PANA Institute for Leadership Development

Eleazar S. Fernandez, Professor of Constructive Theology at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, presented the following keynote address at PANA API Clergy Consultation, "Journeying Together Toward an Empowering and Transforming Ministry", on October 8, 2008. You may reach Professor Fernandez at efernandez@unitedseminary.edu.

"My first sight of the approaching land was an exhilarating experience… Everything seemed familiar and kind—the white faces of the buildings melting into the soft afternoon sun, thegray contours of the surrounding valleys that seemed to vanish in the last periphery of light. With a sudden surge of joy, I knew that I must find a home in this new land."
–Carlos Bulosan

Day of spacious dreams!
I sailed for America
Overblown with hope.
–Ichiyo[1]

What kind of wind, if not storm, has brought us to the “land of the free and home of the brave”? We who came or whose ancestors came from a continent as vast as Asia and from the islands of the Pacific Ocean (the largest body of water on earth), why come together under the umbrella of Asian-Pacific Islander North Americans? Is there something that unites our distinctive journeys? There are, of course, many ways of responding to these questions.

No doubt, our ethnicities, immediate circumstances and stories are varied, but global geopolitics has brought us to this place and has created a shared experience—a shared history. Though we are of varied ethnicities, the orientalizing gaze of the global North has classified our countries of origin as the Asia-Pacific region. Not surprisingly, we are also classified racially/ethnically as such in our current location. Likewise, though our stories are varied, the warp and weft of our stories of migration make up a tapestry or narrative. Following our ascribed and self-described common identity, I call this narrative the Asian-Pacific Islander North American diaspora narrative. But there is still a much larger narrative in which our diaspora stories are woven into. It is the narrative of global diaspora—a diaspora that has become more massive in our era of heightened globalization. This wider narrative is useful in helping us understand that, though individual or familial decisions are involved, decisions are informed or shaped by global forces, particularly by the predatory global market.

Diaspora (diaspeiro—scattering of seeds), in its common usage, is the scattering of people from one place to another. The scattering of seeds happens in various ways, some blown by the wind, carried by animals, and others by human hands. For those whose lives are deeply “rooted” to the ocean, like people of the south Pacific, “drifting seed” (Tahitian: hoto painu) has become a natural metaphor for diaspora. [2] Seeds are tossed by waves and scattered wherever ocean currents take them to various shores, some fertile and receptive, while others are not. Many seeds die in transit while others “take root,” survive and even thrive in new locations.

Like scattered or drifting seeds, we are participants in the global diaspora phenomenon. Diaspora has brought us to this place. Diaspora has become our shared narrative: a narrative that has continued to evolve.

Maybe this event in my life would help us understand better the development of our diaspora narrative. Before coming to the U.S., I was simply a Filipino (or, I thought I was). When I arrived and settled in the U.S. a transformation happened. I became a racial-ethnic minority—a person of color. I have experienced marginalization and, in worse occasions, told to “go home.” But that is not the end. When I went to teach in Yaounde, Cameroon , I realized or came to an acute understanding that I have acquired a new identity. After many years, to my amazement, I finally became an American. At an open forum following my lecture, a person in the audience raised the question, “Professor Fernandez, are you speaking as a Filipino or as an American?”

So, when we are speaking of diaspora we are speaking about our experience of uprootedness, dispersion, displacement and dislocation.But there is something more. Diaspora includes our experience of being minoritized and racialized. It includes as well our constructions of identity, belonging and home. Moreover, it includes our search for roots and connections, transnational relations or linkages (either to the original homeland or, laterally, with our counterpart overseas communities around the world). Finally, it deals with what it means to live together in the world that is not simply limited or bounded by the territory of our countries of origin. It deals with what it means to live in a world with many worlds. In other words, diaspora is not only our condition; it is also a discourse—a discourse about our pains and joys, nightmares and dreams, our struggles and hopes.

Our diaspora narrative continues to evolve and acquire specific shapes depending on our context and challenges. I came lured by the American Dream (particularly by the “bigs” of the American Dream—big bucks and big houses). In my boyhood years on the island of Leyte, I grew up associating hugeness with Americanness. The largest frog that I came to know was what the barrio inhabitants called "the American frog," and the largest bread that I dreamed of eating until I drop was the "American bread" (rectangular loaf bread). When something is huge, it must be American. But I got other things l did not expect. Not only has the American Dream been elusive to me (I am in the wrong profession), I, a diasporized person, have also been minoritized and racialized. The diasporized not only undergoes the pain of uprootedness and displacement, but also of the pain of being minoritized and racialized.

