in which this point was made. When Brooke, a freshman female, complained about helping clean dishes on Fall NART, “I’m tired. I’m only going to do one swipe to dry the cups. Every time I think it’s done, a new batch of something needs to be washed and dried,” her teammates did not respond and avoided eye contact with her. “It’s only going to get harder” one of them said under her breath. Although the upperclassmen made clear to her that they would not respond to her complaints, there were several moments throughout our time together that they would intentionally seek her out when they noticed she was being left out of friend groups. At the Powwow, Brooke wandered around the booths alone until Veronica, a senior, walked up to her and brought her to join the other senior females. This continued into the following morning when
Brooke sat with them at breakfast.
During the same trip, a large group of freshmen boys were seated on a bench while everyone else set up the camp site. When we left for the Powwow a few hours later, the head teacher had the freshmen boys stay behind to help prepare dinner. Chaperones brought up this issue quite a few times during Fall NART: freshmen boys not helping while everyone else did the work, “including a one-armed teacher, a junior female with a concussion, and a parent volunteer.” The more seasoned chaperones explained that this year was unusual in that most of the students were freshmen, and specifically freshmen boys. In previous years, many students were male upper classmen who had no problem 164 calling out their younger counterparts by word or by example. When we returned in the spring with more than quadruple the number of students, and a large group of upperclassmen, the work was perhaps more physically challenging, but rather than complaints about students not working, conversations during chaperone meetings was the opposite. I went with a large team to volunteer at Manzanar, helping an archaeologist prepare a plot of land for excavation. We were hot, inhaling dust, burning in the sun, hauling huge piles of dirt with wheelbarrows, raking, and digging. Yet, the entire time we were there, students worked without ceasing or complaining. They would scramble to grab tools and get to work, trading off with each other throughout the day. Instead of hearing,
“I’m tired,” as I often did on Fall NART, I mostly listened and watched as students would say to each other, “You’ve been doing that a long time, I’ll take over.”
MISSIONS VERSUS NORMAL LIFE
Several students who attended both the Missions class and mission trips saw the trips as opportunities to learn and practice how to be a good citizen. A senior female student who went to China found that good citizenship for her in China meant keeping an open mind because she was a stranger: “when I’m in China… I’m an outsider completely, so
I’m not going to judge.” During a class discussion, she connected this experience to her citizenship in the U.S. where she hoped that she would not be as judgmental of others. A male student in the same class viewed mission trips as practicing an ideal community towards transformation: “the way we serve people in those other places, like, if we had that
165 mindset in our own community, that would change a lot of things. You’re just like really motivated.”
Such a hope was common among nearly all participants, as was the seeming inability to translate a missions experience into the home context. Jessica, a sophomore, shared that “I feel like it's like this with all mission trips, it's hard to just go back to your normal life. You're like in such a good place and then you go back and like everything goes back to normal and it's a little weird. You have to get back into the swing of everything.”
She was attempting to process why being kind and selfless was so much easier abroad than at home. “At home,” she mused, “I don’t have as big of a drive.” She and several other classmates brought up how much more accepting of others they are when abroad, yet once back home, they fall into the same pattern of judging and marginalizing others. “How can we bring it back home,” Sloane, a junior, would ask. Sage, a sophomore, spoke of her own struggles:
We have the mindset where we're like at schools [on missions] for example, like if
you see someone in the corner, more people will go up to them than like the more
talkative people. But like at school, like if you see someone sitting by themselves,
we'll like judge them instead of like, going up to them... Because I always like try
to find the odd ones out on mission trips, but I never do that when I'm home. I'm
always like, “Oh they're sitting by themselves because... you know.”
What Sage leaves unsaid was filled in by many of her classmates. Paisley, a senior, pointed out the ostracization of students who are of a different economic class, and “don’t have the nicest clothes… or have a different job.” “Everyone has different stories,” she continues, 166 yet we avoid them because we think “they’re weird or something like that.” A freshman,
Lena, spoke of hating to see students sitting alone at school. But when she began sitting with them and introducing them to her friends,
I've gotten… not hate, but… I have a really close group of friends and they support
me through it, but some of the new friends I've met this year, they just have different
opinions about that. They don't really like going up to those people and um…
interacting with them.
Jessica, Sage, and Jaime all spoke of how they believed teachers should step in more actively to ensure that no student would be excluded at school. Yet, some teachers, according to all three, are just as “mean” as some of their classmates, leaving the responsibility of protecting marginalized students to other students. Jessica spoke of several times she has had to stop students in class from bullying someone who was “a bit different.” Sage, like several others, brought up the centrality of inclusivity to their faith and why they were so upset when students were not treated well by others:
I think it like makes me upset because when like I am reading my Bible and I hear
oh like everyone is loved by God equally, then why aren't we like... Why are there
different social standards? Why is someone more powerful I guess or like cooler
than other people when that's not how God sees us?
On missions, they identify that one is surrounded by others “influencing you for the good.”
There were many instances across all four trips where many upperclassmen would already be seeking ways to include everyone into the community, whether tracking down students rumored to be homesick or friendless in Appalachia, or ensuring that no one would explore 167 or eat alone as Veronica did for Brooke on NART. At other times, teachers and chaperones would mediate with a text, a conversation, or a look. Lizzy, one of the parent chaperones in Taiwan, texted her daughter within the first three days telling her that she needed to make sure that Maddie was being included amongst the girls. Sofia, another parent chaperone in Taiwan, spoke to the older students, telling them “when a mother notices that her child doesn’t fit in, it breaks their hearts.” Jennifer and Addison, two missions teacher, pulled aside all the senior girls on NART, encouraging them to be more active in creating community. The following day at NART, Brady, a male senior, was insulted by one of the freshmen girls during a conversation, and while he breathed in, ready to respond, he glanced at the head missions teacher, Luke, who said nothing, but gave him a pointed look with raised eyebrows. Brady let out the breath, sat back, and responded kindly, moving the conversation into a different direction. In all instances, student response was positive and immediate. At home, however, participants acknowledged that while they try to be “kind” and “help people,” they tend to keep to themselves because “everyone’s probably just too scared to get judged and stuff.”
The norms of being on missions, being selfless, cheerfully serving, and including everyone, are clearly established and enforced both officially and unofficially. Peers, especially upper classmen who have regularly gone on trips, set the tone to work hard and without complaint. Throughout every trip, they have also been intentional about seeking out younger students who are alone, or homesick. Once back home, however, these norms no longer apply as each participant returns to a life in which God is separate from the many purposes they pursue as students, daughters and sons, friends, athletes, and so on. 168 Additionally, although “the ground on which you stand, from which you had interpreted the world around you, is now shaken” (Wynter, 2000, p. 130), the familiarity, the comfort, and the invisibility of the dominant origin story at home, specifically for those who are considered fully human, is still powerfully woven into their daily lives, particularly with regards to gender. Being abroad did not always lead to greater kindness or openness to others. Many students identified that some of the problems of home followed them into the mission field. Sexism came up in painful ways for quite a few female students, and rigid gender norms complicated student relationships with each other.
Where Women Belong
Fall NART and Appalachia took place shortly after the #MeToo movement gained national attention. This seemed to be on the minds of several female students as conversations around sexism came up more frequently than during the earlier trip to
Taiwan. Sitting in a van in Appalachia eating lunch, Alice, Mariah, and Katerina, three female juniors, spent half an hour venting their anger and frustration with “creeps” at school. The conversation began with Mariah asking if the others would change their names when married. One said yes, the other said no because it seems like too much of a hassle.
Mariah eventually brought up a specific male student on the trip that she was not happy to see. She explained that “he buys things for girls and then when they don’t do something he asks, he would get really upset.” Alice shared that he told her he was gay, and she “was totally supportive of him, but then he started dating a girl, and then he would ask younger girls to come over for sleepovers.” Nodding, Mariah admitted that he would invite her over
169 and then he would ask her to go skinny-dipping. “He seems to manipulate people and flip out when it doesn’t go his way. He’s been creeping everyone out.” Katerina compared him with the school’s previous photographer, “a little Asian American guy” who would always take pictures, but “it wasn’t the same creepy” because he would ask and it was his job. This other guy “kept taking pictures of their faces without warning or asking them.” When Alice was a freshman, she did cheer with a friend and recalled that
two guys filmed us as we walked away. They were filming our butts. My friend
grabbed the phone and threw it down breaking the screen. The guy got mad, but
then my friend told him to go ahead and tell the principal why she broke his phone.
He didn’t do anything.
Clearly disturbed by the way they are sometimes treated by their male classmates, they had no issue with defending themselves when needed; however, they spoke of these incidences resignedly. They learned who to avoid by being in situations that became unsafe for them, never thinking that perhaps these situations could be addressed at a structural level in school, let alone society.
A similar occurrence took place on Fall NART. Students often played a game similar to charades, where they would be given a scene to act out until someone yelled
“freeze!” One of the characters would be tapped out and a new student would assume that position, taking the scene in a different direction. One of the evenings the students played,
Veronica knelt on one knee, proposing to another student. Someone yelled “freeze!” and a freshman male student took the place of the student she was proposing to. When the scene re-started, the male student told her, “you’re on your knees because that’s where women 170 belong.” Some students laughed, but most were silent, with wide eyes and open mouths.
Several of the older male students grimaced, shaking their heads. Veronica stayed kneeling, in shock as she explained later. One of the teachers put an end to the game and started them on a new activity.
Two months later, Veronica brought up what had happened when we were sitting and chatting in our shared dorm room in Appalachia. Visibly still upset and with a shaking voice, she said, “I never felt so disrespected.” She connected this experience with the unfair gender expectations at school. She specifically pointed to the dress code as placing the blame and responsibility on women because a “guy can’t control himself if she wears spaghetti straps.” Veronica spoke with the Missions director about what had happened during the game, and shrugging, she insisted that “knowing him, I’m sure that he would definitely shut that down. But I haven’t heard anything further about it.” I would add that
I share her confidence in the director; however, by addressing only one side, the freshman boy, and in private, Veronica was unable to gain any closure, and the other students who were present, had no way of knowing that such actions would not be tolerated.
While Veronica felt comfortable and confident going to an authority figure who could more easily enact structural change, her decision to let it go without knowing if anything actually happened, as well as the unwillingness of Katerina, Mariah, and Alice to challenge discomfort with “creeps” beyond avoiding them, points towards a measure of helplessness. It seems that the attitude they take on is “nothing is really going to happen anyway.” As Veronica brought up, the school itself is embedded with structural and
171 discursive elements that tolerate inappropriate behavior from males, while placing the onus on female students either to endure discomfort or protect themselves.
Where Men Belong
Rigid gender norms also came up in Taiwan, though in the form of expectations around masculinity. One of the students on the trip did not fit in well with the team, and this became evident to all the chaperones early on. During interviews, when I brought up
Winston, a freshman male student who had immigrated from Taiwan to the U.S. for school, almost every other person on the Taiwan team immediately responded with, “oh, he didn’t fit in.” A talented ballet dancer, Winston moved his body gracefully in every action. But not until he danced for us, did student discomfort with him openly surface. During our second day, he was asked to dance for us. Interested in K-Pop, Winston chose to demonstrate Korean street dancing. The choreography consisted of quite a few hip and chest thrusts and rolls, with movements popular among female K-Pop stars. Some students looked shocked throughout his performance. Several were smiling and glancing sideways at each other, trying not to laugh, though at the end, they all applauded and exclaimed at his talent. Later that evening, Lizzy, one of the parent chaperones brought up Winston’s dance. She noted that the students “didn’t know what to do with it. They stereotyped him afterward because clearly he can dance, but they had never seen a dance like that before.”
Blurring traditional gender norms of movement, the dance, “confused” them, according to
Lizzy. One of the teachers on the trip also admitted that he had the same reaction as the other students.
