I have been asked this question as long as I could remember. The questioner was not asking where I was born or where I went to school or whether I was a US citizen or not. For Asian Americans, just the simple thought of being a legitimate member of the American republic was too much to comprehend since we are often viewed as “foreigners.”
My responses in the past have been “I was born in Boston in Kenmore Square near Fenway Park.” How more American can one be but to root for the Red Sox. I have said, “My father enlisted in the US Army for WWII and served in Germany.” How more American can one be but for my father ready to spill his blood for a country he was not yet a citizen. I have even said, “My home church is the First Baptist Church of Boston founded in 1665, years before the American Revolution. This is where I received my first call to ministry and was ordained in 1975.” How more American Baptist can one be but to trace one’s Baptist roots to Obadiah Holmes and Samuel Stillman.
What has made the United States stood out in the world is that we are a society of immigrants having fled our ancestral homelands to make a better republic not based on birthrights or privilege but on our allegiance to the US and the open exchange of ideas and policies. What has made and continue to make the American Baptist Churches, USA strong, healthy and welcoming is the truth that the beloved community welcomes all and everyone to be full members of Christ’s church. (Ephesians 2:19)
Nativism and any element of white or for that matter any racial/ethnic supremacy has no place in America and the ABC. Being born in Boston does not give me any more rights than naturalized US citizens. Being baptized at the fourth oldest Baptist church in America does not give me more rights than newly arrived Baptists from other countries.
I know the answer the questioner wants to hear when I am asked, “Where are you really from?” But I am not going to offer that answer because it would just reinforce the myth that Asian Americans don’t belong in America. It is as racist as “Why don’t you go back to your country?” Denying one’s inalienable rights of belonging in America or the American Baptist Churches is wrong.