Peter C. Phan
The Catholic University of America

The coming of millions of Asians and Pacific Islanders to the United States of America since the Second World War is a demographic phenomenon whose profound and extensive implications for every facet of life in both the American society and church have only just begun to be grappled with. By "Asians and Pacific Islanders" are meant those people in the United States who themselves or whose ancestors have immigrated from various countries of Asia and the Pacific islands comprising Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. They include principally the Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Asian Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Hawaians, Samoans, and Guamanians.

In the 1990 census, the population of Asians and Pacific Islanders was counted to be about 7.3 million, or 2.9 percent of the 250 million total U.S. population. This number represents more than a doubling of 3.5 million Asian Americans in 1980. Further, it is projected that by the middle of the twenty-first century, ten percent of the U.S. population will be Asian, a huge increase from barely three percent in 1990.

Needless to say, this demographic augmentation presents serious challenges to the North American Catholic Church. These challenges are in part not different from those confronting the Catholic immigrants of the "First Wave" such as the Irish, Germans, Italians, and Eastern Europeans. Like them, the immigrants of the "Second Wave" have to cross the socio-political and economic divide separating them from the American mainstream. On the other hand, unlike them, these recent, at times illegal, immigrants, who are mostly poor and ecclesiastically powerless, have to overcome the gap within the church itself which marginalizes them from the power centers now occupied by the Catholics of the "First Wave."

But these new comers present the church not only with challenges but with opportunities as well. They bring with them rich and diverse cultural as well as religious traditions and increase substantially church membership and the number of religious and priestly vocations, with which the American Catholic Church can be renewed and strengthened. Indeed, as Michael Foley has shown, by meeting these challenges and taking advantage of these opportunities, the American Church has become once again an "immigrant church." Foley has further shown that through various initiatives and organizational structures, the church has done a good job of welcoming these strangers, despite still outstanding issues and problems.

The focus of this essay is primarily theological, though it is hoped that its theoretical reflections on culture and inculturation (or interculturation) will have direct implications for pastoral ministry to Asian Catholics. I will first examine the predicament of Asian Americans in the encounter between their native cultures and the American culture. Secondly, I will study the challenges facing Asian Catholics in the process of being inserted into the American Catholic Church. Thirdly, I will suggest some tasks that both Asian-American Catholics and the American Church can do to promote a fruitful encounter between Asian-American Catholics on the one hand and the American society and the church on the other.

ENCOUNTER BETWEEN TWO CULTURES: A DREAM FULFILLED
OR A HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE?

For most Asians who have immigrated to the United States of America, the New World represents the equivalent of the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. It is perceived as the land of political and religious freedom and economic opportunities as opposed to their own countries where they may have suffered oppression of various kinds and economic deprivation. Despite occasional outbreaks of discrimination and racism, by and large Asian immigrants' human rights have been protected, their educational achievements outstanding, and their economic condition satisfactory. Even when injustices are perpetrated against them in these areas, they can have recourse to official and legal channels to have these damages remedied.
Unfortunately this is not the case in the area of cultural conflicts. Here resources for healing and reconciliation are not readily available nor can solutions be speedily devised, for these conflicts are not easily identifiable and, even when they are, cultural differences cannot be packaged into sound bites to attract public attention and mobilize the community to fight against cultural oppression. Yet, for all their elusiveness and resistance to quick solutions, cultural diversities can be a source of deep suffering and prolonged alienation that can turn a heavenly dream into a hellish nightmare. Often cultural differences lie deep behind the fear of the other and give rise to racism, economic discrimination and even bloody violence.

But what are these cultural differences? To catalogue them, even in a cursory fashion, is an impossible task, both because the cultures of Asian immigrants are quite diverse among themselves so that generalizations about the "Asian" culture would not be justified (despite, as I shall argue, a common religio-cultural heritage and a similar socio-economic context) and because the American culture resists a clear description. My intention then is not so much to describe the differences between the American culture and the cultures of various Asian ethnic and national groups but to analyze the way in which culture itself is conceived differently by Americans and Asian immigrants. As a result of these conflicting conceptualizations of culture, the encounter between Asian immigrants and the American culture is fraught with far greater and more complex difficulties and dangers than those personal embarrassments that travel guides try to spare us with their lists of dos and don'ts.

Semiotically, culture is composed of three dimensions. First of all, as ideational, culture is a system of beliefs, values, attitudes and rules for behavior, and provides a framework for interpreting the world and living and acting in the world. Secondly, as performance, culture is constituted by rituals by which the members participate in their culture in an embodied way. Thirdly, as material, culture provides the artifacts and symbolizations such as language, food, clothing, music, the plastic arts, and the creation of space, with which the members build up their identity. All these three dimensions must be taken into account in order to understand any particular culture fully.