172 The only student who did not see him as “different,” nor did she think that his dancing was shocking, was Margaret Ann. As one of the few students who positioned herself as a learner in Taiwan, she described Winston as “really invested in teaching us about like their traditions… which was really nice of him, just like invested himself in doing that for us.” A dancer herself, Margaret Ann and Winston shared dance moves towards the end of the trip during a free evening where all the students were playing music and enjoying each other’s company. Winston’s status by then had shifted somewhat. That evening, he performed once again, but in this instance, he began with a traditional
Taiwanese folk dance, which his father, who was well-liked by all the students for his humor and kindness, narrated the movements. He followed the Taiwanese dance with a short ballet piece. Watching the students, their faces were more schooled and they all cheered for him at the end. Lizzy noted that “it felt better this time.” Later that evening, the chaperones discussed that perhaps because he started with a “cultural” dance, students were more accepting.
Respecting Culture
Throughout the Taiwan trip, students were very careful to show respect for culture.
Unfamiliar foods might be avoided, but always without making faces or remarking on disliking taste or texture. They carefully followed different customs, such as bowing in greeting, using their chopsticks appropriately (and not as drumsticks), or raising their drinks with two hands to say thank you to elders. Students were even willing to use “squatty potties” (holes rather than toilets) although several literally needed their hands held under
173 the stall door while using them for the first time. Violet, one of those most terrified by the squatty potty, reasoned after mastering its use, that “come to think of it, toilets are weird.
Who decided that toilets are how we should go to the bathroom?” Anything that was marked as being of a “different culture,” students were careful to respect and ponder. For some, like Violet, this facilitated thinking about small details of her own culture, like the use of toilets, realizing that they were constructed. However, without such a designation
(“culture”), students continued to apply their own frameworks to what was good or bad
(i.e. familiar or different). The gender norms of home remained and Winston, with his dancing, was initially categorized as bad-different.
A Disney Experience
The teachers on the Missions staff identified the complex divide between how students live abroad versus how they live at home, as an on-going issue. Michael thought through why this challenge seems constant:
[missions] equates to going to Disneyland. It equates to going on a vacation with
their parents. There’s a level of even maybe consumerism, where you're taking in
this experience for, you know, to have for yourself…. There's a beginning to this
experience and then there's an end to this experience. Whatever happens in there
like stays within that container. Obviously some of it bleeds out relationship-wise
and whatnot, but I think it still mentally stays within that container for most
students.
174 As Wynter’s hybrid human is auto-instituted into origin stories that are obscured from view, it is unsurprising that the categories of their origin stories would either follow them into the mission field, or at least re-instate itself firmly once back home.
If missions does indeed equate to going to Disneyland, crossing the borders of home would most likely fail in its “hermeneutical function” (Wynter, 2000, p. 131) of displacement. Containing an experience spatially and mentally, reduces Wynter’s possibility that “because the ground on which you stand, from which you had interpreted the world around you, is now shaken; all of the certainties, that you had taken for granted… are now gone” (p. 131). Anthropologists Yaganisako and Delaney (1992) likewise assert that “when the order is disrupted or when people are uprooted from the sites where these stories and identities make sense… then not only are identities challenged, but so too the hegemonic order” (p. 2). Returning to the treasure hunt stories, where engagement with others are contained within a set space and time, students may force experiences of displacement into a narrative schema that aligns with the ideologies of home, rather than question the ideology that shapes a schema de-legitimated in the present context. Like
Thomas Philip’s (2011) participant teacher who did not see a contradiction in blaming structural inequities in one space, but then blaming students in another, changing the context is not enough to transform ideology. Rather, recognition of human beings as homo narrans, as a species whose origin stories construct social reality, must take place before or at the same time that, the ideologies and schemas of home can be unmade. If we do not recognize that our stories, identities, and consequent narrative schema, are constructed, we cannot unmake them. 175 Context Matters
The realization of culture as constructed came up most often for juniors or seniors who had been on multiple mission trips, and usually to the same place. Brady, a white male senior, talked about how NART was different for him as a freshman, and how his views shifted slowly over time:
To be honest, when I was a freshman and went to my first powwow, I laughed. I
didn’t get it. But I came to realize it’s who they are. It’s not funny to them. It’s their
culture. Just like if they were to come to Calvary Lutheran, they might wonder what
everyone is doing all standing up and singing the alma mater. I shouldn’t laugh at
who they are and their culture. I had never met anyone of that culture and didn’t
think they would be the same as me. We’re all cut from the same cloth.
Brady acknowledges an ideological shift for him as he came to realize that culture is constructed, including his own. He is beginning to identify that what we all have in common, what makes us all “cut from the same cloth” is our constructed cultures (i.e. homo narrans).
Several other students, teachers and parents brought up similar understandings of culture. In Taiwan, Sloane, a white, female junior who dreams of becoming a youth pastor, came to a realization about how she was approaching evangelism, as sharing truth that everyone would or should embrace. She acknowledged,
I think like when we go there, our hope and kind of like expectation is for them to
respond to it. But thinking about someone else coming here, and trying to share
176 something different with us, like, I don't know how responsive I personally would
have been, or even like peers too.
By taking the time to reflect on her engagements with others, Sloane uncovered assumptions of “Truth” that she carried with her when entering a different space. These assumptions were tied to the empathy she developed for those she met in Taiwan, as she considered what it would be like if she was in their place.
The assumptions of people of home also facilitated similar reflections. During an interview, Paisley began to puzzle out why when many people heard she was going to
Taiwan, would refer to the whole continent of Asia as “struggling” and in need of help.
I feel like it's more of like people view America or Europe as kind of like the better
countries in the world… It's like this weird feeling that you're just like better than
all the other cultures, right? Like I don't know how to explain why… I feel like it's
just kind of like ingrained in us. And then also like just how our country works.
Like right now we're getting involved in all these extra like wars and whatever.
We're just like pushing ourselves on other countries, saying that we're helping
them… So I feel like that also gives us more of a sense… like we're here to help
you and like be your savior or whatever.
For Paisley, her experience in Taiwan together with her interactions with the discursive image of Asia in her community, as well as her knowledge of U.S. history, enabled her to evaluate common feelings or sentiments that are often left opaque for the purposes of
“production and reproduction of that specific society… including the reality of our empirically being directly responsible for the ‘goods’ and the ‘bads’ of each such societal 177 order” (Wynter, 2015, p. 225). One of the parent chaperones on NART echoed a similar belief, rooting such categorizations, especially based on race, in “some sort of hatred…
[and] the unconscious mind. Like what people say in society and they don’t realize where it stems from.”
For Wynter (2015), the awareness of culture as construct demonstrated by students and parents, is necessary if any transformation is to be enacted. She writes,
if we as humans are to collectively survive, we must actualize the heresy of securing
the non-opacity of our own agency and, with it, the full autonomy of the new order
of cognition based on the new principle of Cosmogonic/Sociogenic Causality. For
without such an actualization, no effective “what is to be done” solution can
furthermore be found to either Du Bois’s “particular wrong, “ nor to the “general
wrong” of Barney’s (and Peccei’s) “global problematique” – since both are
reciprocally the causal condition of each other because enacting of the same
sociogenic replicator code of secular Western Man in its second reinvented form.
(p. 231)
Though she is referring specifically to broader issues of global racism and poverty, Wynter puts forth the awareness of our social reality as constructed by ourselves, thus our subsequent agency in constructing a new reality, as a requirement to solving the problem of a world in which some are fully human while others are liminal. If we cannot identify that we create the division, we will continue to perpetuate a liminal category and all the discursive and material consequences that follow. Applying this to mission trips, there is, perhaps, much potential if participants link this growing awareness of a constructed social 178 reality to the challenges they seek to engage while on missions, as well as those they identify of home.
Defining Home
At the beginning of each trip, the missions staff go over a PowerPoint with information, such as behavioral expectations. One of the slides common across trips is a graphic that encircles the word “comfort zone.” A dot is placed outside the circle and is headed by the phrase “where the magic happens.” Mission trips as a pedagogical tool, are often premised on stepping outside of one’s comfort zone. Michael described this function of missions:
part of it is the development of teenagers and growing and pushing them outside of
their comfort zone so that they can encounter this experience. So, I think that's a
huge formative thing with so many layers to it from stepping outside of the family's
home to, like embracing independence, their own responsibility that you know, all
of those ranges of things. And then encountering people who do that a whole
different way.
Like Michael, many others viewed “comfort zone” and “home” as the same. Margaret characterized home as “comfortable… There's certain places where like you're like uncomfortable and it's just like, you know like when you come back home and you just feel like, okay, I can be all comfortable.” Sage, similarly, stated that if a place is
“uncomfortable, then it’s not actually home.” Generally, on mission trips, the comfort zone was negative, a logical conclusion since one of the points of mission trips is to leave
179 comfort, to leave home. In contrast, home, for many, is a sanctuary to which they can always return. While they recognize that home is imperfect, they rarely questioned whether or not home should be a place of comfort. Only one student, Nikki, directly referred to the comfort of home as negative. She compared home to “an open prison cell… because it’s comfortable and just because it’s familiar… But like outside the prison cell, you don’t know what’s there. So, it’s unfamiliar and it’s hard to get there.”
When reflecting further on the context of home, participants brought up several other common characteristics. In addition to comfort, home equates to sameness, and borders, two elements that most believed should be transformed. Often referred to as a
“bubble,” Pacific County has a definitive place in popular culture, especially media.
Supposedly filled with wealth, good weather, and conservative values, many participants spoke of living within such a bubble, and the need to get out in order to see beyond themselves. Miranda, a female junior on fall NART, spoke of how mission trips gave them opportunities to work with people different from themselves because they tended to group themselves around similarities, “our friend groups are made around people that have similar interests or similar attributes as us… [missions] give us like different opportunities to work with others.” During a breakfast in Taiwan, as all the chaperones ate together,
Ruth, a Calvary Lutheran mom, shared how difficult her experience was when her children were at the Lutheran feeder school. “The girls felt like they had to conform and all be the same.” Lizzy, who had similar experience with her own daughter, added that their space is
“too homogenous. In Pacific County, there’s a sameness.” Although the county is diverse in every demographic category and growing in its diversity, segregation is a reality and 180 many participants, intentionally or not, keep their home limited to those who are similar to themselves. They have, however, identified this pattern as a negative aspect of home, but one that will never change, I argue, if home is always to be a place of comfort and if the diversity they seek is only when they are abroad on mission trips.
During interviews, several participants alluded to the “sameness” of home as self- constructed. In using the terminology of “borders” and “walls” to describe the social reality of home, they also identified what needed to be deconstructed. To a certain extent, they recognize, in Wynter’s words, “the reality of our empirically being directly responsible for the ‘goods’ and the ‘bads’ of each such societal order” (p. 225), thus, “securing the non- opacity of our own agency and, with it, the full autonomy of the new order of cognition”
(p. 231). John took a broad view of the boundaries we create and the real consequences of their construction:
To create me, you know, “it's my home. It's my space, it's my kingdom. It's, you
know, who I am and all of that…” You have all these people doing this without
recognizing that that's all they're doing… “As long as I'm inside, I'm good.” So,
where do you put the boundaries? What justifies those boundaries as a Christian, as
a human, as an American, right? Well, killing people is wrong. “Oh, but if I'm doing
it for America, I'm inside the boundaries, which means I'm free. I'm free to send the
drones out because I've just created the boundary of well, it's for America.” Then it
justifies me to not have to feel guilty about it because within the boundary that I've
created and set up, I can go enslave these indigenous people because it's for the
good of blank. 181 Examining the boundaries of nation-states, John processed aloud how human beings
“unintentionally” erect walls that justify terrible actions. His conclusions mirror the propter nos of Sylvia Wynter (1995), the “we” on behalf of whom one collectively acts, as well as its flipside in which “we also normally experience no such altruism toward, or genuine co- identification with, those whom our founding origin narratives have defined as the oppositionally meaningful markers of otherness to the ‘us’” (p. 32). Like Wynter, John understands that when “we” “experience no such altruism,” the consequences for “them” may be horrifying.
