Learning to Speak a New Tongue: Imagining a Way That Holds People Together--An Asian American Conversation

Learning to Speak a New Tongue attempts to respond to a timely question facing America today: What holds people together in a fragmented world? The response comes from a religious community that has not been very visible: Asian Americans. The author employs the threefold epistemological scaffold familiar to Asian Americans: (1) translocal value orientation embedded in the experiences of racialization (2) a heightened sensitivity to pathos arising out of our dissonance with the societal norms and values and (3) amphibolous spirituality that is a co-existence of multiple religious traditions without any resolution of their differences. The angle of vision embedded in this epistemological framework of Asian Americans lives may well provide a clue to an alternate architectural paradigm in building a new peoplehood and to redefine democratic freedom as the historical paradigm of American peoplehood. Which tongue shall America speak? Is it the tongue of democratic freedom truncated into the tongue of self-entitlement or the tongue of justice equality and care? Matsuokas prophetic critique not only exposes the destructive path America is walking it also calls America to learn to speak a new tongue a tongue that offers clue for an alternative tomorrow. This is a timely work for our troubled times! -Eleazar S. Fernandez Professor of Constructive Theology United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities New Brighton Minnesota Fumitaka Matsuoka as a theologian and Asian American studies scholar provides a refreshing analysis on the currently corrupted American peoplehood and offers thought-provoking insights for its future direction. Utilizing his perspectives and experiences as an immigrant scholar who speaks literal and figurative second languages Matsuoka insists that America needs to recover its second languages which will nurture a more just relational and equal peoplehood. It is a must-read for those who are deeply troubled by this divided nation but want to find hope to move forward! -Boyung Lee Associate Professor of Educational Ministries Director API Program Initiative Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union Berkeley Fumitaka Matsuoka is Robert Gordon Sproul Professor of Theology Emeritus at Pacific School of Religion and was Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean and Professor of Theology at PSR and at Bethany Theological Seminary. He also served as the director of the Institute for Leadership Development and the Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion (PANA Institute) at PSR. His books include Out of Silence: Emerging Theological Themes of Asian American Churches (1995) and The Color of Faith: Building Community in a Multiracial Society (1998). He is currently co-editing with Jane Iwamura Encyclopedia of Asian American Cultures & Religions.