Within the perspective of the semiotics of culture, the focus is on culture as a communication structure and process. Three elements make up this communication structure and process. First, there are the signs or symbols, that is, the constituent parts of the culture. They are the "who, what, when, where, how and what kind" forming the "surface" or "first level" of culture. These signs correspond to culture as material mentioned above.

Second, there is the message which is carried by the signs. This message is constituted by the linkages among the signs revealing their "functions"(their "structural integration") and forms the "immediate whys," or the "second" or "intermediate level" of culture. This message may be manifest or latent to the members sharing the same culture. In addition to this intermediate meaning, there is the third level of culture, its deeper meaning, its ultimate whys, often referred to as the "mentality" of a people deriving from the underlying premises and assumptions of their thought processes, the values and interests of their basic attitudes, the goals and ideals of their fundamental motivating forces. This mentality (the group's "psychological integration"of culture) is revealed in the people's world view, myths, rituals, philosophy, and religion. These meanings, both intermediate and ultimate, correspond to culture as ideational.

Third, there are the codes along which the message of the signs is carried. Like the grammar of a language, codes are the basic rules according to which cultural signs function. They "encompass the rules of action of a culture, of what is done and what is not to be done. In so doing, they not only define the range of activity of the sign, but can also tell us something of basic messages." They govern culture as performance.

As cultural systems, both the American culture and those of Asian Americans are constituted and function in the manner described above. They too are ideational, performance, and material, and they too have their own signs, messages, and codes. The challenge for Asian immigrants is of course first of all to learn as much as possible about the ideational, performance, and material aspects of the American culture as well as its signs, messages, and codes. This learning takes place not only systematically, in academic environments but also, and primarily, in everyday living, by trial and error, over the course of a lifetime.

As they acquire knowledge of these elements of the American culture, Asian immigrants have to relate them to the same elements of their own cultures. In this process, whether self-initiated or stimulated by the society, Asian Americans will reinterpret, reorient, reintegrate, recast their symbolic universes, and eventually formulate their new "mentality." As a general rule, they tend to adopt elements that fit with their symbolic systems and reject ideas and practices that conflict with them. The elements incorporated are those of the first, second, and third levels of culture. The signs or forms of the host culture (the first level) are borrowed but reinterpreted and assigned new meanings by the immigrants (the second level); obviously, those elements of the third level are less likely to be incorporated, and if they are inconsistent with the immigrants' philosophical world views and religions, they will meet the strongest resistance.

Of course, there will be a "culture lag" in this process of inculturation. That is, the process of cultural adaptation is not spread out evenly in the community of immigrants nor are the elements of the host culture equally embraced by all. Not every immigrant will be open to this task of reinterpretation and adaptation. Some, mainly the younger generation and the educated class, welcome it heartily as the harbinger of innovation and progress; others, mostly the older and more recent immigrants, oppose it strenuously, fearing for the survival of their moral and religious values. Inevitably, conflicts and mutual recriminations will arise among individuals and groups of the same ethnic community.

The psychological outcome of this process of cultural adjustment is mainly of two kinds. Either the immigrant will acquire a state of intellectual and emotional equilibrium (which does not necessarily mean morally or spiritually beneficial) through one of the following three ways: 1) by accepting a complete assimilation into the host culture and abandoning one's own culture; 2) by keeping the two cultures side by side, each independent of the other, and functioning well in both, often adopting the host culture in the public domain and preserving one's culture at home (a kind of "double belonging"); and (3) by blending the host culture with one's own and selectively incorporating compatible elements so that another culture will eventually emerge. Or the immigrant will experience disequilibrium, frustration, and anger since he or she rejects the culture of the host country as evil and is therefore unable to function in it as a responsible citizen.

Beyond difficulties in adapting to the new and different signs, message, and codes of the American culture, Asian Americans have to face an additional, and in certain sense far more challenging, task of adjusting to the concept of culture itself which has been gaining ground in the United States in the last few decades. Whether labeled "post-modern" or something else, there has been, at least in the West, a widespread disenchantment with the ideals of the Enlightenment. These have been variously characterized as universal rationality, autonomy, individual freedom, and progress. While post-modernity cannot be interpreted as a rejection of Enlightenment values or a call for a return to pre-modernity, various currents of thought, from feminist to ecological to liberationist to post-colonial, have subjected them to a stringent critique and deconstruction.