But our diasporized and racialized self is part of a larger context and wider dynamics. It is always easy for us to play the victim role: “I am a diaspora-racial ethnic minority.” Yes, we are diasporized and minoritized/racialized, but we are also citizens of a nation that, metaphorically speaking, when it sneezes the rest of the world gets pneumonia. We are a part of country whose foreign policy has been oppressive to others, including our countries of origin. This is what we have become. This is part of who we are. We must take account of our double/multiple geo-political and social location. We must take account of our relative privilege as well.

There is no doubt diaspora is dislocation, disruption, displacement, homelessness and marginalization, but that which has been an occasion for pain can be a gift to the world. However, before it can be a gift, the pain of diaspora and racial/ethnic marginalization must undergo the process of transformation and healing. As Richard Rohr aptly puts it, “Pain that is not transformed is transferred.” [3] Put differently, a pain that is not transformed is recycled into new forms, sometimes even more vicious. We have witnessed this in our ethnic communities and churches, so I do not see the need to belabor the matter. But when our diaspora pain is reclaimed and undergoes the process of transformation, I venture to say that it helps create the condition and the possibility for the birthing of a new tomorrow.

While diaspora may trigger xenophobia, the diaspora of people around the world has created the condition for people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, cultures and religious faiths to encounter one another. Diaspora is providing the condition for the coming of the Pentecost. “[W]hat the new diaspora does,” in R. S. Sugirthajah’s words, “is challenge the old Kiplingesque paradigm of East is East and West is West, with no possibility of the two meeting…”[4]

We who have known the pain of being marginalized because of our race have been gifted with the mind of a heart that can dream of a more just and colorful tomorrow. We who have known what it means to leave a familiar homeland in search of an abundant life have been gifted with a heart that can help others find their way to the table. We who have known the heart of a stranger know by heart the crucial importance of generous hospitality, particularly to the new waves of im/migrants. We who have known what it means to live in different worlds know deep in our hearts that there are many ways of thinking and dwelling. We who have known what it means to leave a homeland and settle in other lands know that we can make every land a homeland. As a diaspora people we know that a heart can grow as wide as the world.

As a child of diaspora, I will forever cherish my home “out there” ( Philippines ), but I also have found a home in the journey, and I have found home in other lands. I still continue to affirm that my mother is the best cook (of course in certain dishes, like the mongo bean soup with malunggay and par-ok (taro leaf with coconut milk and seasoned with shrimp paste). But I also have learned that other mothers are good cooks too, and I have learned to like other foods. I still love to sing the Bayan Ko (my native land), but my diaspora life has been equally nourished by a new song/hymn: This is my Song (tune: Finlandia). In other words, diaspora has taught me how to care deeply for my new home here ( U.S. ) even as I continue to care deeply for my home “out there” ( Philippines ), and other places in the world. This is an expression of a diaspora heart, a heart that has grown in size: it is a heart whose size is as large as the world. I oppose the war in Iraq , but I also cry when a U.S. soldier is killed, and I am outraged at a government that sends soldiers to war, but does not take care of them when they return home maimed and/or psychologically devastated as veterans. A diaspora’s heart is a heart that knows that it is not a contradiction to love one’s country and still love global justice. In fact, this is the only way to truly love one’s country. This is what it means to have a diaspora heart, a heart that has made every place a home.

We have been graced with a diaspora’s heart, but it is something that needs to be reclaimed and embraced. We have been graced with diaspora’s pain, but it has to be reclaimed if we are to be mending healers. We have been graced with diaspora’s dangerous memories, like the internment camp and the south-central Los Angeles tragic event, but they have to be reclaimed so they can become vehicles for the birthing of a new tomorrow. We have been gifted with a diaspora’s moral vision, but it is a gift that must be received with openness and pursued with whole-hearted commitment. The gift of diaspora experience is waiting for us to embrace with faithfulness, accountability and creativity.

How are we taking the gift of our diasporized-minoritized experience? How is it informing and shaping the way we think and dwell as individuals and as faith communities? How is it informing the self-understanding of our faith communities and their primary identity? How is it informing the way our congregations form as faith communities and how they relate to their immediate neighborhood and to the wider culture? Does it have any particular bearing on the way our congregations articulate their vision and reason for being or mission in society? Has it found embodiment in the ministries and practices of our congregations? If yes, in what particular or specific ways? How is it embodied in worship, preaching and Christian education? Are these ministries helping members of our faith communities to live out their calling in their neighborhood, places of work, and the wider public arena? Are our churches participants in ecumenical endeavors that address issues shared by the wider community?

I lifted up these questions to serve as a mirror, a compass, and as a voice that calls us toward a new horizon. I lifted up these questions to help us examine who we are, what we have become, and where we are heading. I lifted up these questions to provide benchmarks or lamps for our journey into the vision. I lifted up these questions as guide questions.

