God’s New Whiz Kids? Korean American Evangelicals on Campus (review)

Asian American Evangelical groups are flourishing on America's college and university campuses: "On the East Coast, one out of four Evangelical college students at New York City colleges and universities are Asian American" (1). In giving this statistic, the story sociologist Rebecca Kim tells in God's New Whiz Kids?: Korean American Evangelicals on Campus is familiar to the small but growing group of scholars who study Asian American religion. Throughout her book, however, Kim presents readers with scholarship that is significantly deeper and more compelling than simply discussing demographic changes Asian Americans are bringing to American religion.

From the beginning of God's New Whiz Kids?, Kim links her work to broader debates in immigration, Asian American Studies, and religion literatures. At one level of analysis she asks why second-generation Korean Americans—in particular those who are largely from white, suburban middle-class neighborhoods and who appear to have assimilated—choose to flock to separate Korean American Evangelical ministries. At another level, she asks broader questions related to the study of immigration, particularly the study of Asian American immigration, such as: What do ethnic identities mean for second-generation immigrants? And, how do their identities compare with those of their parents as well as those of other Americans? She generates answers to these questions from a wealth of data gathered during two years of intensive research on campus Evangelical organizations at a large campus on the west coast, which she refers to as "West University." As is typical of many campuses like the one Kim studied, West University is diverse, with a student body that is 35% white, 15% Latin American, 5% African American, and 38% Asian American. She specifically gathered historical data, conducted participant-observation in various campus Christian organizations, and completed one hundred personal interviews, including those with second-generation Korean Americans (SGKA) involved in Korean American ministries, SGKA and non-Koreans involved in pan-Asian, multiracial, or white-dominant campus ministries, as well as pastors and staff members of multiple campus ministries.

Kim argues that SGKA form ethnic-specific Evangelical campus ministries because of what she calls an "emergent ethnic group formation" (71) characterized by three interactive processes: a) the desire for community interacting with the structural opportunity of a racially and ethnically diverse social environment; b) the desire for homophily (wanting to be with others like oneself) interacting with societally-imposed ethnic and racial categorizations; and c) the desire for majority status (to have power in one's social environment) interacting with marginalization (denial of opportunity by the majority). Kim further shows that the emergent ethnic group formation characteristic of Evangelical organizations is happening in non-religious campus organizations as well. Even when students find themselves in an environment that is as multicultural as West University, they still flock towards those in their own group. She shows the reader that Asian American Christian groups—though often viewed as apolitical—benefit from the structural commitment to promoting ethnic awareness that was brought about by the ethnic studies movements of the 1960s.

The rest of her argument centers on why Korean Americans prefer religious community with other Korean Americans and how such communities become possible. The crux of Kim's argument about emergent ethnic group formation rests on a universal social science principle, the desire for community. In a SGKA Christian fellowship group, everyone is accepted. And in an environment where individuals are looking for community with those who are most like them, the structural presence of a high concentration of Korean Americans provides the perfect opportunity for the formation of ethnic-specific fellowships. In this desire to be with others who are like them ethnically and racially, Korean Americans are also responding to the structural condition of the racial and ethnic categories other Americans impose on them. Finally, Kim argues that all groups have the desire to be in the majority, to have power. This desire is coupled with...