by The Rev. Canon Dr. Winfred (Fred) Vergara

Gloria Fanchiang wrote the pop song “God who sees us,” in the aftermath of the massacre of six Asian American girls working in a spa in Atlanta. It begins with these words:  

“We have been forgotten and abandoned, cast aside, erased and counted out. Centuries of hatred and exclusion, stories lost and rarely talked about.” https://youtu.be/H5qqAqLDrho  

A second-generation Taiwanese American, Gloria is one of the many young Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) who are passionate about decolonization and seeking to inspire, empower, and advocate to bring AAPI from the margins into the mainstream. Too long, we have been invisible, unheard, and unrecognized.  

AAPI have been in the United States since the 16th century, when Filipinos escaped enslavement in the Spanish Galleon Trade and settled in Louisiana. During the 1850s California Gold Rush, a wave of Chinese immigrants came to the West Coast to labor in mines and build transcontinental railroads. They were followed by Japanese, Korean and Filipino immigrants who farmed in California and Hawaii and worked the canneries of Alaska.  

Despite their contribution to making the United States a modern superpower, the public story of AAPI has been marked by “Chinese exclusion,” and “Japanese internment.” We are often labeled as “forever foreigners.”  

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, “Asian Hate” resurfaced in the form of racial violence and crimes against AAPI. This was sparked partly by the racist designation of coronavirus as “China virus” and “Kungflu” by no less than former President Donald Trump, whose words exacerbated the unjust blaming of Asians as “carriers of diseases.”  

As we observe the month of May as AAPI Heritage Month, I am reminded of several reasons why Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders should be treated with respect and valued as members of the Beloved Community.  

First, AAPI people present incredible demographic potential.  

Although Asians and Pacific Islanders currently make up barely 7% of the U.S. population (approximately 25 million people), AAPI hail from the Asian Pacific basin where two-thirds of the world’s 7.8 billion people reside. That may explain why AAPI is now the fastest-growing immigrant community. Even more incredible: 86% of AAPI are under the age of 18. Unlike many of their parents, that group fully understands their rights as American citizens, and they are pressing for recognition and respect. 

Second, AAPI people are the most diverse immigrant community in the United States.  

Descended from the vast Asian continent and Pacific Islands, AAPI bring a wealth of diversity and plurality of traditions, cultures, languages, ethnicities, and religions. Even across these differences, we often share common experiences of pain and visions of hope, along with an abiding commitment to hospitality, self-sacrifice, and extended family.  

Third, the AAPI people the “re-peopling” and “reimagining” of mainline churches. 

Immigrants are often receptive to change – how else could they have adapted to new homes, jobs, languages, and traditions? As they join predominantly Anglo-American churches like The Episcopal Church, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are contributing to the revival and transformation of the whole church.  

It is my joy to witness and support Episcopal Asiamerica Ministries (EAM), which has blossomed into nine communities: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, South Asian (Indians and Pakistanis), Southeast Asian (Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Hmong and Karen), Pacific Islanders (Tongans, Fiji, Micronesians), Arab-Middle Eastern, and the Asian American Youth.  

EAM has become a semblance of a “Pentecost community.” God hears AAPI people in all our wondrous diversity and strength, and we pray our church and society will listen, as well.  

The Rev. Canon Dr. Winfred (Fred) Vergara is the missioner for Asiamerica Ministries in The Episcopal Church.