Two students attributed these boundaries of home, specifically school and the groups formed, to human nature:
Violet: It's like once you establish it and like what people are your home. I think
it's just like in our nature to get very set on that, so like specifically for like friend
groups. I think like kind of like, okay I have my three friends, these are my people
and like no one's leaving, no one's coming in… I think like that's something I don't
like about… at least I see as a lot of at our school is like how it's very set stone,
almost kinda.
Esther: That home boundaries are set in stone?
Violet: Yeah, exactly. And like I think specifically like with friends or whatever…
like you’re forced to like… you have…
Margaret: Your core.
182 Violet: (nodding) And like even if that's comfortable and that's great, it's like
inevitably gonna hurt someone… [and it’s] not like an intentional like rude, but it's
just like kind of…
Margaret: Just like humans.
Violet: Like it just happened that there becomes like a separation between people…
So, I think like breaking down the barriers of a home is like everyone agreeing to
like make connections with people other than your people.
Like John, Violet and Margaret question whether or not these boundaries should remain and what they could do to break them down at home. Unlike John, however, student conceptions of borders at home were mostly limited to friend groups. The borders and ensuing injustices brought up by many of the teachers, historical, structural, and recent, were usually positioned by students as “far away.”
During an interview, Robert, a freshman, listed groups of people he believed were being marginalized, “like certain groups of people, whether it's their religion or their race or their gender are being left out in certain countries, in areas of the world.” Rather than drawing from his knowledge of the U.S.—of home—he pointed to “certain countries, in areas of the world.” Similarly, in discussions during a Missions class on citizenship, injustice was almost exclusively used in hypothetical situations posed by students and mostly with regards to religious persecution. “If the government outlawed reading the
Bible, then I would…” “If human laws went against God’s laws…” Or, students referred to historical injustices, usually those of Nazi Germany. To many students, injustice was physically and metaphorically far away. 183 In the classroom, students also brought up injustice at home through a comparative approach of, for example, socioeconomic class, which once again distances injustice. One student noted as a strength of the United States:
Even the low classes here still have the things for the most part that people across
the globe don’t have. So, I guess that’s one thing we have going for us is that we
pretty much guarantee a certain standard of life that many countries cannot even
come close to guaranteeing even for our lowest class.
By comparing standards of living in the U.S. with other countries, he leaves room to minimize the suffering of people within the U.S. when compared globally, and to prioritize suffering abroad over local issues. Mission trips abroad (domestic and international), fit within this schema of true suffering being outside the borders of home. They leave home to do good work where transformation is really needed. A return home means a return to comfort, a place that has complicated borders and challenges, but remains a place where one is embraced and comfortable.
During a small group discussion in Missions class, students brought up a school chapel service in which the speaker shared that the Bible verse, “go and make disciples” was originally “as you are going, make disciples.” Students in the same group applied her sermon to justify inaction at home:
I feel like there’s not always going to be things you need to help out with. But when
the opportunity is there you should do it… You don’t have to devote your life to
doing it but if there’s an opportunity to do it, you should.
184 These views might not be problematic to the issue of social justice and transforming society if students were able to identify injustice structurally, or locally. Yet, like Robert, another student described his ideal citizen as one who “travels to far places to aid people who are less fortunate” [emphasis added].
The hermeneutical function of leaving home, of crossing borders, may be to shake the foundations of students’ origin stories/ideologies by being in a space in which core concepts do not make sense, and where there is a counter cosmogony that can replace the dominant paradigm. However, no matter how shaken students may be, if they view home as disconnected from their experiences abroad, as a temporary experience that only lasts while they are physically present, many will hold tightly to the narrative schemas of home.
In part, the Paiute Reservation, Appalachia, Taiwan, are all “different” therefore, the expectation is difference. Counter cosmogonies, and counter narratives apply there, but not here at home. To an extent, this is a reflection of the respect for “others” that the program emphasizes. Rose, a female junior who is a consistent participant of mission trips, explained that the main lesson she learned in Missions class was to show respect for other cultures, a respect she defined as listening to their stories. Students constantly demonstrated this across all trips. When I asked Rose, “what happens after you listen,” however, she was unsure how to respond. There was no action or reflection beyond listening. A parent who had chaperoned every NART since the trip first began nine years earlier, likewise, spoke of the importance of listening to the stories of the Paiute, because “that’s what they wanted—for people to listen to their stories.”
185 Rose, the parent chaperone, and other participants, show a commitment to justice and building relationships across borders that many, including many scholars (myself included), rarely practice in action. Yet, there are unrealized possibilities from their commitment. As was clear in Taiwan, students did not often listen to learn. The connection, for example, between the injustices suffered and the subsequent work of indigenous communities in Taiwan with that of the Bishop Paiute was completely bypassed by teachers and students. The structural inequities of Appalachia as perpetuating poverty was observed by one parent chaperone who questioned why she could see that so clearly in Kentucky or a place like the Dominican Republic, but at home, she believed poverty was a choice. The challenges that Appalachians, Paiute, and Tsou face in their respective regions, have equivalents (or even sources) at home, yet those similarities are rarely seen. Given that so many students position injustice as “far away,” local missions or a study of structural inequities that apply across communities could aid in the ideological shifts that the parent chaperone in Kentucky began to think through.
Why was the parent chaperone able to observe this contradiction in her beliefs while most others did not? When students consistently engaged with the same “others” and over time, visiting the same space year after year, those like Brady and Zavier, and the parent chaperone, tend to experience an ideological shift. Brady identified that cultures are constructed, including his own. Zavier noted historical context as an important pedagogical choice by the missions teachers, which along with his growing relationships with members of the Paiute tribe, changed his perception of current indigenous issues. A second pattern emerged around the ability of students to connect injustices abroad with those of home. 186 Unlike many of the participants who located injustice as far away, students who themselves or their families had experienced oppression had little difficulty identifying similarities between two seemingly different spaces, though not always through mission trips. Race and racism, in particular, arose as an injustice of home, but one that is silenced by many classmates and teachers. Indeed, when students and parents defined home, its boundaries and areas in need of transformation, none, except students of color, spoke of race and racism. While class and gender are acknowledged as divisions that should be addressed, race and racism are almost completely obscured, negating and erasing the lives and stories of students of color. Therefore, Wynter’s “referent We” of Calvary Lutheran High School positions students of color as the “they/not us” or the liminal category.
187 Chapter Six: Wynter’s Liminal Category at Calvary Lutheran
RACE & RACISM
A combination of media rhetoric in 2016 and my own prejudices around conservative evangelical Christians, led to a rather foolish assumption that student religious identities would trump all other factors in shaping their political leanings. While some students expressed opinions reflective of inflammatory rhetoric making headlines (e.g.
“Hilary Clinton is evil”), the general pattern of student political beliefs within Missions classes in 2016 closely aligned with national statistics when considering race. Ninety-two percent of white students chose Republican candidates, while 64% of students of color chose Democrats (Lee, 2017). Although much of the research in education and religion, does not consider the racial identities of participants, Janelle Wong’s (2018) study as well as students and teachers from Calvary Lutheran, clearly show that race matters when considering evangelicalism and politics.
At Calvary Lutheran, students, not teachers first brought up issues of race and racism in 2016. During a small group discussion in Missions class in which students defined their “ideal citizens”, a white male student shared:
I feel like right now, it’s either you’re against each other in politics or you’re against
each other in race. Like all the Black Lives Matter… but it’s not all lives matter…
I wouldn’t use the word segregation… but like the separation between each other
is starting to become apparent.
188 Throughout all the small group discussions, diversity (specifically diversity of opinion) was explicitly brought up ten times. Three students referred to this diversity as a strength of the U.S., whereas the seven other times, such diversity was seen as a weakness, or a sign of society’s “broken[ness]:”
Teacher: How would you describe your current society
White Male Student: Broken.
Teacher: In what way?
White Male Student: Divided. Among people. Everyone has a different
worldview.
Most often, diversity as a weakness came up around the subject of politics and race. In another group discussion, a white male student initially referred to Black Lives Matter as a movement that exposes, “for everybody to see,” “the mistreatment of different races and… the prevalence of that in our society.” Yet, he went on to say,
but now everybody is seeing it and everybody’s developed an opinion on it and
that’s also something that’s tearing people apart. So, I just feel like we live in a very
opinionated culture and that leads to a lot of social stratifications that make it like
impossible for us to interact with some people.
While there was an acknowledgement of racial discrimination, the more concerning issue for many in the classroom, was unity, or social cohesion. Indeed, the value of
“cohesiveness and unity” in civic republican discourse (Knight Abowitz & Harnish, 2006, p. 658) was dominant in several small groups as conversation around the strength of diversity turned into a lament of the fragmented state of U.S. society. Unity and 189 fragmentation were also concerns when on missions, though in the context abroad, team dynamics and creating community with “others” was central. While on missions, fragmentation in terms of race and racism came up most explicitly while in Appalachia.
“For Her Safety”
Due to the larger numbers of students going on mission trips, the department would split everyone up into several teams. In Appalachia, Orange Team consisted of eighteen students, two Missions teachers, one parent chaperone, and me. Every evening we would gather in one of the dorm rooms to go over the next day’s schedule and to divide up the group for different jobs. For the most part, the students got on well with each other and any conflicts over job assignments were quickly resolved with almost every student yielding their preferences at one point or another. After our Saturday evening meeting, our teacher leader, Addison, pulled me aside and in low tones shared, “I’m putting Amina in your group to go to Manchester Baptist Church tomorrow… for her safety.” Unwilling to draw too much attention, I did not have a chance to ask for clarification. After interviews with several participants, I came to understand that amongst many Black students at Calvary
Lutheran, a story about the Appalachia missions trip was widely shared: that one of the churches they attended segregated the Black students during worship service. When Amina expressed concern about this to the Missions teachers, they were surprised, having never heard the story before, but they worked with the leaders at the site to ensure that she would attend a welcoming church. Sunday morning, we were treated to a Gospel trio in matching green blazers, followed by a Thanksgiving potluck at Manchester Baptist. The entire time,
190 I kept Amina in my line of vision, ready to step in if needed. The small congregation welcomed all of us and I saw members of the trio give her hugs as she joked with them.
While Amina was welcomed at the church, her interactions with young students in
Appalachia was quite different. She was excited to work with children as she “loves kids and they love me… usually. [But then] they would flinch whenever I reached out to them.”
Sitting with me at a welcome table for a day camp while making cutouts for students,
Amina continued to share that her parents were hesitant to allow her on this trip, fearful for her physical safety. Prior to arriving in Appalachia, I had been advised by people familiar with the region that as an Asian American, I would be a curiosity but physically safe.
Hostility, they explained, would be directed towards Black people. Amina and my experiences in Appalachia proved them very much correct. Yet, during an interview at
Calvary Lutheran after the trip, Amina reflected on the racism she experienced: “... even how it was on missions trips, like it even isn't... it's still bad over here too.”
RIDICULE & RACISM
In studying historical minstrel shows, Thomas Holt (1995) illuminates how “[t]he malaprop-prone slave preacher, the misplaced urban dandy, the unsophisticated slave or freedman were all characters… onto whom the anxieties of a working class in the making could be projected, laughed at, and thus somehow mastered” (p. 15). This same pattern, of ridicule as an expression of racism, was brought up by almost every participant of color in this study.
