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Rev. Yoke Lye Jerrymia Lim on the broader meaning of diversity
“Who is my neighbor?”
As a pastoral educator with a commitment to strengthen and nurture multiethnic-multicultural communities, I often find myself remembering Dr. King’s timeless “I have a dream speech.” He said, “I still have a dream this morning: one day all of God’s black children will be respected like the white children. I still have a dream this morning: that one day the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid. I still have a dream this morning: that all men everywhere will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.” King’s dream definitely addresses the dream of immigrants who are becoming Americans.
The demographics of the United States are constantly changing, with immigrants on the increase. These changes challenge us to a new level of learning and challenge us to become persons and neighbors who truly value inclusion, respect, and social justice. As culture is an elastic and dynamic concept, therefore, a life that is well-lived today cannot be static, but requires continual learning, re-learning and un-learning of race, culture, language and diversity.
We need to learn from our neighbors from diverse backgrounds and take every opportunity to expand our cultural experiences, which can only lead to the development of our compassion in becoming good and helpful neighbors. Cultural diversity is taking on a broader meaning – to see and evaluate situations from a global perspective. This includes socio-cultural experiences of people of different countries, languages (and accent), genders, social classes, religious and spiritual beliefs, sexual orientations, ages, physical and mental abilities and more.
In encountering our neighbors who are culturally dissimilar, or when we are staying in an unfamiliar culture, our identities undergo turmoil and transformation that involves a sense of emotional vulnerability. Emotional vulnerability is part of an inevitable identity change process. With mindful vulnerability, we can listen with greater thoughtfulness and see things through fresh lenses. We discover courage and curiosity to ask ourselves questions, “Who am I and who are you in this neighborhood?” “How do I define myself as a good neighbor to you?”; “How do I define you as a good neighbor to me?”
King’s dream is a dream that passionately calls us to accountability in establishing a community of neighbors that live with each other with respect and equality yet without being afraid because of shared humanity and dignity.
King’s dream is challenged and illuminated in the novel House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III. Dubus highlights the compelling truth of how tragedies happen when people fail to become good neighbors.
bell hooks, author of All About Love, teaches us to nurture our neighbors on the foundation of loving-kindness. To express her conviction, paradoxically, hooks writes provocative social and cultural criticism that stretches our minds and to think beyond set paradigms. Like King, hooks claims that loving our neighbors means loving with the intention to end domination, to promote peace and justice and therefore become a true neighborhood with hope.
May the life, dream and vision of Dr. King be remembered, echoed and embraced so our hope of a true neighborhood will be renewed one more time!
Acknowledgement:
I want to dedicate this piece of reflection to my son Ariel-Joseph. His passion for cultures and justice for peoples compelled him to leave the United States for Japan to study “Cultural Comparatives.” A portion of his application essay to Sophia University, Tokyo, inspires me greatly: “A translator/interpreter of cultures and languages is not limited to the local community, but its impacts reach a global scale...If there were ever a role essential to quelling all strife and wars, it would be the translator (of cultures and languages), no less. People underestimate the power of words. A single utterance can change a thousand lives. Language is not just a skill, it is an art. It is also my dream, which is my burden and my blessing.”
References:
American Medical Student Association: Cultural Competency in Medicine 2005.
Andres Dubus III. House of Sand and Fog. Vintage Books,1999.
bell hooks. All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow & Company, 2000.
Migrant Clinician Network: Cultural Competency in Practice 2005.
National Association of Social Workers: NASW Cultural Competence in Social Work Practice, 2005.
Stella Ting-Toomey. Communicating Across Cultures, The Guilford Press, 1999.
Rev. Yoke-Lye Jerrymia Lim was born and raised in Malaysia, a country in South East Asia situated between Thailand and Singapore. Her family of origin resides in Malaysia. Yoke-Lye is married to Rev. Robert Lim, an ELCA pastor and chaplain. They have two teenage boys, AJ Yew (19) and R-J Wei (16). Yoke-Lye is a Board Certified Chaplain with the APC. She was active with the APC certification committee (Southwest Region) until moving to Indianapolis, Indiana, where she is an ACPE supervisor and chaplain for Clarian Health, Indianapolis. She is Pentecostal and was ordained by The Vine Sanctuary Subang Jaya (Charismatic-Pentecostal) Church, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is endorsed by the Coalition of Spirit-filled Churches, USA.
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