Through the process known as globalization, which is fueled by the political domination of the United States, new communication technologies, and the world-wide spread of neoliberal capitalism, Asians, even those from the poorer countries, have come under the influence of modernity. Of course, such a reception is never passive and total; rather there are always all kinds of negotiations and adaptations so that there have been created "plural modernities." More importantly, despite profound differences between modernity and Asian traditional cultures, they share a common understanding of culture as an integrative system. Louis Luzbetak expresses this aspect of culture well when he defines culture as "(1) a plan (2) consisting of a set of norms, standards, and associated notions and beliefs (3) for coping with the various demands of life, (4) shared by social group, (5) learned by the individual from the society, and (6) organized into a dynamic (7) system of control." Schreiter notes that such an integrated concept of culture is common among "the traditional society, relatively self-enclosed and self-sufficient, and governed by a rule-bound tradition." Clearly, Asian immigrants bring this integrated concept of culture with them as they come to settle in the United States.

While such an integrated concept of culture has strengths (as well as weaknesses), it is not helpful to Asian Americans as they confront the understanding of culture now regnant in the United States. This understanding of culture, dubbed "post-colonial," "globalized," or "post-modern," views it primarily as a ground of contest among asymmetrical and unequal power relations. Culture is not a pre-existing organic whole to be discovered or preserved, but something constructed amidst struggle and violence. As life, culture as well as cultural identity is experienced as fragmented, conflictual, antagonistic, subject to continuous change, and multiple. As a result, it is unlikely that the Asian Americans' integrated understanding of culture can be fully preserved. The meta-narratives and meta-themes that provide coherence and unity to Asian immigrants' cultural identity and day-to-day living are being severely disrupted. More than ever, Asian Americans are living in a deeply disorienting situation in which the premodern, the modern, and the postmodern are mixed together, what Fernando Calderon refers to as "tiempos mixtos."

In response to this cultural bricolage, which Roland Friedman calls "glocalization," Asian Americans can adopt any of the following three cultural logics which Robert Schreiter, following Jonathan Friedman, describes as antiglobalism, ethnification, and primitivism. The first is a total retreat from the ideals and values of globalization to defend and preserve one's cultural identity, either through a complete rejection of modernity as found in fundamentalism or through strategies of hierarchical control as in revanchism. The second is the attempt to rediscover a forgotten cultural identity through a retrieval of real or imagined cultural traits with the result that often a hybridized culture is constructed through the process of ethnogenesis. The third is the attempt to select a period or an aspect of one's previous, premodern culture and use it as a framework for dealing with globalization.

In my judgment, none of these cultural strategies is satisfactory for Asian Americans. Fundamentalism and revanchism are too negative in their approach to modern and postmodern culture. Furthermore, for them to work, there is required a central authority with effective systems of control, which is non-existent in Asian-American communities. In addition, the boundaries which they seek to preserve, whether geographical or cultural, are now too porous to serve as an effective wall protecting Asians from the contracting force of globalization. Ethnification is more promising, but it presupposes an integrated concept of culture which is no longer viable in the United States, since it ignores or obscures the dynamics of unequal power relationships and the fragmented and conflictual nature of culture. In particular, refugees, minority groups and marginalized people do not generally experience culture, even their own, as integrating and beneficial. Lastly, primitivism, besides holding on to an integrated notion of culture, suffers from arbitrariness in the selection of a past period or theme for revitalizing the tradition. Some other strategy must therefore be devised, but before doing so, we have to consider the situation of Asian-American Catholics in particular.

ASIAN-AMERICAN CATHOLICS:
BETWEEN POST-TRIDENTINE CATHOLICISM AND POST-VATICAN II REFORMS

Just as Asian Americans differ among themselves culturally, Asian-American Catholics also have divergent histories and different kinds of Catholicism. My intention is of course not to undertake the impossible task of recounting these histories and describing these kinds, but to discern, with unavoidable generalizations, the common traits of the Catholicism that Asian-American Catholics inherit and bring with them to the United States.

The history of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular in Asia developed in dependence on the growth of missionary activity since the sixteenth century. The type of church organization and Christian life that were brought to Asia by missionaries B mostly Portuguese, Spanish, and later French religious, mainly Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, Augustinians, and members of the Missions Étrangères de Paris B unavoidably mirrored those of contemporary Europe. This post-Tridentine Catholicism has of course been renewed in various degrees by the reforms spawned by Vatican II. Asian-American Catholics stand then between a more conservative Tridentine Catholicism and a more progressive Vatican II Catholicism; which side they favor largely depends on the church of their native countries or even of particular regions of these countries . In spite of regional and national differences, the following traits seem to be common to American Asians' experiences of Catholicism.