191 “Dissipating” Black Lives Matter
In 2016, Issa was the only student of color to directly reference Black Lives Matter during my time at Calvary Lutheran, and this was only during an individual interview. She spoke of her initial support for the movement, until “it kind of got taken as a joke.” As examples, she brought up memes, such as “plant lives matter” or “grass lives matter.”
Additionally, she described how Black Lives Matter became All Lives Matter at school, a process that, according to Issa, “dissipated the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement.”
She may have supported “the original idea of the movement, but where it’s taken or how it’s viewed now, I’m a little skeptical on whether or not I support it.” Issa’s engagement with Black Lives Matter and all lives matter echo Thomas Holt’s (1995) analysis of minstrelsy as a means of “sooth[ing] white anxieties… at the cost of reinforcing black stereotypes and institutionalizing racist ideas and images” (16). Except, replacing Aunt
Jemima and Uncle Ben, are “plant lives matter,” “grass lives matter,” and ultimately, “all lives matter,” setting the historical moment in which Issa had to make sense of her racial identity at Calvary Lutheran.
Social perception of Black Lives Matter clearly influenced Issa’s regard for the movement, yet when her classmates brought up the movement as divisive, she quickly jumped in:
I mean it’s like a snowball effect. And a lot of cases where it’s like, oh this idea
started on here and then people just took it and ran with it and it’s totally like gone
opposite ways… I know with like the ISIS thing, a lot of Muslims and stuff are
192 under attack and they’re kind of like, this isn’t our Muslim religion…it’s kind of
like the Christians of the crusades taking whatever they thought way too far.
In bringing up Muslims and ISIS, and Christians and the Crusades, Issa tried to draw attention to the original cause of Black Lives Matter (“racial issues”) before the movement was taken up by media and many of her classmates as a divisive issue or a joke. Rather than directly address race and Black Lives Matter, however, Issa referenced religious examples with which students would be familiar. Consideration of several contextual factors leads to a possible explanation. Throughout the two class periods, students showed a reluctance to talk about race and other “controversial” topics. One student claimed,
“we’re not very connected as a society with all these racial issues and rioting and all this controversy with… I’m not even going to get into politics so we’ll stop right there actually.” Issa as a senior may have developed an awareness of this tendency and understood that she would need to make her point in a subtler way. To add to this possibility, when I discussed initial findings with the Missions teachers at Calvary
Lutheran, they related that they would ask Issa specifically about issues of race but she would never share. It is very possible that Issa was “observ[ing] the safety of whites and...
[was] denied a space that promotes people of color’s growth and development” (Leonardo
& Porter, 2010, p. 140). Although my experience with Issa leads me to believe that her desire was to protect or shelter the feelings of her classmates and teachers, her observations of how Black Lives Matter was taken up at Calvary Lutheran also reveals an awareness of whose “safety” is prioritized.
193 “I Don’t Think Calvary Lutheran Is Ready For That”
Amina: I was on the board of the Black Student Union [at Calvary Lutheran High
School] and we faced like a lot of like, um, uprising from that. A lot of kids were
making fun of it and like, even… It was interesting to see how like a lot of people
were joking and signing up about it and like a lot of kids were like really angry
about that too… It lasted only for like a year because it… it was too much.
Esther: Too much pushback?
Amina: Well, not like pushback. It just was like… I don’t think Calvary Lutheran
is ready for that.
Esther: You were saying that people were kind of joking about it? Like signing up
to make fun of it?
Amina: Oh yeah. There was so many people, like 40 or 50 people signed up for it.
And a lot of like, kids were coming up, kind of like offended. “So, what does this
mean about white people? Like do white people matter?” and stuff. And I’m like,
“Oh…”
Amina: It was two meetings and it just like, it wasn’t… It wasn’t worth everything
we were going through if that makes sense.
What became clear as Amina and I spoke was the violence of ridicule. The students who took over the Black Student Union sign up list may have viewed their actions as a joke, but their efforts were an attempt to sever Amina from a core part of her identity, her Blackness and all the joy, pain, resistance, and complexity of that history. Similar to Issa moving away from Black Lives Matter as her white classmates turned the movement into a joke, 194 the success of white students shutting down the Black Student Union continues to deny space and shelter for students of color in order to assure perceptions of safety for white students. Amina understood in an interview that “you can do anything you set your mind to, but not really. But then kind of, and then like you also have to make the white people happy.”
Physical Violence
Peyton: It's like, even though I’m fifth generation of being Japanese in my family
or being fifth generation in the United States, but I still get… I still… I still… I still
got called squinty eyes. I still got told… I still got called… told those kinds of
things. I still got told that like I was a Jap… Yeah… I got told I was a jap.
It was December 7th… I was going up to talk to my friends and stuff and then a boy
ran past me and yelled at me, "slap a Jap!" … And I remember I went to my math
class and my teacher like sat us all down… And I remember when like before, like
we all sat down, there was like a boy that said to me, or he was talking to another
kid and he was telling the other guys "slap a jap" and he was making jokes, he was
like, “oh yeah, I'm like 1% Japanese.” And then like the kid, like obviously slapped
him, but like it wasn't hard. It wasn't hard, but like it still was like a slap. And then
at one point, one of my friends... So, one of my friends like sh-she heard about it.
And then she did… she slapped me.
I remember just going throughout the entire day, I was paranoid. I was… I was
afraid the entire day … I remember I was just so tense. I remember just like holding
195 my hands. I was shaking because I was so afraid. I was just sitting there. I was… I
was paranoid. I was afraid. I was just sitting there. I was just so petrified.
What made this instance even more unsettling for Peyton was that her middle school classmates knew of her family’s connection to the anti-Japanese sentiment and policies that led to the incarceration of her grandparents in California. Her grandmother had spoken to her classmates a few years earlier about her incarceration in Manzanar. Confused and fearful of drawing more attention, Peyton initially refused to tell her family what had happened, especially her grandparents who shared being called “Jap” as they were incarcerated:
I mean, I’ve been called squinty eyes before. I’ve gotten that before, and I’ve kind
of like, “okay, brush it off the shoulder” and “that’s just the way I am. I can’t fix
that.” But a Jap? And I just didn’t know how to tell [Nana] that. And I knew my
Nana was going to be so upset.
THE SCHOOL RESPONSE
Several named specific teachers and administrators either as sympathetic to their experiences, or as perpetrators of racism: Issa never shared her experiences of racism with teachers who asked; Amina listed teachers who were angry that the Black Student Union was allowed to use the Black Power fist as their symbol, pointing out that if teachers knew anything about history, they should have understood; Peyton brought up a teacher who initially would not allow her to represent Japanese American incarceration for her artwork on horror, even though “I did explain the story of what Manzanar was;” Jeremiah, an afro-
196 Latino senior, talked about being a “bad student” who would always get in trouble by his elementary teacher for bubbling in two races on standardized forms. That their experiences are often dismissed or are met with discipline or anger again clarifies whose safety is prioritized. Holt would connect these experiences and responses in the everyday to a macro level “design”:
the seemingly trivial act is often not so trivial, either in its real effects on people or
in its relation to the realization of more global and sinister designs. Indeed, it is the
power relations in which so-called trivial acts are often embedded that renders them
capable of damage. In this sense, the powerful will always have the upper hand in
defining and enforcing "correctness."” (Holt, 1995, p. 19)
Although he writes of how the application of the term “political correctness” renders issues of race and racism as “trivial,” his observations are still relevant for students of color whose pain is so easily dismissed, ignored, or labelled as offensive for the sake of “soothing white anxieties,” including those of individuals with literal power over them (i.e. teachers over students).
SHARED PAIN During interviews and informal conversations, both the students of color and I kept a certain distance from the stories we shared, often using humor and sarcasm to make light of rather dark moments. Yet, the pain still seeped through in the sentences that trailed off with a shrug, the broken eye contact as difficult memories were recalled and articulated, the growing anger as voices started to rise. As a former teacher at Calvary Lutheran, with
197 my own stories of racism, I may be overly sensitive to their experiences and hurt. Yet the label of being “overly sensitive” shares similar consequences with “political correctness” where pain from racism is trivialized. In my third year of teaching, a musical group from
South Korea performed during chapel at Calvary Lutheran. During a lull in the noise, a student called out, “ching chong!” Every memory of similar taunts, racial and linguistic, surfaced. An ignorant joke from a foolish high school student made me, at thirty-four years of age, want to cry. But that moment, in many ways, connects to Holt’s point. What gives such an inane joke impact is the history it carries, not just personal, but communal and structural, stretching back to the Chinese as the yellow peril, the Japanese Americans as enemy aliens, to every racist instance my parents endured, continuously marking those of
Asian descent as forever foreigners (Tuan, 1998). The pain then multiplies when all
(students and faculty) but one teacher either joined in laughter or said and did nothing.
For Wynter, the “global and sinister designs” (Holt, 1995) in which these everyday actions and responses, or lack thereof, are embedded, reinforces DuBois’ global color line by keeping in place the liminal category. As the liminal other against which whiteness and full humanity is defined, anytime Amina, Issa, Jeremiah, and even Peyton, attempt to assert their racial identities as equally important to those of white students or to bring light to their racialized existence, their movements would disrupt the structure of white supremacy at school since shifting as the “they/not us” requires the “we/not them” likewise to move.
Thus, it is unsurprising that among the participants in this study, not a single student of color who shared a story of racism could point to the person or group inflicting such violence, having faced consequences for their words or actions. Instead, students of color 198 carried the burden not only to protect themselves, but to make sense of what had happened on their own. Students like Jeremiah saw himself as a “bad student.” Peyton, fearful of more physical violence, kept the consequent paranoia and fear to herself, while Amina and
Issa both chose to cut themselves off from movements meaningful to themselves and their communities.
Through their different responses, Amina described what they all had in common, feelings of loneliness and isolation at school. Ultimately, as opposed to being abroad on mission trips, movement by the liminal category at home serves to disrupt the order of
Calvary Lutheran within “the sites where these stories and identities make sense”
(Yaganisako & Delaney, 1992, p. 2). Being within, or being home, reinforces the opaqueness of these structures, especially since they are auto-instituted from birth. I would generally state that teachers and classmates at Calvary Lutheran are not intentionally and knowingly upholding structures of white supremacy, especially when the norm of home, historically, has been that of whiteness with conservative “politics… not tempered by the presence of influential counterbalancing forces: liberal Jewish Democrats, organized workers, and vocal minorities” (McGirr, 2002, p. 13). When such counterbalancing forces are more and more present and vocal at home, as the changing demographics of Pacific
County show (Baldassare, 2018), another challenge must be considered. Peyton, speaking of her family’s history of incarceration, brought up the difficulty of unmooring the dominant origin story of home with a counter-narrative or cosmogony:
[The Chinese and Korean international students do chapels] talking about their
heritage and their stories of where they're from and what's happened there. But the 199 only difference with my story is the fact, first, I am not from Japan. I'm American
born. And the fact of the story… mine would be also including… like most of the
population in my school that are white. So, it'd be including them and myself, which
might be something that they might not want…
When counter narratives retain a distance from home, as they often do on mission trips or in the physical and metaphorical distance students place on injustice, complicity and responsibility are erased. Stories such as Peyton’s brings the complicity closer to home.
STUDENT RESPONSES
Speaking a Counter-Narrative
On spring NART, Peyton was randomly assigned to one of the teams going to
Manzanar. After a short orientation with two park rangers and the archeologist leading the excavation, we split off into smaller groups and met with another volunteer already working at the site. Most of the volunteers had some connection to Japanese American incarceration. One had been born at the hospital in Manzanar, and several others had parents who were incarcerated. The teachers and chaperones had encouraged the students from Calvary Lutheran to talk with the volunteers and to ask about their stories. Several chaperones took the lead when students seemed shy. As everyone began working—sifting dirt, digging, and removing the top soil—they showed a great deal of care and respect.
