The Best of Both Worlds
Mako Nagasawa
July 1, 2000
Last week my wife and I were sitting on our living room futon, feeling our son kick in her tummy, when I started to cry. As Ming tried to understand my sudden flow of tears, I described being overwhelmed with love and fear: "How will I be able to express how much I love my son?" I suppose I'm not the first father to feel that way. But for Ming and me, this question-along with the other questions that beset every couple expecting their first child-is complicated by our bicultural identities. I'm a second-and-a-half-generation Japanese-American; Ming is second-generation Chinese-American, and in April we relocated into an inner-city neighborhood that is primarily African-American, Caribbean, and Latino. Growing up with parents and grandparents who immigrated to the United States from Asia, both of us learned to move between the culture of our families and the mainstream Caucasian-American culture that shaped many other parts of our lives. Now we are learning to navigate through urban culture as well. Against this backdrop, we are asking, "What do the different cultures we live in have to say to one another? How does the gospel speak into each? What do we hope our children will receive from each? And what do we hope to protect them from?" When I was nine years old, a boy a few years older than me lived two houses down. He was Korean, and being Japanese, I felt an Asian camaraderie with him. We had other things in common, too, like dirt bike riding and drawing. Unfortunately, he also introduced me to some new activities. He had stumbled onto his father's stash of Playboy magazines, and he would invite me over to his house to look through them while both his parents were at work. Even though I was young, I had a vague sense of unease ...
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