1. In terms of ecclesiological model, Asian-American Catholics tend to follow what Avery Dulles has called "church as institution." This model exaggerates the role of visible and canonical structures and the importance of the hierarchy and has often led to the ecclesial aberration known as institutionalism characterized by clericalism, juridicism, and triumphalism. This ecclesiological model is strongly buttressed by the Confucian culture with its emphasis on deference for authority and tradition (witness the elaborate forms of address used by the Vietnamese for the clerics!) and responds well to the church's need to strengthen its corporate identity, given its minority status in Asia (except in the Philippines).

2. Connected with this emphasis on the institutional aspects of the church is the relatively passive role of the laity. Despite the fact that the Asian-American Catholic laity, especially the middle aged, are highly educated and successful in various professions, they have no effective voice in the day-to-day operation of parish life. The local priest most often wields absolute power. Besides excessive reliance on the clergy, the laity's lack of competence in matters theological may account for the minimal role of the laity in church organization, since training in fields other than secular is regarded as inappropriate for the laity.

3. The theological competence of Asian-American clergy itself leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the priests, whose knowledge of Bible and theology was gained some thirty years ago (the level of seminary education was already low then), have not taken advantage of continuing education programs in this country, either because of their lack of English or because theology does not rank high in their list of priorities. Furthermore, adequate books in Scripture and theology in their own languages are not available. As a result, one area of priestly ministry suffers in particular, namely, preaching. Another deficient area is ministry to (college and graduate-) educated youth, which is practically non-existent, whereas ministry still focuses mainly on children (preparation for first communion and confirmation) and the old folks with their devotional practices.

4. Another consequence of ecclesiological institutionalism is self-absorption and neglect of the dialogue with other believers and responsibilities for the world. The Catholicism of most Asian-American Catholics is still directed mainly toward self-preservation and self-aggrandizement, with emphasis on building churches and church structures. While Asian Catholics are but a tiny minority living in daily contact with other religionists and despite Vatican II's insistence on the need of interreligious dialogue, Asian-American Catholics still look with suspicion on followers of other religions. Furthermore, Asian-American Catholics have barely begun to reflect upon, much less enacted, the task and ways of inculturating the faith into their own cultures, in spite of ample resources available in their adopted country for this purpose. Asian-American Catholics are also reluctant to take upon themselves the challenges of social justice, even if most of them are vigorously opposed to Communism, and understandably so, since many of them have been victims of Communist oppression. In general, Asian-American Catholicism still suffers from the privatization of the faith of which liberation theologians have reproached the church.
The above four observations are not intended to convey a negative evaluation of Asian-American Catholicism. On the contrary, on any showing Asian-American Catholics form a vibrant and vigorous community that has already made invaluable contributions to both the American society and church, from their own cultures as well as their religious heritage.

5. One area in which Asian-American Catholics have already visibly transformed the American church is the number of priestly and religious vocations they (in particular the Vietnamese) have produced. Beside hundreds of Vietnamese priests who came in and after 1975 and Korean priests who are regularly sent here to minister to their fellow Catholics, many dioceses and religious societies (especially the Divine Word Society) have been enormously enriched by new Asian members. To be mentioned also are hundreds and hundreds of sisters of various orders, some of which are of Vietnamese origin, who serve generously in different capacities and who could easily raise vocations in the hundreds if not thousands if they have the facilities. This large number of vocations could be attributed to the high respect in which priests and religious are held (which has of course its own negative sides) but certainly it has roots in the devout faith of Asian-American Catholic families.

6. This fervent faith is nourished no doubt not only by the sacraments but also by popular devotions. Indeed, the cultivation of popular devotions is a distinguishing characteristic of many Asian-American communities and constitutes an important contribution that Asian-American Catholics make to the American church. While post-Vatican II Catholics tend to downplay popular devotions for their alleged superstitious character and their tendency to alienate people from this-worldly concerns, Asian Catholics have continued to foster practices of popular religion (e.g., Marian devotions, pilgrimages, novenas, Benediction, prayers to the saints, etc.) and derive much spiritual nourishment from them. Every August, the Marian celebrations organized by the Congregation of Mary Coredemptrix in Carthage, Missouri, draws an astonishing crowd of some 40,000 Catholics. These popular devotions will play a much more significant role if their tendency toward excessive sentimentalism and individualism can be minimized and their potential for community-building, liberation and social justice can be retrieved.