Peyton, however, worked around a foundation stone using a trowel with a preciseness that was noted by one of the rangers. When he knelt beside her, he told her she was working
200 like an actual archeologist. Before heading back to our campsite, our team spent some time at the visitor center exploring reconstructed barracks and looking at the list of names of those who had been incarcerated there. Peyton found her Nana’s name and pointed it out to us.
Later that day during our evening meeting, she stood in front of the entire group to share her “God moment.” Briefly describing the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and our work at Manzanar, she went on to explain:
The U.S. doesn’t want you to know these stories. But it’s my family’s history.
Teachers never teach it. The U.S. is embarrassed by it. They see it as a mistake. But
my Nana’s name is on the list. So now you’re aware.
Less than twenty-four hours later, and even a month after during an interview, Peyton had very little recollection of what she said at that evening meeting. What she recalled, however, was why she went up, despite her fear of speaking in front of 200 people. Just as her grandparents felt that God wanted them to share their stories no matter how painful,
Peyton felt that God was telling her to get up and tell her story.
Although divinely compelled, Peyton was not very hopeful of what could come of her efforts, assuming that most of her classmates would not care beyond the one question they might ask her, or the one week of being on missions:
It's like, it's like one of the things in the Bible, where it's the story of like the seeds
where the sower just throws out the seeds. Some of the seeds will grow and
[listeners] will have an interest and they might actually be interested in a future
class and like look into it or it's going to do other things. It can just sit there. They 201 might just ask questions about it when they're there, but then forget about it later.
Or they could ask me questions, keep interested for a little while, but then
eventually forget about it over time or something along those lines. Or they're going
to actually be really interested and invest their time to figuring out what actually
was it and how it happened and who did it.
Amina felt similarly to Peyton. Bringing up chapels where international students would share about their culture and experiences, she expressed frustration with how her classmates received the stories of others.
Amina: Like a lot of kids are like, “oh, I don't understand why we're doing…” Like
they just don't care. Really! They just don't get it!
Esther: And you would hear those remarks?
Amina: Um-hmm. And it's like… kind of like hurts a little bit.
Although many students of color spoke of the need to have stories of race and racism shared and acknowledged at Calvary Lutheran, they were also clearly aware that the most likely result for the storyteller would be pain—an effective means of erasing the liminal.
Choosing Silence or Quiet
After dinner one evening on NART, I sat with some members from the Paiute tribe on camp chairs, chatting about what was currently going on in their community. I showed them an article about Paiute culture and history that was written by a member of a different
Paiute tribe. One of the men, Sammy, read through the article on my phone, nodding, laughing, and calling out inside jokes to other members sitting with us. He and Rowan
202 added details that were missing from the article saying, “I’m telling you because you’re
Korean and like Koreans there are things you pass on only to your family. We don’t tell everything to white people.” I asked, “because they profit from it?” Rowan clarified, “They commodify it.”
Like Sammy and Rowan, several participants of color chose silence or self- censoring as their response when engaging with issues related to race and racism. During an interview on campus, Amina and I sat in Luke’s office with the door closed. His office has a window that opens to a larger office, with its own windows and a door leading to the
Missions classroom itself. While the larger office was empty, several students and teachers sat in the classroom. At one point she took out her phone to show me a social media post and email a classmate had sent to “the conservatives” of Calvary Lutheran, explaining,
It was so ugly. Like in the caption for the post was “Mujeres” and then everybody
like… it was awful. It was so combative and… like 20 people were liking each
comment and people were fighting back and forth about equality for women and
equality for all people in general, and how like one guy was like… he was one of
our Valedictorians. And he said, “Well, ya’ll white…”
Amina broke off mid-sentence and looked towards the classroom where others were working. She whispered, “I should be quieter huh?” Her question surprised me, especially since teachers had described her as “bold” and unafraid to talk honestly about race and racism. Yet even when in an enclosed office, and no one within hearing distance, Amina lowered her voice to a whisper whenever she brought up the racial challenges she faced at school: 203 One year, I had a really like um… Like a really um… I had like a really, really
Republican teacher. And like my grandpa was a Republican and everything, but
[the teacher] was like Republican with the ideals of like white Christian Republican,
if that makes sense. And like he would bring up stuff and I would be scared to like
speak in that class… If he had said something about being a Democrat, I don’t know
if people would have been as happy…
Amina clearly delineated conversations and spaces where she felt “safe” enough to be
“bold.”
For Issa, her learned ability to be “diplomatic” at school came up when I asked her why she responded to her classmates describing Black Lives Matter as divisive in the way she did (by using religious examples). The violence with which their Blackness is liminally bound at Calvary Lutheran, facilitated learned behaviors of silence and self-censoring that would protect them from further violence and pain.
MAKING SENSE OF WHAT’S HAPPENING: STUDENT THEORIES ABOUT
RACISM
Theology and Justice
As we made one of the long trips between Manzanar and our campground in
Bishop, Jeremiah talked about his senior research project and how he started with police brutality. “I watched all those videos and I thought, any of those men could have easily been replaceable by me.” When I asked if he had joined the Black Students Union, he
204 replied that he chose not to when he was asked because “what would be the message it was giving out? It’s not good to separate. We’re all human.” Theologically, he went on to explain during a morning devotional (a short message) that “suffering brings unity or separation.” And God, according to Jeremiah, wants us to be united. The suffering his community experiences from police brutality is an opportunity, then, to seek a closer relationship with God and with each other. For Jeremiah, his faith offers him hope, one that is similar to Wynter’s telos of one humanity. Yet there is a tension that emerges between his theorizing of suffering and faith with that of Issa’s.
Like Jeremiah, she acknowledges the injustice and suffering in the world, including those caused by racism. Where she diverges is her belief that “separations,” or divisions, are a cause not only a result, of suffering. She spoke of the 2016 presidential election as exposing the divisions that lead to oppression. Her faith, then, compels her not to center unity, but to “stand up” for those who are being “mistreated” just as Christ did.
Social justice is a big part of how I feel that the church should operate within
because I mean Christ not only preached the kingdom of heaven but I mean he
addressed issues of that time and I kind of feel that sometimes with the Christian
banner, we’re kind of like, “okay, yeah all of this stuff is happening. I’m kind of
set apart as a Christian. I shouldn’t get involved in the things that are happening in
the world.” And then we kind of all just watch it all kind of like, skip by… So… if
you see there’s a legitimate cause of someone getting mistreated, and as a Christian
your duty is to stand up for someone not just to say, “Oh okay it’ll all get figured
out in the end.” 205 According to Issa, social justice and full humanity are inseparable. Therefore, rather than suffering leading to unity, Issa, in an interview, understood the ultimate goal of unity, like
Wynter, will be realized when people are seen as “more than just labels… They’re actual people and we’re all more connected than we think we are.” Since separation is not the result of suffering, but suffering is the result of separation, Issa theologically stands with those who are separated by those with power, in the same way that Reverend Barber urges all Christians to stand with the marginalized.
“They just have to do it”: White laughter Trying to make sense of her experiences as a biracial Japanese American and white student, Peyton focused less on theology and more on understanding whiteness. She came to a realization when she told her story of being called a “Jap” to white friends:
They laughed… I feel like they're just going to laugh at it because they don't know
how else to react to it… So what they do when they don't know what to do with the
situation or the history that they are being told, they will laugh at it and make a joke
about it, so it will ease the tension so they don't have to worry about the big picture
of the scary story. So they try to ease into it, so it's not so scary and so they laugh.
And the thing is, I know they don't do it to like make you mad. They don't do it to
upset you… They're not doing it on purpose. I know they're not because I know
them. Like I know that they're not. But the thing is they do, I think, unintentionally
and without even thinking like it's almost like another sense to them and they JUST.
HAVE. TO. DO. IT.
206 Both Amina and Peyton conclude, similar to Holt, that in matters of race and racism, white anxieties are prioritized. For Amina, the priority is built into the structures of Calvary
Lutheran in which white students and teachers were ignorant of Black history and allowed to stifle the Black Student Union. For Peyton, the priority emerged in her interactions with individual white friends who centered their own unease by laughing at her experience of racial violence.
Michael Dumas (2014) writes of schools as a “site of Black suffering,” a place requiring that “social actors interpret and respond to that which hurts deeply, and yet makes no sense” (p. 5). Although he writes mainly of policy and reform, Dumas’ details of historical social trauma in school desegregation bears similarities to the everyday experiences of participant students of color in this study as they sought to make sense of racial violence. He points to the importance of a collective identity and collective recognition of loss in maintaining one’s humanity in the face of racial suffering and trauma.
For many, especially the Black students, the attempt to “exercise resistance in the face of their own collective suffering” (p. 10) was generally disciplined in the school space, and instead most often found expression in their churches.
Church As Shelter
Robert, a white male freshman, sat between me and another chaperone for five hours while we drove home from Bishop. Friendly and talkative, he had no problem sharing all about his life, including how much he admired his Bapu, his grandfather. I was taken aback when he began using Greek terms to talk about his family. With bright red hair, pale
207 skin, and blue eyes, my assumption was that he was of Irish or Scottish origin. Laughing, he explained that not all Greeks have dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin, “it depends on what region you’re from.” As a Greek Orthodox adherent, Robert spoke of his church as being one of the only places where his ethnicity is not questioned, “they wouldn’t think anything of it.” “Mainly at school,” people would make comments about his ethnicity, often bringing up leprechauns because of his red hair. With so many assumptions based on clear racial and ethnic delineations at school, students who either blur those lines, or exist within the liminal category, often find affirmation of their identities and/or shelter from racial violence at church.
Lauren, an Egyptian American student, spoke often about the importance of her church in her life. An Egyptian Coptic, church for Lauren is a place, unlike Calvary
Lutheran, where she can freely speak Arabic, and would not be asked, “hey did you come to school on a camel today?” Looking around the campus where we had our final interview,
Lauren shared,
I've noticed like there are people that are from different places but they ignore it
almost. So they act… not that they act very white, but their families are
“whitewashed,” we call it. And so it's weird cause like they kind of like ignore that
part of them, where I don't. So that's why it's also weird cuz like I see these people
that like might be going through the same thing [racism], but they're choosing not
to. Like they don't want anything to do with it. So I don't want that. I like being
Egyptian. I like speaking Arabic.
208 She explained that when she was younger, she wanted to fit in, “to be American. I didn’t want to be Egyptian cuz for a long time, I thought that was different and weird.” At school, in particular, Lauren felt the difference. Eventually, however, Calvary Lutheran became a place strictly for academics. The source of her social life, her faith, and her identity all began to come from church, a place where she would not have to cut herself off from her culture or language. Gesturing to the campus, Lauren explained, “like here I'm different, but at church I'm not.”
Amina spoke of her non-denominational church as a similar space, one in which “I don’t have to be the token Black girl there, where like at Calvary Lutheran sometimes I do.” Issa’s church is likewise one in which her experiences as a Black woman are acknowledged, and faith becomes a source of action and hope in light of those experiences.
Theologically, Issa is a Seventh Day Adventist and attends a suburban church with a Black pastor and a predominantly Black congregation. One of the core beliefs of her denomination is Sola Scriptura which the church defines as “the Bible as the only standard of faith and practice for Christians” (Seventh Day Adventist: Beliefs). In linking social justice to her Christian faith, Issa draws upon the Bible as her source, specifically, the
Gospels and their accounts of Jesus’ ministry on Earth where “he addressed issues of that time.” In the words of her pastor:
There is a huge chunk of something missing from our Christianity today. And it is
this complete and total view and work towards dealing with those who are
historically disenfranchised and oppressed in the here and now. We cannot escape
that. That is the religion of Jesus… and the reason that Blacks were able to accept 209 that, was that they saw themselves in that picture and saw Jesus did no kick them
to the curb. (Kelly 2017)
The pastor goes on to situate this claim in Luke 7 and “one of the most difficult experiences in America—being a Black woman.” For Issa and her pastor, their theology is not separate from their racial identity. In contrast, Calvary Lutheran is the space where she witnessed the ridicule of racial injustice. She expanded on such experiences, explaining, “whenever you’re a minority group you’re going to feel walking into whatever situation that you’re in, that you are the minority group.” No matter how welcoming some may have tried to be, Issa recounted the “snide side comments” and microaggressions she endured, even from friends.