The challenges that we and our diaspora/ethnic churches are facing are, of course, complex and enormous. Making both ends meet, dealing with emotional and psychological stresses, and helping family in the countries of origin are already enormous loads to carry. Providing pastoral support is an important ministry that diaspora/ethnic faith communities can offer. But there is also the diaspora’s temptation of the endless pursuit of the American Dream of bigness and moreness, which easily confuses having with being. Whether survival or in pursuit of the big, diaspora-ethnic churches can become pre-occupied with their own affairs, forgetting that their very own existence is a creation of global forces. Isn’t it ironic to speak of churches born of diaspora experience but have forgotten their own history? Isn’t it ironic to speak about postcolonial theology, but without our faith communities?

How are we to lead our diasporic/minoritized faith communities? We have journeyed with our faith communities. We have embodied the experience, memory, and hopes of our communities. We are not above the storms and tempest that have visited our communities. As waves are one with the ocean, so we are one with our communities. But as leaders who have carried the painful memories of our people, we have the distinct calling of helping our communities not only to re-member but to turn the painful memories of the past into movements of transformation today. Asian-Pacific islanders have a rich heritage of struggle that needs to be nurtured. It is true that some Asian-Pacific islanders have broken the glass-ceiling in the “land of the brave and home of the free,” but only because others before them have broken their silence. May we not let their labors be forgotten. Moreover, as leaders we have the distinct calling of articulating the theological compass and the moral ballast of our Christian faith for the sake of our community’s journey. This is crucial if we are to avoid the Scylla and the Charybdis of our diasporic journey.

At this point I am reminded of the story of the old Polynesian navigators which I heard from Kaleo Patterson, a Kanaka Maoli who gave me an experience of canoe surfing. This is their advice. When winds are too strong and the waves are getting rough, the last thing you want to do is get pu`iwa (panic). Do not panic. If you get pu`iwa you are likely to die. It is important that you focus your thoughts on that one star Ka Haku (God). First, you have to tie everything together; then you fill the canoe with water until it floats just below the surface of the water. That is right, sink your canoe. Those old canoes were designed to float no matter what. Even when you fill them with water they would float just below the surface of the ocean. Then you have to tie yourself to the canoe as you spiritually tie yourself to Ka Haku. In this way you become one with the ocean and one with Ka Haku. Of course you will be wet, but you will be safe with the canoe. So this means you have to hang on and ride the storm out. And when the storm is pau (finished), you bail the water out of the canoe and continue your merry way. Remember, you have to focus on the same star.[5]

But there is more to the focus than individual efforts. Canoeing with our communities means moving in rhythm with others. Working or conspiring with others is a practical necessity. It is crucial in making those dreams that have been declared impossible come in the range of the possible. But there is more to it than a practical necessity. Working or conspiring with others is a spiritual necessity. As the word conspire suggests, it means breathing together or sharing life-giving breath. Without the life-giving and nourishing breath of companions, we can easily dry-up and wither under the scorching heat of the noonday sun. “If we are a drop of water and we try to get to the ocean as only an individual drop, we will surely evaporate along the way,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. “To arrive at the ocean [we] must go as a river.”

So with a diaspora’s heart that has been transformed and guided by the Spirit, may we take this opportunity to commit ourselves to journey as a river: learn from each other, dream together, explore ways of nourishing and empowering each other in the ministry of birthing a just, abundant, colorful and sustainable tomorrow. May we take this occasion as a significant step in the diaspora journey of a million steps. May we not let the vast horizon of our diaspora vision daunt us and the enormous challenges overwhelm us. After all, nothing worth daring is given in advance, so we must be saved by faith; nothing worth giving our lives into can be done by holding back, so we must be ushered by radical love; nothing worth doing is accomplished alone, so we must be embraced by community; and nothing worth struggling can be completed in a lifetime, so we must be empowered by hope.

Let us then continue our diasporic journey with the confidence of faith, the extravagance of love, the companionship of community, and the boldness of hope.

Endnotes

[1] Cited in Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), 19, 52.

[2] Celine Hoiore cited in Clive Pearson,“Criss-Crossing Cultures,” in Clive Pearson, ed., Faith in a Hyphen: Cross-Cultural Theologies Down Under ( Adelaide, Australia : Openbook Publishers, 2004), 5.

[3] Richard Rohr, cited in Carolyn Yoder, The Little Book of Trauma Healing: When Violence Strikes and Community Security is Threatened (Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 2005), 30.

[4] R. S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation ( Oxford, UK : Oxford University Press, 2002), 185.

[5] A story shared by Kaleo Patterson.