Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism

by Jonathan Tran

Overview

Any serious consideration of Asian American life forces us to reframe the way we talk about racism and antiracism. There are two contemporary approaches to antiracist theory and practice. The first emphasizes racial identity to the exclusion of political economy, making racialized life in America illegible. This approach's prevalence, in the academy and beyond, now rises to the level of established doctrine. The second approach views racial identity as the function of a particular political economy—what is called “racial capitalism—and therefore analytically subordinates racial identity to political economy.

Jonathan Tran develops arguments in favor of this second approach. He does so by means of an extended analysis of two case studies: a Chinese migrant settlement in the Mississippi Delta (1868-1969) and the Redeemer Community Church in the Bayview/Hunters Point section of San Francisco (1969-present). While his analysis is focused on particular groups and persons, he uses it to examine more broadly racial capitalism's processes and commitments at the sites of their structural and systemic unfolding. In pursuing a research agenda that pushes beyond the narrow confines of racial identity, Tran reaches back to trusted modes of analysis that have been obscured by the prevailing antiracist orthodoxy and proposes reframing antiracism in terms of a theologically salient account of political economy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197617915
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Series:	AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	852,304
Product dimensions:	9.31(w) x 6.18(h) x 0.83(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Tran is Professor of Theology and Ethics at Baylor University where he holds the George W. Baines Chair of Religion.

Table of Contents

Preface and Note on Method

Introduction

Part I: The Delta Chinese
Chapter 1: Remythologizing the Model Minority Myth: The Chinese Question
Chapter 2: A Moving Picture of Racial Capitalism
Chapter 3: Becoming White in the White/Black Binary

Part II: Redeemer Community Church
Chapter 4: Redeemer Community Church and All That Lies Beneath
Chapter 5: Deep Economy: Dayspring's Doxology
Chapter 6: Rise University Preparatory and the Politics of Hope
Postscript: Beyond Marxism

Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

"An engaging, interdisciplinary, and energetic reconsideration of Asian American identity, racial capitalism, and Christian theology, the book is highly recommended to readers interested in broader questions of race, religion, and political economy." — Rachel Haejin Lim, Sociology of Religion

"This is an excellent read for all whose research intersects between Christian theology, sociology of religion, qualitative research, and Asian American studies." — Calida Chu, International Journal of Public Theology

"This compelling book is a singular intervention in our current reckoning with racism and contemporary debates about antiracism. At once provocative and measured, Tran's book is a feat: a careful argument that is also a bombshell. He shows us the insidious way capitalism breeds competition amongst the exploited, but also how Christian theology, in conversation with Marxism, imagines a hope beyond racial capitalism. I am still reeling from reading this." — James K.A. Smith, Professor of philosophy, Calvin University, author of On the Road with Saint Augustine and The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology

"This well-researched book demonstrates that discourse on race and racism that fails to attend to class and political economy is only skin deep. Combining rich ethnographic data and vigorous theoretic discussion, Dr. Tran advances a theory of racial capitalist economy to interpret Asian American experience and their Christian practices that is innovative and compelling. It deserves to be widely read and debated!" — Kwok Pui-lan, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

"Jonathan Tran's remarkable book breaks new conceptual ground in the analysis of 'race', racism and religion in the United States by providing a fearless critique of how standard scripts about racial 'identity', even when enunciated by those who claim to be fighting injustice most emphatically, simply reinstantiate what they are claiming to overcome. The problem is that these well-meaning discourses obscure what most needs exposure: the economic substructure which keeps the problematic core racial binary in place, and at the same time relegates those who do not conform to that binary (specifically, 'Asian Americans') into a strange place of collusion or further marginalization. But Tran is no standard neo-Marxist, either: through a rich use of comparative ethnographic studies he is able to show how Christianity's core meanings, when truly activated politically, can still change these narratives and also their outcomes." — Sarah Coakley, Australian Catholic University

"Tran's theoretical analysis of Asian American life through the lens of racial capitalism gains real empirical density by foregrounding the oral histories of the Delta Chinese of Mississippi and of Asian American coalitions working in black communities of San Francisco. An essential read for Asian American studies in religion and theology, and for race theory approaches open to reflections on 'racial capitalism.'" — Mark Lewis Taylor, Author of The Theological and the Political: On the Weight of the World

"Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism is a gift we didn't know we needed until we received it." — Jason Micheli, Christian Century

"Scholars interested in religion and politics will have much to gain from this important text." — Colton Bernasol, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Religious Studies Review

"I must say that the book was an incredibly stimulating read. Methodologically, it does a wonderful job of using oral history and ethnography to engage deeply theological and ethical questions." — Alexander Chow, Studies in Christian Ethics 37

"The text is an important read for those who are engaged in theology in the public sphere. I also encourage academics teaching courses on justice and practical theology to consider this as a resource." — Anupama Ranawana, Modern Believing

From the Publisher