7. Intimately connected with popular devotions is another major characteristic of Asian-American Catholic communities and parishes, that is, the flourishing of communal activities often in tandem with sacramental celebrations (especially baptism, marriage, funerals), certain calendrical feasts (e.g., the New Year) and cultural customs (e.g., death anniversaries) as well as a large number of pious associations (e.g., confraternities, sodalities, youth groups) which provide the laity with the opportunity to exercise leadership and be actively involved with the community, especially in its liturgical and spiritual life. Recently, there have been more Amodern" associations such as Bible study groups, charismatic prayers group, RENEW, Cursillo, etc. These associations, both pre- and post-Vatican II, with their manifold activities are reliable indices of the vibrancy of Asian Catholic communities.

8. In addition to being nourished and fecundated by sacraments and devotions, the faith of Asian Churches has been tested in the crucible of suffering and even persecution. The memory of martyrdom is still fresh in the minds of Asian-American Catholics, whether it is that of 26 Japanese canonized in 1862, or 103 Koreans canonized in 1984, or 118 Vietnamese (including foreign missionaries) canonized in 1988. Of course, the number of those killed for the faith is much larger than those who have been canonized, and their blood is, as Tertullian has said, the seed of Christians. More recently, many Asian-American Catholics have suffered for their faith under the Communist regime (e.g., in China, Korea, and Vietnam) and as the result have chosen exile in the United States and elsewhere. While this experience might have rigidified their conservative political views, it has no doubt enriched and fortified their faith in a way not available to those enjoying religious freedom. This living witness to the faith through personal suffering is an effective antidote to the consumerism and materialism prevalent in a capitalistic society such as the United States.

9. I have referred above to two commonalities of most Asians despite their many differences, namely, their religio-cultural heritage and their socio-economic context. The first is the religious, mainly Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist traditions, and the second is large-scale poverty and oppression. It has been said that scratch the surface of every East Asian Catholic and you will find a Confucian, a Taoist, and a Buddhist, or more often than not, an indistinguishable mixture of the three. By that it is not meant that Asians are acquainted with every and each philosophical and religious teaching of Confucius, Lao-Tzu, and the Buddha; indeed most of these theories are beyond their ken and even their intellectual interest. Rather they live and move and have their being within a cultural framework suffused with Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist values and undergirded by Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist moral norms. They are socialized into these values and norms not only though formal teachings but also, and primarily, through thousands and thousands of proverbs, folk sayings, songs, and of course, family rituals and cultural festivals. Many Asian Catholics do not find it strange or difficult to inhabit different religious universes. No amount of baptismal waters seems able to cleanse Asian Catholics of their Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist heritage. The question of religious syncretism is understandably an issue of concern to theologians and church hierarchs, especially with respect with Christian identity, but on the practical level, the people have found ways to harmonize religious systems that seem to conflict with each other, without fear of loss of their Catholic identity.

It is this rich and varied religious heritage, latent but pervasive, that Asian-American Catholics bring with them to the United States and that may be one of their most significant contributions to the American church. This contribution is all the more important in view of the situation of increasing religious pluralism in which the American church will find itself in the near future. Here it is not the place to describe in detail the various doctrinal teachings, moral norms, and ascetical practices that Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism prescribe, and which Asian-American Catholics have more or less consciously appropriated. However, a discourse on the inculturation of Christianity into the American culture and society as they exist today as well as on the incorporation of Asian-American Catholics into the American church cannot ignore the complex question of how these non-Christian religious traditions can both be enriched by the Christian tradition and enrich the Christian tradition itself.

10. Lastly, most if not all first-generation Asian immigrants in the United States have experienced socio-economic deprivation, extreme in some cases, before they came here. This background must be kept in mind in view of the fact that many Asian Americans appear to have done well economically. Perhaps it is this recent experience of poverty that makes Asian-American Catholics sensitive to the sufferings and wants of their fellow nationals and generous in their financial support of the church as well as their relatives in their native countries. It is a well-known fact that many American Asians save their hard-earned money and send it home to help their families and their churches. This sense of solidarity with victims of poverty and even of natural disasters is also a characteristic of many Asian-American Catholic communities, and should be fostered with care, since struggle against poverty and oppression is an essential part of the inculturation of the Gospel, especially in a society whose economic and military policies have caused suffering in many parts of the world and in Asia in particular.

DWELLING IN THE INTERSTICE BETWEEN TWO CULTURES AND
DWELLING IN THE INTERSTICE BETWEEN TWO CULTURES AND BETWEEN TWO CHURCHES

So far we have seen the challenges facing Asian Americans as they encounter the different signs, message and codes of the American culture, and more importantly, a radically different concept of culture itself. In a short time they have to make a disconcerting journey from the premodern through the modern to the postmodern culture. We have also seen the type of Catholicism Asian-American Catholics bring with them as they immigrate into the United States whose Catholic Church bears some resemblances with their Catholicism but most of the times baffles them. The remaining issue is how to envision the space Asian-American Catholics occupy both as citizens of the American society and as members of the American Catholic church. From this space flow the tasks that are incumbent upon them as citizens and church members as well as those of the society and the church toward them.