Re-Writing Stories
Holt (1995) offers a potential method to bridge the individual and the structural when he reminds us to uncover how structures function and hide at the micro level, for “it is precisely in the everyday that one encounters lived contradictions and contingencies” (p.
11). He suggests that “one appropriate response would seem to be to rewrite the stories, to expose to searching scrutiny the insidious content and injury of the jokes, songs, and anecdotes, to provide the means for people to think of themselves ‘otherwise’” (p. 18).
Wynter would agree with Holt, that a re-writing of the story must be done by the liminal category, whose shifts will unmoor every other category defined against the liminal. She would add, though, that the re-written story must not only expose but de-legitimate the dominant origin story. In the context of Black Lives Matter becoming “plant lives matter”
210 or “all lives matter,” Issa struggled to “rewrite” the story; Amina’s efforts with the Black
Student Union, likewise, were violently shut down by white students and teachers. Peyton, who managed to share a re-written story of Japanese American incarceration, shared a cynicism that her story would not take root in transforming the school, observing that when white people are made complicit in these stories of injustice, “they might not want that.”
Perhaps then, rewritten stories are not only a “means for [students such as Issa, Amina, and
Peyton] to think of themselves as ‘otherwise,’” but must also de-legitimate the stories that enable white students and teachers to distance themselves from current injustice and to enact racial violence on classmates and students without any fear or consequences.
211 Chapter Seven: Implications & Conclusion “A Cristo Crucificado” “To Christ Crucified” No me meve, mi Dios, para quererte I am not moved, my God, to love you el cielo que me tienes prometido; by the heaven you have promised; ni mi mueve el infierno tan temido nor am I moved by fear of hell para dejar por eso ofenderte. to leave off offending you for this. You move me, Lord; I am moved to see you Tú me mueves, Señor; muéveme el verte Nailed to a cross and ridiculed; clavado en una cruz y escarnecido; I am moved to see your body so wounded; muéveme vert u cuerpo tan herido; I am moved by your mistreatment and your muéveme tus afrentas y tu muerte. death. Muéveme, en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera, Your love, at last, moves me in such a fashion que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara, That though there were no heaven, I would y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera. love you, No tienes que me dar porque te quiera; And though there were no hell, I would fear pues aunque cuanto espero no esperara, you. lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera. You do not have to give me anything so that I would love you; For though I might not hope as I do hope, I would love you the same as I do love you.
There is a strand in the history of Christianity (not the church, but the faith) that can be traced from the Bible to historical documents during the reign of emperor Julian, through various Catholic orders, and into current expressions of Christianity, that holds at the center of the Christian faith a God who cares deeply for justice and has a heart particularly for the poor and the marginalized. Adherents of this Christianity tend to converge on a Gospel message that has Jesus Christ as one who eschewed power to live among the marginalized of the Roman Empire.
This origin story, told poetically by an anonymous Spanish Catholic in the 16th century, is one that became evident throughout this study when three participants, two white and one Black, who challenged racism, spoke out against white supremacy, or
212 reflected honestly on their racial and class privilege, pointed towards a personal God who came as the marginalized for the marginalized.
As with biblical interpretation, however, how this story is taken up and expressed varies by community, and by individuals. While some participants see a God who came as the marginalized to be with the marginalized, most see a God who came as the marginalized so that they need not be marginalized themselves. Instead, they are the center, where love, stability and power are secured against anything or anyone who would seek to shift their position. Any threat to the center is one that is viewed as an attack against God who is the
“extra-human agent” responsible for the space and its order. As Wynter (2015) makes clear,
The projection of each sociogenic code’s original source onto extra-human agents
thereby serves as the indispensable function of the stabilization of that specific
code, whose positive/negative, symbolic life/death system of meanings – once
correlated with and, thereby, activating of the biochemistry of the natural-opioid
system in its genre-specific terms – is transformed into a living entity as “words-
made-flesh.” (p. 227)
Thus,
the uniquely Western- bourgeois cum homo oeconomicus member-class form of
this uniquely human imperative is that of also making opaque to ourselves the
reality of our collective human Agency with respect to the formation, cognition,
and replication of the planetarily extended cum globally incorporated, now neo-
Liberal world-system societal order into which we – whether originally Western or
westernized, thereby secular or non-secular – are all now both bio- 213 cosmogonically/sociogenically encoded and thereby empirically incorporated. (p.
230)
Whether or not there is a “big-T Truth” as teacher Dan discussed during an interview, the ideology that undergirds and upholds our social reality is a human-made construction, especially if one holds to a theology of free will. Yet this ideology and the constructed nature of the social order are obscured from view as the narratives that surround us weave together our understanding of what is naturally (e.g. “selected/dysselected”) and divinely
(i.e. “extra-human”) ordained.
A SUBJECTIVE UNDERSTANDING OF PACIFIC COUNTY Specific to Pacific County, expressions of homo oeconomicus are doubly reinforced as what is natural and divine come together in “worldly success.”
Conservatives in Pacific County enjoyed the fruits of worldly success, often worked
in high-tech industries, shared in the burgeoning consumer culture, and participated
in bureaucratized world of post-World War II America. Their mobilization, then,
was not a rural “remnant” of the displaced and maladapted but a gathering around
principles that were found to be relevant in the most modern of communities…
Indeed, an exploration of this movement highlights the dual nature of modern
American conservatism: its strange mixture of traditionalism and modernity, a
combination that suggests the adaptability, resilience, and, thus perhaps,
intractability of the Right in American life. (McGirr, 2002, p. 8)
214 The historical context of the worldly success of many in Pacific County, added with a religious lineage that includes the Protestant work ethic and the prosperity gospel, supports the maintenance of traditionalism and ideologies such as meritocracy and individualism.
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod likewise shares some of these characteristics as the traditions and history of the denomination, steeped in traditionalism and whiteness, maintain economic and political survival in the modern day.
The American conservatism described by McGirr also emerges historically and currently in Pacific County through a narrative of the self, where “the largely white-collar, educated, and often highly skilled women and men who embraced right-wing politics saw their own lives and the flowering communities where they made their homes as tributes to the possibilities of individual entrepreneurial success” (McGirr, p. 8). Thus, when a parent chaperone sees an individual who is homeless at home, she confessed that she judges them by thinking, “I made it here. I work hard. Why can’t you?” Yet, when outside the physical borders of an origin story, in this case, in Appalachia, participants not only began to see the constructed nature of home, but some began to question the legitimacy of an origin story that reifies meritocracy and obscures the structural aspects of poverty. When that same parent chaperone was offered a different narrative in Appalachia, she began to question her lifelong belief that poverty in Pacific County is a choice.
Once home, however, the structures and mechanisms that uphold and are upheld by the origin story, seem to lock back into place. The boundaries around male and female, masculinity and femininity, socioeconomic classes, and race, are maintained. As seen with
215 the violence enacted upon students of color, at home those who step outside those boundaries, or those who question them, are disciplined into silence and resignation.
“SOME MORE RACIST THINGS” —RACISM AT THE MACRO LEVEL
Ashton and Jeremiah sat on a large log, turning their faces up to the sun as they dried off from a cold shower following a long and dusty day at Manzanar. As they waited for the rest of their team to finish washing up, Ashton, a white male freshman, brought up a recent snapchat screen shot that had gone viral. Students from several schools in Pacific
County, including Calvary Lutheran, had made a swastika out of red party cups. As students posed for the photo, several held up their arms in the Nazi salute. Although
Calvary Lutheran was not named in the media as one of the schools involved, students were well aware that their classmates were a part of the photograph. Jeremiah began to explain what he thinks happened at the party. “Probably a guy who’s cool said, ‘hey it would be funny if...’” He gestures with his hands to indicate an imagined table with party cups. “And everyone thought, ‘oh, he’s cool.’ So even if they didn’t want to, they didn’t say anything.” Joining their conversation, I asked, “isn’t it funny we all assume it was a guy?” With absolute confidence, Ashton expanded, “it was a white guy.” Jeremiah agreed with a snort.
Not only were Ashton and Jeremiah certain that the instigator at the party was a
“white guy,” they were also confident that such occurrences were common. The four students who brought up the snapchat were unsurprised and with a shrug might describe
216 the photo as “some more very racist things that just happened recently.” Yet one also referred to the incident as a “wake up call” for many at Calvary Lutheran.
A Subjective Understanding of the LCMS For many of the teachers and students, the spaces they were born into and raised in, especially those within the LCMS denomination, are predominantly white, stretching back to their family’s immigration from Germany or Scandinavia in the nineteenth century through their private Lutheran schooling from preschool through college, and teacher certification, in addition to their home churches. While at Concordia Middle School in
Taiwan, John and Dan, both members of LCMS, spoke about their own schooling and the community they were able to build when they would see their teacher at both church and school. During their reminiscing, I was reminded of Gloria Ladson-Billings The
Dreamkeepers (2009), and specifically Elizabeth Harris, the teacher who invited her students to her Sunday school classes. To a certain extent the teachers of John and Dan’s memories run parallel with the pedagogy of Elizabeth Harris, however, the comparison felt unsettling. While both the Lutheran teachers and Elizabeth Harris foster community, the communities that are fostered have different histories in which privilege and access must be considered. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod denomination has the largest percentage of white membership of all Protestant evangelical denominations in the United
States—95% with 59% identifying as Republican and 52% as conservative (Pew, 2015).
Although growing somewhat in racial diversity in recent years, the overwhelming whiteness of the congregation stretches back to the late nineteenth century, when Black
217 Lutheran membership declined significantly due to racism: “to say that black Lutherans
‘disappeared’ after the Civil War is not correct. They were either asked to leave Lutheran congregations or were summarily put out” (Granquist, 2015). More recently, in Baltimore, one pastor of a Missouri Synod church points to his own church’s history and the “mistakes many congregations [make]—favoring its cultural identity over its spiritual one—when it chose in 1954 to move from West Baltimore to Catonsville, rather than stay in place and continue to tend to its surrounding community” (Pitts, 2017).
The racial segregation of many churches and denominations have a variety of roots, for example in language needs, racism, residential segregation, and so on. While a number of students of color refer to their more racially monolithic churches as a place of shelter, no participant who goes to a predominantly white church, referred to the demographics of the congregation. For most, it seems that there is a lack of awareness, not only to the whiteness, but also the effect the whiteness may have on others. During interviews with
John, he spoke several times of being the stereotypical Lutheran white male who had a hard time understanding that his experience is different from those of others. At our final interview, he brought this up again when I mentioned the unease I often felt as one of the few non-white teachers at Calvary Lutheran.
John: It makes me more mindful of my colleagues and in what I’m projecting to
them and I’m portraying to them. And you know.
Esther: I don’t think it was like a projection that people gave…
John: Yeah. No, I know what you’re saying. But I think even… not that we’re
projecting it per se, but how could I be… And again, look at most teachers on this 218 campus. What demographic are we, so… That’s not necessarily to say that
anybody’s doing anything but because of who I am, I’m going to see this a certain
way. I’m creating it or I’m seeing that way because of that and I think that again,
people have this mentality of like, “well, I shouldn’t have to change who I am. I
shouldn’t have to do anything different…” If you love people and you want certain
things, why wouldn't that be your goal? Why wouldn't that motivate you to at the
end?... Stop worrying about it changing who you are or threatening everything
about you.
