What Jeremy Lin means to Asian American Christians

by Jerry Park
Washington Post
On Faith

Keeping up with the newsfeed on Jeremy Lin has been a new hobby of mine. I’ve justified this time sink as work since I am an Asian American professor who studies and teaches race and religion in American culture. In the sea of news pieces, blog posts, and Facebook essays it’s clear that most everyone now knows the following: Jeremy Lin is an Ivy League grad and few have made it into the NBA. Jeremy Lin is Asian American, of Chinese/Taiwanese descent. And finally, Jeremy Lin is Christian.
ut how much do we really know about the the communities Lin represents?

Asian Americans are a small population; in fact, they are a variety of populations. The 17 million Asian Americans counted in the 2010 census are about five percent of the U.S. population. Of these, about a quarter describe themselves as Chinese or Taiwanese in background, making them the largest group of Asian Americans. That seems like a lot but let’s be clear: We’re talking about 3 to 4 million people in a population of 308 million or about one percent of the nation. In terms of race and ethnicity, Jeremy Lin is a rare American.

On matters of religion, more people look like Lin: 78 percent of Americans today identify as Christian according to the Pew Landscape Survey in 2008.
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