Invisibility, Anti-Asian Racism, and Feminist Studies in Religion

Abstract

Invisibility, Anti-Asian Racism, and Feminist Studies in Religion Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier (bio) In July of 2020, the leadership of Feminist Studies in Religion, Inc. (FSR) issued a statement on anti-Black racism in the wake of the recent police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks.1 FSR committed to a series of action items to combat anti-Black racism. It also committed to ongoing self-reflection on its own history and practices as they relate to race and racism. As a part of this work, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (JFSR) published a roundtable in 2022 (38, no. 1). For the roundtable, Judith Plaskow wrote a lead piece reflecting on race, racism, and the history of JFSR,2 and a series of scholars wrote short responses. The respondents included former JFSR coeditors and current board members. All current unit coleaders also offered responses. Nami Kim's response is particularly relevant for our own roundtable here. She writes that even as we continue to "examine how 'our' work and network engender anti-Blackness," FSR also must attend "to multiple logics of white supremacy and Christian hegemony, since white supremacy is undergirded by not only anti-Black racism but also anti-Muslim racism, pernicious orientalism and anti-Asian racism, and settler colonialism."3 These multiple logics were on our mind when Grace Ji-Sun Kim (FSR director at large) and I (FSR vice president) developed this roundtable discussion. Our hope is to continue FSR's antiracism initiatives by [End Page 107] attending to some of these complex dynamics as they impact Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. As has been well documented (and, for many of us, personally experienced), the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge of violence and hate against Asian and Pacific Islander folks in North America and Europe. But, as Nami Kim notes, the violence long predates COVID; and Stop AAPI Hate's work to document, research, and respond to the rise of anti-Asian attacks did not receive significant attention until the murders of six women of Asian descent in Atlanta (March 16, 2021).4 Clearly, anti-Asian racism in religion, the academy, and society has a much longer history than just the past three years. Our roundtable participants—Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Vijaya Nagarajan, Rachel Bundang, Najeeba Syeed, and Tamara C. Ho—have been invited to reflect on the following questions: How do you see Asian invisibility and/or anti-Asian racism in religion and society? How do you respond to that in your scholarship? How do you see Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander American voices and issues represented in feminist studies in religion? And what needs to happen in feminist studies in religion to contend with Asian invisibility and anti-Asian racism? These questions are only meant to start the conversation, as we wanted participants to have the freedom to develop their thoughts in light of their own concerns and work. A number of themes arise from the roundtable responses. On the one hand, AAPI persons (along with their religions and communities) are hypervisible due to their features, cultures, and more. They are marked as unassimilable, perpetual foreigners. They are "other," never seen as fully American. This results in a racialized xenophobia, with a long history of exclusion and violence that continues to this day. Even so, the binary framework of race in the United States means that AAPI communities are simultaneously invisible in the story of America and in the story of race in America. Invisibility operates in the academy and classroom as well. Orientalist and white Western hegemonic constructions of religion, authority, and scholarship mean that Asian, Pacific Islander, and AAPI communities are often invisible in the study of their own religious thought and practice. Students, scholars, and practitioners do not see themselves reflected in the abstracted (white cishet male) presentation of their religions and communities. Roundtable contributors also highlight the ways Asian invisibility is inter-sectional. There are entangled invisibilities and invisibilities within invisibilities. Gender dynamics and gendered stereotypes function to invisibilize AAPI scholars and keep them in their "place."5 Additional compounding factors include [End Page 108] faculty status, Christian dominance, and the...