As John points out, when issues of race and racism, or of multiculturalism, are brought up, there are many who feel personally threatened. This aligns with the dominant paradigm expressed in the treasure hunt stories that center the individual self with “others” acting as vessels for God’s communication and blessings. When the story either de-centers the self or whiteness, or positions or hints at the self or whiteness as complicit in injustice, participants often feel threatened, as many teachers and students did by the formation of the Black Student Union.
Counter Narratives and Dominant Paradigms
As many students of color shared, ridicule was a common racist expression of teachers and students who felt threatened. Silence and non-engagement, however, were likewise evident both in and outside the classroom on all sides. In response to video- recorded counter narratives on civic identity and agency told by people of color, several students expressed a newfound awareness of multiple perspectives and the constructed
219 nature of identity, but they and nearly all their white classmates, showed reluctance to engage with the personal narratives of people of color.
Exposure to counter narratives as examples of multiple perspectives shows a potential approach to addressing the constructed nature of identity before conversations about privilege and empathy take place. In the first whole class discussion during a
Missions class in which students heard different views of citizenship, one student commented, “this is where it becomes like a complete mind blowing thing. Is that nobody’s ideal citizen is going to be exactly like someone else’s because it’s completely subjective to your experiences and your life so far.” Other students echoed his revelation. However, almost all students seemed unwilling to engage directly with teacher and researcher selected counter narratives from a South Asian-American female, and a Black-Filipina-
American female. While students most likely needed more time to process these narratives, they were much quicker to challenge or affirm the selected narratives from a white male, and a white female. Similarly, the one time a non-white classmate shared a personal story around a racialized topic—undocumented immigration, white students appeared uncomfortable, and moved quickly to a different subject without acknowledging what their classmate shared. Essentially, “race, as a word, was uttered in these classes, however, structural examination of race (and its use as an explanatory lens in history) was not present” (Chandler & Branscombe, 2015, p. 79).
Instead of racism, many students pointed to general divisions exposed and exacerbated by the 2016 presidential campaigns, as well as to the media coverage of Black
Lives Matter. This concern with a divisive society was concurrent with a concern for the 220 ways individuals like “labeling people because we can’t understand differences or we can’t understand things that don’t make sense to us,… so we’ve created a whole system that’s honestly incorrect because it doesn’t work.” Two small groups separately discussed the problems of judging individuals based on one characteristic—usually religion or political affiliation. Kristin, a white female senior explained:
… someone says “Oh I support Trump” or “Oh I support Hillary,” and you put them
in a box… like there’s actually been a big separation I feel this election and it’s
kind of scary to watch… the human mind likes categories and orderliness and we
like to put people in our little boxes and keep them confined but none of us fit in
there. So I feel like maintaining love for one another and keeping in mind our
differences that one person can be pro-life and Christian or atheist and like, not
support gay rights, or Christian and support gay marriage. There are so many
different viewpoints. I feel like, this is so cheesy, but only God can judge.
Throughout her small group discussion, she clearly took issue with the judgments and labels assigned by both the political right and the left as well as the co-opting of religion by both sides. The entire discussion ended with her stating, “that’s something [judging others] I’m definitely trying to work on.” Their attention and efforts that focus on bettering themselves as citizens, or Christians in the world are laudable and necessary, but this once again centers the self while erasing “others” who are affected not only by their actions, but by the structures and institutions we all live within. Individual reflection is integral, but without an awareness of the institutions or structurally embedded ideologies that allow for injustices or for discursively created labels, there may be efforts to be understanding of 221 others and their differences, but little effort to understand why these differences (real and discursive) often lead to the material disparities they witness, including those reproduced by racism.
Like several of her other classmates, Issa acknowledged “different viewpoints”; however, unlike the majority of her classmates, she affirmed perspectives based on one’s race: “I think that’s one of the things I’ve been blessed with especially going to Calvary
Lutheran, with people that don’t look like me, just getting to understand their point of view, whether its Caucasian, whether it’s Asian, whether it’s Mexican.” In contrast, during classroom discussions, most students were very reluctant to discuss race or to engage with narratives that centered race. Yet, when an interview with Issa focused on moving beyond racial labels, she described the Missions class as a space that somehow unified students despite differences:
Issa: … Just understanding where they’re [classmates of other races] coming from,
whether they come from a Christian background and just understanding that they’re
more than just labels but they’re actual people and we’re all more connected that
we think we are.
Esther: Right. Do you feel like that’s something that’s also been extended to you
from them?
Issa: I do feel like that. Especially within Missions. I don’t know. Like when I first
entered the culture of Missions, I was… just to see so many different people get
along as Christ wanted us all to get along. I mean that just kind of floored me a little
222 bit. I was like, “Oh wow. These aren’t just students here, they’re my friends, my
brothers, these are my sisters…”
One question that arises from this exchange, considering patterns of student engagements with “others” on mission trips, is if this sense of unity and the ability to “get along” could be strengthened or at least deepened, if racial and structural issues were centered.
Silences, Absences, & Non-Engagement
In a post-class debrief of a classroom observation, one of the teachers noted that when a Latina student shared her personal experience regarding immigration and citizenship, her white classmates did not acknowledge her story and moved on to a different topic. While this avoidance of conversations around race and racist structures in the classroom could serve to maintain a level of perceived harmony, how might this lack affect both white students and students of color? When the experiences and narratives of different racial groups are unacknowledged, erased, or marginalized, students of color perceive that they and their stories do not matter. Kohli’s (2014) case study revealed that the internalization by teachers of color, of implicit and explicit racism and silencing during their K-12 education, manifested in shame, loss of ethnic culture, and the desire to be white.
Further, the repercussions of silencing multicultural narratives (or education) from students
“create environments where not only are white students miseducated, but students of color feel as if their very identities are under attack” (Au, 2009, pp. 84-85). During an interview,
Lauren described how other students of color would cope with these attacks, by
“whitewashing” themselves or silencing what makes them different: “they ignore that part
223 of them.” Similarly, when Peyton was recently invited to share her family’s connection to
Manzanar with the entire school during chapel, she intentionally chose to leave out elements that explicitly reveal structural racism. Given her experience with racial violence, as well as the concern she expressed in an interview—that white students would not want to hear a story in which they are complicit—Peyton’s silence is understandable.
Still, Peyton’s willingness to openly blame the U.S. government and school curriculum and to speak honestly about her experience at Manzanar while on the trip itself, reveals the Missions program as having created a space where students of color are more willing to share their stories than they are in the general school space. In turn, several participant teachers demonstrated nuanced awareness of how race and racism functions in
Missions class, though perhaps not always in the school. In describing the Missions class unit on race, racism, and privilege, Michael observed a pattern beyond white male students being the most resistant:
Esther: What was the feedback from your students of color?
Michael: We found in some of our students of color that they also wanted to… to
deny the existence of it, which... I can understand. So sometimes it was questioning
like, “why are we doing this?” Like, “why are we breaking out this pain?” Like,
yeah, that's pain. I think there were brief… moments of freedom for some of them
too, where they could finally say some of the things that their life looked like that
nobody else had. Um, it was different based on which ethnicity or culture they came
from. Very, very different. Um, and so that was all trying... to navigate what was
also diverse. Trying to understand it all... 224 Esther: Can I ask… were your Asian American students mostly not wanting to
talk about it?
Michael: Exactly. They, and it was almost like, they didn't know that there was
anything to talk about. And I read multiple articles on that dynamic and listened to
people speak on that dynamic and... I don't know, kinda got the sense that if they're
not bearing the brunt of the oppression or whatever, they're just going to keep their
mouth shut and stay out of whatever that conflict is. And if they can still like make
it through and make it right, like make do with whatever is happening, then they
can... Just kind of step back from it.
Not only did Michael pay close attention to how students were engaging with the lesson, but he also did the work of researching and listening to others who have a better understanding of patterns he saw. In general, the Missions program faculty have shown a willingness and a sense of responsibility to do this work for the sake of all their students, but also because they strive to follow the life of Christ who was marginalized for the marginalized. When describing her journey to a growing consciousness around race in the
U.S., Michaela, another missions teacher outlined the history of oppression perpetrated by white communities, empires, and institutions, ultimately stating that those actions are the opposite of what God desires: “looking at the way that white people have done that
[oppressed others] throughout history and realizing oh that's, that's not okay… That is like wait, no, that's the exact opposite of what I believe God's heart is.”
In giving special consideration to the absences, silences, and non-engagements of students, teachers may identify underlying ideologies that constrict our empathy when 225 presented with counter narratives and engagement with “others.” While participant teachers have begun these efforts in their own classrooms, addressing these same issues in the larger school structure have not been visible. Like the experiences of student angst and resignation with gender issues on campus, a lack of awareness or response by teachers and administration ultimately leaves students without closure, hope for meaningful change, or feelings of safety and care. This emerged vividly multiple times since the presidential election of 2016.
In 2018, an email written by the senior class president and former ASB president, addressed to “my fellow Calvary Lutheran conservatives” was circulated throughout the school. In response to a school sanctioned prayer planned by students in solidarity with the
March for Our Lives movement, they urged their classmates,
do not give these liberals what they want. People dress up like clowns at Calvary
Lutheran and go to these weekend protests because they stand for nothing but being
a victim of nonexistent issues in society today… The liberals will be wearing
orange tomorrow. Let’s all wear red/white/Blue and trump gear to honor this
beautiful country that we love. We hope that we are all on the same page and that
we can take a stand against them together.
Amina described what ensued as “probably that was one of the ugliest days… the outrage of people wearing orange and then everyone else wearing like Trump stuff at our school.
It was like… it was ugly.” Shaking her head, Amina continued, “they were like… they went all out… they like brought NRA flags and stuff. It was so ugly. I was like okay, that’s like not even respectful.” She explained that the two students who sent the email, “didn’t 226 even get in trouble for it,” comparing their freedom to the censorship she faced as a writer for one of the school journals.
The original plan by “liberals” was to join the nationally planned walkout protesting gun violence. However, under pressure from the executive board, school administration rescinded permission for the walkout and instead agreed to a prayer at the flagpole. When
I asked several participant teachers about the planned prayer and “trumpout,” several were not aware of what had happened, while others, even those who have consistently allied with students of color, dismissed the event as inconsequential. Such a response, together with the actions of administration, revealed to students that what Amina described as “the conservative, the white-like mentality,” is the acceptable norm, no matter how it manifests, nor by whom. Amina recounted the day of the inauguration:
Amina: A lot of teachers would play it on over, on the, oh my gosh, I watched it
like five times in all of my different classes. The inauguration.
Esther: Did they talk about it or did they just show it?
Amina: No like they were like, “Oh yeah it's a great day in history,” and they're
showing it, the inauguration, all over. Every single class I went to, they played it.
And then when we went outside the minute, like after, I'll never forget, everyone
was like cheering and screaming and all this stuff. I was like… it just is like a really
interesting day. Where I was like, “okay, it's kind of like a lonely day” I think.
The repeated showings of the inauguration, and especially the caption, “it’s a great day in history,” regardless of political orientation, was tremendously violent to students whose identities were attacked by the president and whose lives, and the lives of loved ones in the 227 U.S. would become endangered. Issa, in specifying the Missions program as the space best suited to talk about race and racism, and Peyton, in censoring herself when speaking to the whole school, clearly shows the necessity of applying the same sensitivity and efforts to examining the silence of students with marginalized identities, as well as the silence of the school in addressing violence enacted upon their students. Regardless of the safety some students may have perceived in certain classes or with specific teachers, they cannot leave their memories of violence at the door when they enter those “safe spaces” at Calvary
Lutheran. As with participants, who must broaden the “we” in origin stories that center the self to the detriment of “others”, teachers must widen their reflections on justice and faith to include the structures within which their classrooms and programs function.