Despite profound differences, both cultural and personal, Asian Americans share one common trait and fundamental predicament: immigrants they all are. And being immigrant means being at the margin, or being in-between, or being betwixt and between. To be betwixt and between is to be neither here nor there, to be neither this thing nor that completely. Spatially, it is to dwell at the periphery or at the boundaries. Politically, it means not residing at the centers of power of the two intersecting worlds but occupying the precarious and narrow margins where the two dominant groups meet and clash, and denied the opportunity to wield power in matters of public interest and self-determination. Socially, to be in-between is to be part of a minority, a member of a marginal(ized) group. Culturally, it means not being fully integrated into and accepted by either cultural system, being a mestizo, a person of mixed race. Linguistically, the betwixt-and-between person is bilingual but may not achieve a mastery of both languages and often speaks them with a distinct accent. Psychologically and spiritually, the person does not possess a well-defined and secure self-identity and is often marked with excessive impressionableness, rootlessness, and an inordinate desire for belonging. In short, an American Asian will never be American enough; because of his or her race and culture, AAmerican" will function only as a qualifier for the noun "Asian." On the other hand, an Asian American is no longer regarded by the people of his or her county as authentically Asian; she or he has "left"Asia and has become an American for whom "Asian" functions only as a qualifier.

However, to be betwixt and between is not totally negative and need not cause cultural schizophrenia. Paradoxically, being neither this nor that allows one to be both this and that. An American Asian or an Asian American is American in an way no "pure" American can be, and he or she is an Asian in a way no "pure" Asian can be, precisely because she or he is both Asian and American. Of course, as we have noted above, the process of rapid and extensive globalization and internationalization has compressed the geographical and cultural boundaries and made them exceedingly porous, so that there is today little connection between the passport one holds and the languages one speaks, the clothes one wears, the foods one eats, the music one listens to, the views one professes, and the religion one practices. The constant flow of persons, technologies, finance, information, and ideology across continents and countries has brought about deterritorialization and multiple belongings and loyalties. While this is true of almost everyone in the modern world, only the immigrant experiences this both-and situation of multiple identities and loyalties as a permanent, day-to-day existential condition, must consciously accept it as his or her providentially given mission and task, and must devise ways to create a space in which to stand and not to fall between two at times conflicting and competing cultures. Belonging to both worlds and cultures, immigrants have the opportunity to fuse them together and, out of their respective resources, fashion a new, different world, so that they stand not only between these two worlds and cultures but also beyond them. Thus being betwixt and between can bring about personal and societal transformation and enrichment.

What has been said of the destiny of immigrants between the two cultures, their own and the American culture, applies equally to their ecclesial situation. Here too they stand in-between two churches, at the boundary between the American Catholic church and the churches of their native countries. Belonging fully to neither, they feel estranged in both and do not occupy positions of power in either church. For most American Catholics, Asian-American Catholics' religious practices seem to be a throw-back to their own Catholicism of the fifties, with clerical dominance and lay submissiveness, with colorful processions and pious devotions. When invited to attend these celebrations, the American hierarchs take part in them with gusto, and some perhaps with a touch of nostalgia for the good old days when the laity would genuflect and kiss their rings and address them with the grand titles of "your eminence" or "your excellency" or "your lordship," as many Asian Catholics are still used to doing when they meet ecclesiastical dignitaries. American bishops and priests often praise Asian-American Catholics' faith, admire their devotion, laud their numerous vocations, delight in the sounds of gongs and the smell of incense sticks, enjoy their ethnic foods, and encourage their participation in church life, but beyond this sincere rhetoric and sporadic programs of incorporation into the local church, there is more often than not uncertainty about what to do with Asian Americans' cultures and religious heritage. On the other hand, Asian-American Catholics, both clerical and lay, do not fare better when they return home for a visit. While welcoming them, the local hierarchy often looks upon them (especially the clerics) with suspicion, fearing that they have been contaminated by the liberal and even heretical ideas and lax morality of the American church.

Nevertheless, while belonging fully neither to the American church nor the Asian churches, Asian-American Catholics belong to both. Asian-American Catholics live a Catholic life in a way no "pure" American Catholic can because of their indelible Asian religious traditions, and they live a Catholic life in a way no "pure" Asian Catholic can because of the distinctly American Catholic ethos which they have willy-nilly absorbed through sheer contiguity and symbiosis with the American society and Catholic church. Here again their betwixt-and-between position should not be viewed only as a negative asset productive of marginalization but also as an opportunity and a task to create a new way of being Catholic. Here lies their unique contribution to the church.

