• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Sacredness of Being There: Race, Religion, and Place-Making at San Francisco’s Presbyterian Church in Chinatown by Christopher Viboon Chua A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Elaine H. Kim, Chair Professor Catherine C. Choy Professor David K. Yoo Professor Minoo Moallem Fall 2014 Abstract The Sacredness of Being There: Race, Religion, and Place-Making at San Francisco’s Presbyterian Church in Chinatown by Christopher Viboon Chua Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Ethnic Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Elaine H. Kim, Chair Established in 1853, the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown (PCC) in San Francisco, CA is the oldest Asian church of any Christian denomination in North America and the first Chinese Protestant church outside China. Its history in the United States reaches back to the earliest days of Chinese migration to this country, giving the church a rootedness in Asian America that few other institutions can match. This dissertation examines how the contemporary community at PCC negotiates its institutional memory in creating a sense of place and a sense of collective self that is simultaneously both Protestant Christian and distinctively Chinese American. Employing the use of archival materials and oral histories conducted specifically for this project, the study explores how the three language ministries which currently comprise the church—English, Mandarin, and Cantonese—navigate historical resources and contemporary memories in different ways to support varying ideological positions in the present. The project focuses specifically on place-making and the process of investing the physical space of the church and its location in a historically evolving Chinatown with meanings that distinguish the community from the white American Protestant establishment on the one hand and from non-Christian Chinese society on the other. This process of place-making is mapped over three defining moments in the life of PCC: the church’s founding, its institutionalization, and its struggle to redefine itself in the wake of trauma from clergy sexual abuse. The study argues that these three chapters, reaching from 1853 to the recent past, are especially formative for PCC’s identity, because they span the period of white missionary leadership at the church from beginning to end and, as a result, become the terrain over which the racial/ethnic meanings of being Chinese American Christian are negotiated, contested, and defined. In its founding moment, the intersection of racialized thought and theological justification for the establishment of a physical home for anticipated Chinese Christians resulted in the first enduring expression of religion that was conceptually Asian American, rather than simply Asian religion transplanted to the United States or Western religion imposed upon Asian immigrants. The institutionalization of the church was the enfleshment of this concept 1 with Chinese believers, whose practices of place subverted missionary understandings of Christianity and church by reinterpreting the Gospel message within the social, economic, and political contexts of being a racial/ethnic minority in the oftentimes hostile environment of the United States. Even as this hostility eventually seemed to give way before new visions of plurality in the 1960s, it lingered at PCC in the form of clergy sexual abuse, which came to define the final chapter of missionary leadership at the Chinatown church. Inscribing its insistence on truth and healing into the physical space of the church, PCC has embraced its response to the trauma as a defining element of its identity as a Chinese American congregation at the beginning of a new era beyond missionary control. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ii Preface iv 1. Introduction 1 2. Religion and Race as Praxis 28 Vignette A: The Earliest Locations 51 3. Anchoring Memory 52 Vignette B: The Neo-Gothic Building 81 4. Institutionalizing a Community 84 Vignette C: The Post-Earthquake Building 123 5. Reimagining a Chinese American Church 126 6. Conclusion 161 Endnotes 164 Bibliography 192 i Acknowledgments In writing this dissertation, I benefited greatly from the kindness of others. The members of the community at the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown cradled this project with their generosity, sharing with me their stories and their memories, their encouragement and their blessing. Far more persons in the church family than I can possibly name here individually have contributed to my understanding of this venerable institution, and just as many have helped me find my own place within it over the years. For this project specifically, fifteen persons—some of them currently associated with the church and others associated with it in the past—sat for oral history interviews: Sabrina Cheng, Calvin Chinn, Noël Chun, Douglas Clark, Harriet Hall, Sharlene Hall, Sabrina Gee-Shin, David Lee, Linda Lee, Jeremy Lue, Li Oi Lung, David Mote, David Pan, David Kao, and Bradford Woo. In addition, Nicholas Li spent many hours helping me with Chinese-language materials and talking with me about immigrant perspectives on church life. Their responses to my questions and their insights were invaluable contributions. A large portion of the research was conducted at libraries and archives, and at each, there were staff-people who kindly helped me find my way through the collections, most especially: Wei Chi Poon at the Ethnic Studies Library at UC Berkeley; Michael Peterson and Mary Moore at the San Francisco Theological Seminary Library; Lisa Jacobson, Charlene Peacock, and the entire warm and welcoming staff at the Presbyterian Historical Society; and Kelly Wong and Beth Skrondal at the San Francisco Planning Department. Without their guidance, I would surely have been lost. Philip Choy welcomed me into his home with tea and shared with me his vast knowledge of Chinatown architecture. Judy Yung met with me to share her vast knowledge of archives. At the same time I was researching and writing this dissertation, I taught as a lecturer in the Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program at UC Berkeley. Balancing the two roles would likely have been far more challenging had it not been for all the support I received from the faculty, the staff, and my students. Michael Omi has been an inspiring mentor, from whom I learned a great deal about teaching at Cal, and the fifth-floor staff in Barrows Hall do a thousand things behind the scenes every day to make the classroom experience feel seamlessly smooth. My Graduate Student Instructors and my students have been unfailingly wonderful in every single semester I have taught at the university. The curiosity, energy, and good humor they bring into the classroom remind me why scholarship, teaching, and the effort that went into this dissertation are important and worthwhile. ii My Dissertation Committee was always responsive and warmly supportive. Catherine Choy, from whom I learned an appreciation for archival research, also chaired my Qualifying Exam, and her comment at the examination that I ought to pursue my thoughts on how painful experiences can be a community’s most distinguishing ones, despite its best attempts to distance itself, was a great encouragement for the final body chapter of this dissertation. David Yoo has been a friend and a counselor throughout my graduate-school experience, teaching me how to frame questions of religious experience in ways that are simultaneously respectful and academically meaningful, and teaching me by example how a scholar answers with accountability the messy needs of communities beyond the printed page. Minoo Moallem, who insists on academic engagement that involves the senses and not simply the mind, was as generous with her supportive feedback to me as she is big-hearted in her intellectual pursuits. Like all my other Dissertation Committee members, Minoo, too, sat on my QE Committee, and I will not forget the day I showed up in her office to discuss the paper she supervised, suffering tremendously from antibiotics-induced misery in the wake of a freak MRSA infection. That day was the low point of my graduate-school experience, and Minoo’s kindness and encouragement were what saw me through. Elaine Kim chaired my Dissertation Committee but, for far longer than that, has been an amazing teacher, mentor, inspiration, and friend to me. Every piece of advice or encouragement she gives manages to communicate her regard for me as a whole person. This dissertation has benefited much from her careful feedback; my intellectual journey has benefited no less from her modeling of imaginative and engaged scholarship; and my growth as a person has benefited even more from her constant example of compassionate leadership. In all aspects of my life, including this dissertation but extending far beyond it, my family is my greatest source of support. My Dad is undoubtedly happy that I have seen this project to completion. My sisters, Amelia and Belinda, whom I admire more than words can express, have cheered me on from the day I was born. They remember when I used to ask them how to spell every other word I had in mind to write and may perhaps, in part, cheer the completion of this dissertation as a tangible sign that those days are finally past. My Mom may never fully understand my explanations of what I have written here, but she will listen to me with her heart. And she will be the proudest of them all. To all of these people, and many more left unnamed, I owe my gratitude. Thank you. iii Preface I first came to the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown in the spring of 1991. Recently returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, I was looking for a church to join, preferably a Presbyterian one, since I had grown up in that tradition.

Load more

  211

Copy Link