Theology as Ideology
Theologically, an origin story that centers the self manifests as an emphasis on individual choice or shortcomings to explain the social reality of the world, and a corresponding focus on solutions to suffering that emphasize individual actions such as being kind. Although some may refer to the developmental stages of adolescents to explain this self-centeredness, the same focus is obvious in the dominant theology of the region.
Rick Warren (2002) and Francis Chan offer similar answers when urging their congregants and readers to live a truly Christian life with the following admonitions: “open the door for others, pick up a piece of trash… or [be] polite toward a clerk or waitress” (pp. 54-55).
Such a narrative schema, in which the dominant paradigm centers the individual self, is in danger of blindness to structural inequities as understanding of such must be preceded by
228 the knowledge that there are individuals, communities, and experiences beyond the self.
An author beloved by many participants, C.S. Lewis (1952), writes of the necessity of both self-reflection and a perspective beyond the self:
You can get the idea plain if you think of us as a fleet of ships sailing in formation.
The voyage will be a success only, in the first place, if the ships do not collide and
get in one another's way; and, secondly, if each ship is seaworthy and has her
engines in good order. As a matter of fact, you cannot have either of these two
things without the other. If the ships keep on having collisions they will not remain
seaworthy very long. On the other hand, if their steering gears are out of order they
will not be able to avoid collisions. (p. 71)
Martin Buber (1970) proposes a similar theology that perhaps bears a closer resemblance to Wynter’s fully human and liminal categories. For Buber, without an “I-Thou,” relationships become “I-It.”
During observations of the Missions class, discussions revealed an origin story of the self when students tended to blame human failings (especially “selfishness”) for institutional problems. Overall, they expressed a common assumption in the positive or benign qualities of structures such as capitalism or liberal democracy. One student, for instance, claimed, “the best thing in America is capitalism.” Another student shared, “if we were all working together for the common good, there wouldn’t necessarily be that selfishness within so many different things and there wouldn’t be corruption in the systems.” Some students even viewed the institution of government as ordained by God to corral sin: “God created government for keeping people from sin running rampant.” 229 For many of these students, a theological focus on sin as “specific sinful Action”
(Southall, 2008, p. 99) or “individual acts” (Croasmun, 2017, p. 13), such as “being selfish” doubly reinforces (along with meritocracy) a reification of the individual over the structural. For instance, when Black Lives Matter came up in one small group discussion, a white female student refuted issues of inequity brought up by the movement, “Jesus… he trumped that on the cross. For all.” Theologically, her statement points to a belief in Jesus’s death and resurrection as both sanctifier and equalizer. Not only is inequity a sin against
God only, but inequities “for all” have been overcome (i.e. “trumped” not “trumps”).
Within such a theology, racism is an individual act of sin, not an “institutional concretion”
(Wink, 1984, p. 107) of sin or spiritual powers. According to Emerson & Smith (2000), this pattern is common among white evangelicals: “Rather than integrate their faith with knowledge of race relations, inequality, and American society, they generally allow their cultural constructions to shape one-dimensional assessments and solutions to multidimensional problems” (p. 171). While Emerson & Smith point out the possibility that students separate their faith and their knowledge of injustice, the theology and origin story of many students reinforces citizenship that ignores race, racism, and other injustices created and supported by the boundaries around fully human and liminal. When the self is at the center of ideology and the ideology sustains itself by keeping the self at the center, then a theology in which sin is an individual act against God fits within that logic.
Engagement with “others” within such an origin story emphasizes making the
“other” familiar by determining how the “other” is like me, thus I can easily extend my definition of “we” to encompass them. When the “other” is too different, however, or when 230 they publicly claim that part of them that is different, that their experiences as Black,
Latina/o(x),1 Arab American, Asian American, female, or poor students does not fit within the paradigm of what is considered “fully human” at home, their stories are changed or silenced. Theologically, this is done, though perhaps without intention, by shifting time and space and relegating a more encompassing “we” to the afterlife having “planted the seed.” Home and abroad never connect, and so spatially, the world that participants claim
“God so loved” (John 3:16, NRSV), continues to be bounded by race, nation-state, county, school, Christian, not Christian.
LEARNING FROM BORDERS & BORDER CROSSING
As a community, participants navigated multiple borders at home and abroad, and as insiders and outsiders. Each crossing revealed ideologies that are conscious, unconscious, or unfolding, with those of home seemingly “set in stone.” School structures, especially around discipline, uphold gender norms, white supremacy, and conservative politics. Although a variety of students question these ideologies, they are either disciplined into silence or they learn to adapt. Unlike NART, the structures of Calvary Lutheran lack any awareness of ethno-racial-class struggles throughout history, ones that many of their own students have lived and continue to live. Instead of school, students of color turn to their churches where safety and affirmation are offered in what some might deride as ethnic or ideological silos. Yet clearly, their churches provide a place, a theory, a reason for them
1 I use the term Latina/o(x) as an inclusive term that defines the “x” not as a universal gender designation, but specific to its historical usage as, “the lived experiences of queer, non-binary, gender non- conforming/creating and/or trans individuals” (Marquéz, 2018). 231 to re-write their stories and to do so in a supportive community. Learning from religious spaces that provide such shelter may offer an opportunity to consider the borders of home as well as spaces that allow students to thrive, until such borders are unmade.
Theologically, borders are brought down when God’s family becomes “God’s human family” (Barber & Zelter, 2014), or ideologically when Wynter’s homo narrans replaces homo oeconomicus. Crossing physical borders for many Calvary Lutheran students were moments to expand their definition of “We,” when they consistently crossed the same border and engaged with the same community. Their border crossing was not merely a learning or service-learning opportunity, but the creation and maintenance of relationships. Teachers ensure these relationships in multiple ways. They prepare students to enter and engage in a respectful way by clearly and repeatedly emphasizing historical and cultural knowledge. Throughout this preparation and the trip itself, students are positioned as listeners and learners. Additionally, a respectful entrance and relationship in border crossing was facilitated when the missions program chose to wait for an invitation into the community and even then, another invitation into the work already being done in and by the community.
Ultimately, the dilemmas of home followed the teams into the field. Although selflessness and caring for each other becomes the norm when abroad, the counter stories that might shift student ideologies so that such norms are brought home, are left abroad or often become “twisted” to fit the ideologies of home. That is, ideologies crystallize or are kept separate by place. Bridging the stories and experiences abroad with those of home could expose the constructed nature of the “goods” and “bads” of each culture. The poverty 232 in parts of Appalachia can also be seen in neighborhoods of Pacific County. Our complicity in settler colonialism connects students’ experiences in Taiwan, the Paiute reservation, and use of water at home, a drought-prone region. Most importantly, the structural causes of the conditions (poverty, drug use, lack of education) that prompt service can be exposed across borders highlighting unjust foreign and domestic policies, global labor exploitation, and DuBois’ (2015) global “color-line” (p. 112). If a combination of global and local processes help de-legitimate the ideologies of home that separate between fully human and liminal, the schemas that students take into the field will necessarily change,
THE PRAXIS OF BEING “ECUMENICALLY HUMAN.” When Sylvia Wynter asks what made Columbus possible, she makes clear the cruelty and devastation wrought on enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples by focusing on Columbus’ humanity, his origin story. She moves way from the binary of villain or hero, one that would separate the world into the oppressed (liminal) and the oppressor (fully human) and seeks to understand why Columbus was who he was, and why he did what he did. Ultimately, she seeks to remove the liminal category altogether by defining his humanity against what made inhumanity possible during his time and how our own humanity is defined against the inhumanity that continues to this day.
“Our Stories… are what makes us human” As our chartered bus drove us from Alishan to Taipei, Sofia sat beside me and we chatted about our families, careers, and our love for travel. She described her family’s apartment in Egypt and her sadness that they could no longer safely visit, as more and more
233 stories of Christians being killed there would reach the U.S. I asked, “did you and your family come to the U.S. because of that? For religious freedom?” She answered, “yes. My family gave up everything to come to America where we started from nothing.” When our conversation turned to Islamophobia and the current state of religious freedom in the U.S., she shook her head decisively. “They’re somewhat reaping what they sow. Islam is a religion of hate. The Quran preaches hatred against Christians. They’re getting a taste of what they inflict.” I froze in the middle of our conversation, shocked, horrified, and hurt that someone I had come to respect, and love could utter such hatred. Silent for a moment, she ultimately concluded, “I know God says love your enemies and bless those who persecute you. But it’s hard when all you’ve known is persecution.”
During my conversation with Sofia, I was reminded of my dad and our conflicts around my admiration for communism (in theory), and the need for humanitarian efforts in North Korea instead of the sanctions that are starving the people there. We would get into shouting matches about Korean politics which always ended with my mom telling us to stop and be quiet. I would walk away seething, but also feeling a righteous indignation that my dad was “so close minded.” I could not understand the intense vitriol he held for anything and anyone even remotely connected to communism and North Korea. While the arguments still happen on occasion, understanding came more recently when my dad began to share more of his childhood history, painting the clearest and most detailed pictures of his father being arrested and executed by the North Korean communist party, of hiding from the police in closets until he and the rest of the family escaped south, of watching the moment his baby sister died from starvation. When Sofia confessed, “I know God says 234 love your enemies and bless those who persecute you. But it’s hard when all you’ve known is persecution,” her words struck at my judgment not only of her prior sentiments, but of my own father’s. Their harsh views are not simple manifestations of close-mindedness or bigotry but are grounded in the intense pain and trauma they still carry along with their memories. I do not believe that they shared their experiences of devastating loss and violence to exonerate themselves of their hatred. Rather, they offered a glimpse of what makes them human. They shone a light on the hypocrisy with which I would categorize them as a hateful or narrow-minded “other” for their differing beliefs without regard for the stories that make up their humanity.
As a researcher, I often faced the temptation of focusing on the data that seemed the most sensational—the perfect hook that would draw in the nods and approval of critical readers. The quotes and the actions that reveal my evangelical participants as most counter to the work of transformative education. Summing up my research, I could say, “look at what I’ve confirmed. These crazy teachers and religious fanatics are devastating our democracy.” The questions and conversations that continued beyond the lurid data, however, wiped away the allure. In welcoming me into their Missions community, their stories, the counter stories and treasure hunts all, became my own as I travelled, worked, and served alongside them. The trusting relationships that many had cultivated over years with the Taiwanese, the Paiute, the Appalachians, became accessible to me even though I had contributed nothing to their development. I could not help but be humbled by these experiences and grow to love everyone who entrusted me with their stories.
235 In the course of examining what happens when teachers, students, and parents encounter “others” on school mission trips, I discovered that, like every other group, the community is so much more complex than often portrayed. Though I may often question the theology, ideology, and origin stories of participants, I am certain that they leave home to meet the “other” because they hope to transform the world for the better in the way that makes sense to them. They cross borders because they believe that the ideal of a selfless community bound in love by God is possible at home, abroad, and after death. All acknowledge the work at home that must be done to ensure an ideal community, though several students pay the heavy price of what is left undone and unsaid: that the community has boundaries that exclude, that violently divide between fully human and liminal. Sylvia
Wynter shows that there has yet to be the reality anywhere that Aimé Césaire (2000) envisioned, one based on “a humanism made to the measure of the world” (p. 73), and the missions community would agree, in their own origin story, that there has yet to be a world in which God’s kingdom has been established on all of earth. The hope, however, is the same, one humanity and one community. As a school community actually attempting a praxis of being “ecumenically human,” there is much to be learned from what is spoken and unspoken, and what is done and left undone in Calvary Lutheran’s Missions program.
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