I recently finished an article on Asian American biblical interpretation from a later generation perspective. Yes, I realize that it sounds like a very particular context-specific understanding of biblical interpretation. I DO think, however, that later generation Asian Americans have something to say about God and the Bible that sounds very different than the theological discourse of Asian Americans to this point.
In this article I argue that most Asian American theological discourse has stressed issues and themes that relate to or are hovering around the context of Asian American immigrant life. I believe that this has been a profound and rich contribution to theology. I do not think, however, that it reflects the lived-realities of a significant group within Asian America, particularly those who are of the third generations or later.
Instead of themes like marginality and liminality, which stress the essential difference between “American” and “Asian” cultures, I would argue that notions such as hybridity, heterogeneity are more reflective of later generational experience. Rather than agreeing with assimilationist theories that assume that later generations lose their Asian cultural heritages as they spend more time in America, I would argue that Asian Americans like the Sansei (third generation Japanese Americans) are in the process of ongoing cultural construction, reformulating what it means to be both Asian and American.
This is just a snippet of what is in the article. I go on to discuss on how I imagine that this affects an understanding of culturally-contextual biblical interpretation.