But in order to accomplish this mission, where should they stand? What is their social location, the specific space they occupy within the American society and church? How should they be part of the societal and ecclesial realities? In speaking above of inculturation of Asians into the American modern and postmodern culture, I have argued that none of the three strategies, namely, antiglobalism (in both of its forms, i.e., fundamentalism and revanchism), ethnification, and primitivism would be satisfactory. In light of what has been said about the existential condition of the immigrant, I would submit that the reason why they are unsatisfactory lies in their common presupposition that an immigrant must be either completely inside or completely outside the American culture. Anything less than a complete opposition against or absorption into the American culture conceived as an integrative system is unacceptable. Antiglobalism is in favor of the first option, whereas ethnification and primitivism are implicitly in favor of the second. Whereas antiglobalism rejects inculturation altogether, acknowledging no common space whatsoever between the American culture and Asian cultures, ethnification and primitivism accept absorption into the American culture as an ideal by means of a retrieval either of an allegedly lost culture or a forgotten normative cultural dimension or period.

In contrast to these three strategies I propose that we view the predicament of Asian Americans as neither completely inside nor completely outside the American society but as belonging to both but not entirely, because they are beyond both. The same thing should be said about Asian-American Catholics. They are neither completely outside the American Catholic church and their native Asian churches nor completely inside them; they belong to both but not completely, because they are also beyond both. In other words, they live and move and have their being in the interstice between the American culture and their own, between the American church and their Asian churches. Because of this inalienable interstice, there should be no attempt to incorporate Asian Americans into the American society and Asian-American Catholics into the Catholic church as it were into a melting-pot, in such a way that they would lose their distinct identity both as Asians and as Asian Catholics. Nor should there be an attempt to keep them apart from the American society and the American church in a kind of ghetto, in such a way that they would be marginalized from church and society.

Furthermore, given the present reality of culture in the United States as globalized, conflictual, fragmented, and multiple, as I have described above, this space is not some preexisting no man's land, peacefully and definitively agreed upon in advance by the powers that be of the two cultures and the two churches. Rather, the interstice is to be carved out by the Asian-American Catholics themselves, in everyday living, by trial and error, in creative freedom, over the course of a lifetime. Its boundaries, quite porous to be sure, are ever shifting and are subject to being redrawn and renegotiated as new circumstances and needs arise. What remains indisputable is that Asian-American Catholics have a right to this cultural and ecclesial interstitial space where they can fulfill the God-given mission of being the bridge between East and West, between the church of Asia and the church of North America.

This does not mean that inculturation or interculturation is an arbitrary and haphazard process, bereft of guiding principles, theological and canonical, or without a supervising authority. Indeed, in the process of interculturation between the Asian cultures and the American culture, all the three dimensions (i.e., signs, message, and codes) and the three levels of culture (i.e., the surface, the intermediate level, and the mentality) must be brought into play. Interculturation is the process whereby the American culture and the Asian cultures are brought into a reciprocal engagement in such a way that both of them are transformed from within. Essential to interculturation is the mutual criticism and enrichment between the American culture and the Asian cultures. The expressions of all these cultures are transformed as the result of this process.

Strictly, interculturation is a three-step trajectory. In the first place, what Louis Luzbetak calls "individual building-blocks of culture," that is, the signs and symbols, of one culture are assigned functional equivalents in another culture. Here, obviously, translation plays an predominant role.

Then comes the stage of acculturation in which one culture acquires certain elements of another culture which, in its turn, adopts certain elements and way of life of the other culture. However, often such mutual borrowing still operates at best at the intermediate level. Furthermore, because of the unequal power relations between the American culture and the immigrants' cultures, there is the danger that the latter will be dominated and absorbed by the former. Also, in this cultural exchange there are plenty of opportunities for mutual misunderstanding since the codes through which the meaning of the signs of culture are carried may be hidden and different. Often acculturation may lead to either juxtaposition (elements of both cultures are unassimilated and are allowed to operate side by side) or syncretism (the basic identity of both cultures is lost or diluted).

The third stage, the level of inculturation proper, engages the deepest level of the two cultures together, their world views, their basic "message," as expressed in their philosophies and religions. Obviously, this task requires that immigrants achieve a measure of intellectual sophistication and institutional autonomy that would enable them to confront the American culture as equals in a truly multi-ethnic and pluralistic society.

