How does a Catholic school teacher and theologian teach kids about taboos, sex, and ethics? Read all about it in Part 1 of this interview with Dr. Michael Campos.

I am Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), Japanese, Irish, Swedish, and German. Living in the Bible Belt throughout childhood and adolescence was turbulent and at times hostile for someone mixed-race, queer, and transgender. But the silver lining I found despite my turmoil were the numerous encounters I had with who I believe to be a living and resurrected Jesus. These transcendent experiences were what sustained me through 10 years of teaching and preaching that said while everyone “sins and falls short the glory of God,” people like me were especially sick, broken, something to be prayed away, managed, or erased. I embraced this hermeneutic despite what it cost: my physical safety, mental health, and overall spiritual well-being.

Decolonization is not a metaphor, Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang insist. Carelessly calling to decolonize things like schools and other such institutions metaphorizes decolonization. To do so kills the very possibility of decolonization and re-centers whiteness; it is yet another form of settler appropriation. What would it mean then to decolonize something like theology – and Asian American theology at that? I want to suggest that decolonizing Asian American theology requires giving up the search for physical belonging, replacing it with a theology of landlessness, and to be in solidarity with indigenous struggles for sovereignty.

Though this passage is attributed to Paul, it echoes the radical love we see preached by Jesus in everything attributed to Him in the Bible. We’re told to love unconditionally, to give everything and then everything again, to take hatred and turn it around by offering the other cheek.

Forced duality — growing up multiracial Asian American, fresh off the boat from Seoul, now in an all-white environment. My mother moved from Korea, forsaking the comfortable life she worked for, so that I could have the chance of one without someone commenting on my dirty blood. She thought it would be better.