Description

We gather in a season of ripening.

We come as Asian American scholars of religion and theology whose lives have been shaped by long years of teaching, mentoring, writing, and serving, often in spaces where our presence was partial, our voices measured, and our belonging uncertain. We have lived and worked across languages, cultures, and histories, carrying the weight and the wisdom of migration, diaspora, and memory.

Some of us were told to be quiet.
Some of us learned to speak carefully.
All of us learned to endure, to adapt, to make a way.

Over time, we cultivated ways of knowing and teaching that do not always appear in syllabi or institutional records, ways shaped by our communities, our ancestors, our spiritual traditions, and our commitments to justice. We have accompanied students, opened doors where none existed, and sustained one another in visible and invisible ways.

Now, we find ourselves at a threshold.

In this season, we are invited not only to remember, but to gather what has been formed in us - to name it, to reflect on it, and to offer it. Like a benediction spoken at the close of a gathering, this is a time of blessing and sending. What we have lived, learned, and carried is not ours alone. It also belongs to those who come after us.

This gathering is a space of shared presence, of listening, remembering, and discerning. We come together not to conclude, but to offer. We speak what has been hard to name. We honor what has sustained us. We entrust our stories, our insights, and our hopes to the next generation, as an act of care, responsibility, and love.

Goals:

• To create a conversation for this season and the coming seasons of our careers; 
• To remember our journeys and tell the stories of the ways we survived and thrived;
• To reflect on the losses and gains of our decades of experience in the academy; 
• To share lessons we have learned and how we might pass these lessons onto the future generations;
• To take stock of the Asian American intellectual traditions developed in the study of religion and theology;
• To discuss our stake in higher education generally and in our current institutions specifically
• To enjoy one another’s company and to delight in our current locale;
• To reinforce community and form an ongoing network of mutual support and encouragement