What has been said about the encounter between the American culture and Asian cultures applies as well to the encounter between the American church and Asian-American Catholics. A similar three-stage process of interculturation takes place. There is the first and essential phase of translating significant religious texts in English into Asian languages and vice versa, a work still to be done for and by Asian-American Catholics. Whereas many classics of Asian philosophy are available in English, very few Christian classics have been translated into Asian languages. I am thinking not only of the Bible (of which Vietnamese Catholics do not as yet possess a scholarly and readable translation after three hundred years of Christianity!) but also of patristic and medieval classics as well as works on spirituality. As the result, many Asian-American Catholics are deprived of the theological and spiritual heritage of Western Christianity, and therefore do not possess the necessary resources to enter into a fruitful dialogue with the Western church.

There is next the phase of finding the ways by which both the American church and Asian-American Catholic communities can critique and enrich each other on the ten (and other) characteristics listed above. For example, from the perspective of the American church, Asian-American Catholics will be challenged to correct their predominantly institutional model of ecclesiology with other models in which the role of the laity is duly recognized and their active participation is fostered, dialogue with followers of other religions is undertaken, and social justice is seriously pursued. On the other hand, through the experiences of Asian-American Catholics the American church may rediscover the importance of priestly and religious vocations, popular devotions, pious associations, martyrdom, and solidarity with the poor and the oppressed. No less importantly, in a religiously plural world which the United States has become, the manifold non-Christian heritage of Asian-American Catholics will be a springboard for the church to learn from the spiritual riches of other religions.

The mention of non-Christian religions brings us to the third and deepest level of interculturation which is also the most difficult and challenging. Connected with this level of inculturation are some of the most controversial themes in contemporary theology such as religious pluralism, the salvific values of non-Christian religions, the uniqueness of Christ, the necessity of the church, praxis for liberation, and interfaith dialogue. This is of course not the place to broach these theological issues, but there is no doubt that the presence of Asian-American Catholics will bring them to the fore. Furthermore, Asian-American Catholics are in a privileged position to help their fellow Catholics deal with these thorny issues, since they have at their disposal, and hence are duty-bound to take advantage of, opportunities for theological education that have been denied to their fellow Catholics for more than fifty years in some countries.

Theologically, Asian-American Catholics have to perform the three tasks that Anselm Kyongsuk Min prescribes for Korean-American theology. The first is to retrieve both the Western and the Asian traditions for the needs of Asian communities in America, whose needs and circumstances as immigrants are different from those of their fellow Asians in Asia.
The second task is to reflect on the theological significance of the Asian-American experience itself. Such an experience, Min points out, has at least four dimensions: separation, ambiguity, diversity, and love of the stranger (xenophilia). The Asian-American experience is first of all that of separation from the old, familiar, ancestral ways of doing things: "For a people so devoted to the tradition, living in America brings with it pain of radical separation, the repression of nostalgia for the old culture and old identities, dying to old self and being born again, born to the truth of human life as pilgrimage of the homo viator, the wayfaring human being." Secondly, the experience of separation is also that of ambiguity. "It means no longer having the certainties of the home tradition available for every moment of decision and crisis, but rather meeting such a moment in a creative, inventive way, improvising, compromising, agonizing, and in any event learning to live with a large dose of ambiguity, the very ambiguity of life itself." The third experience is the pain of diversity. Coming from a relatively homogeneous culture, Asian Americans must learn to live with the ethnic others, those who are different in ethnicity, language, religion, and culture. The must learn to overcome ethnic prejudices and narrow nationalism. From this comes the fourth experience, that of learning to love the stranger. Min suggests that the event of April 29, 1992, in Los Angeles, in which Korean businesses were systematically looted and burned by African and Hispanic Americans, should teach Korean Americans that they cannot live just for themselves but must learn to live with others with some solidarity of interests.

The third and last task is to elaborate a political theology appropriate to Asian Americans as citizens of the United States who have both domestic responsibilities toward the common good and international responsibilities as the sole surviving superpower in an increasingly globalizing world. Min warns against the danger of focusing only ethnic and cultural issues and forget the duty of prophetic criticism: "As citizens of a country with the historic burdens of colonialism, slavery, and imperialism," Asian Americans "too need particular sensitization to this inernational dimension of U.S. power. They cannot simply disallow all political responsibility for waht their political, military, and economic representatives do overseas in their names."

Asian Americans and Asian-American Catholics: We are at an interesting, if not historic encounter between two cultures and two churches. The interstice in which they stand allows them neither to imitate the host culture and church nor merely to retrieve their indigenous history and native characteristics. Rather it makes them into "people in the middle," though not "people of the center" and it is from there that they can contribute to the shaping of a new society and a new church.