For Asian American Ministries in InterVarsity, there were actually two sparks: Nina Lau-Branson and Jeanette Yep. Nina served as the first part-time coordinator for the Asian American Ministry Fellowship beginning in 1979, with Jeanette taking over in 1983 and serving until 1985.
During the years when InterVarsity was recognized as a ministry to primarily white students, Nina and Jeanette had a vision for what InterVarsity might someday become and put shoe leather to that vision. They also wanted to care for the Asian American staff community, which numbered around a dozen in 1980.
In 1980, there were 698 Asian American students involved in InterVarsity, comprising 2.5% of all students. From 1982 to 1992, there was a 360% increase, when we grew from 788 to 2,837. We now comprised 10.8% of all students. By 1992, our Asian American staff numbers increased to 26.
Vice-President and Multiethnic Director Dr. Sam Barkat saw a need for addressing the rapid growth amongst Asian Americans. In 1993, he asked veteran staff Paul Tokunaga (and a planning committee comprised of Donna Dong, Hong Eng, Jeanette Yep and Sam) to direct a conference for Asian American staff, which was held in Berkeley. Forty staff attended. The following year, Sam asked Paul to become the part-time Asian American Ministries Coordinator, a role he held until 1997, when he resigned his “day job” as Southeast Regional Director to devote his energies to Asian Americans.
Staff conferences were held every three years (1998 in Pasadena, 2001 in Atlanta, 2004 in Torrance, 2007 in California). In 1997, we began Reflections On Asian American Ministry, which later became E-flections, a quarterly email in-house publication for the Asian American staff community.
In 1996, the first Asian American Coordinating Team (Jeanette Yep, Brad Wong, Susan Van Riesen, Collin Tomikawa and Paul Tokunaga) developed a five-year plan which focused on developing the next generation of Asian American Leaders. The 1998 staff conference was titled Developing Asian American Leaders, with 85 in attendance. That same year, we self-published Developing Asian American Leaders, an in-house handbook for Asian American staff. In 2000, Greg Jao, Jon Paris, Jeanette Yep and Paul Tokunaga taught a course for staff working with Asian Americans, again titled Developing Asian American Leaders.
In 2001, while keeping our emphasis on leadership development, the Coordinating Team saw the need to begin moving beyond our own community. Our staff conference in 2001 thusly addressed “Living Justly As Asian Americans.” We invited Vinoth and Karin Ramachandra, IFES staff in Sri Lanka, to address the themes of justice and racial reconciliation. We had 150 participants. Our conference in 2004 kept moving us in a similar direction. Dr. Russell Jeung was our featured speaker as we addressed “Return to the Banquet Table!: God’s Call To The Pan Asian Community.” We had 110 in attendance.
In 2003-04, the Asian American Coordinating Team ran a 15-month “executive leadership development program” for 14 outstanding young Asian American staff who displayed senior leadership potential. It was named The Daniel Project. The goal was to help fill InterVarsity’s leadership pipeline with gifted but perhaps untapped and unrecognized leaders. Currently 11 of the 14 have moved into higher leadership roles. In 2005 a second cohort of The Daniel Project began which led to the adaption of The Daniel Project in InterVarsity’s Black Campus Ministries and Latino Fellowship in 2006.
In 2008 after serving 14 years as the Asian American Ministries Coordinator, Paul Tokunaga stepped-down from the role in order to step up as Vice President and Director of Strategic Ministries. Today Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko, serves as the interim national coordinator.
Throughout the late ‘90s and early 21st century we have continued to see growth and development on several fronts:
Our student numbers continued to grow but at a slower rate than in the ‘80s. In 2008, we worked with about 4,676 Asian American students. We’ve almost tripled the number of Asian American staff in the last 10 years (55 to 160).
By 2006, 62 of the 160 staff were in some type of leadership role (team leader or higher) within InterVarsity. There are now three regional directors and 15 area directors who are Asian American.
In recent years, we’ve worked at reaching more South Asian Americans, Southeast Asian Americans and Pilipino Americans as we continue our strong relationships with East Asian Americans.
