Souls for Jesus is our battle cry,
souls for Jesus we’ll fight until we die.
Even the gray uniforms we were wearing in these church kids’ clubs were modeled after military uniforms. We were instilled with the belief that life is a war against Satan and the world.
Furthermore, the Bible was the primary way God spoke to us. Everything that was of importance to guide us in life could be found in the Bible. The Bible was revered. Not only was the Bible considered inspired and inerrant, but the translation needed to be the 1611 King James version, which sounds Shakespearean. Other translations of the Bible were considered too liberal and again labeled “worldly.” The Bible was of such reverence to our subculture of Christians that Scriptures were weaponized to combat moral issues we thought others were wrong about. We were taught that there was only one way to interpret the Scriptures: the way our local church interpreted them.
Others outside of our interpretation of the word of God were labeled liberals or compromisers, lukewarm people God wanted to vomit out of His mouth. I would later learn if you didn’t agree with certain beliefs about women, or associated with people of different theological positions on abortion, race, divorce, or the gay community, you could basically be excommunicated. They called it the doctrine of separation, where you would not be included in the community anymore.
Our academy also taught us that to be a Christian meant you were loyal and submissive to your country, the church, and the Bible. While I never heard it stated outright, the growing sentiment at the church was that to be Christian was to be Republican. Republicans affirmed our biblical beliefs about certain issues through their political platforms: fiscally conservative, small government, low taxes, pro-guns, pro-life, pro–death penalty, anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist. The Republican Party found its home among our conservative Christian community. God and country went hand in hand. We were told to “submit to government authorities for there is not an authority that God does not establish,” especially if they were pro-life, pro-guns, anti-taxes, and anti–gay marriage. Our manual to live this life was the Bible and our particular interpretation of it. We took the Bible as the absolute, inspired Word that was breathed from the mouth of God. Man’s opinion didn’t matter—except, of course, what we believed was our biblical interpretation. The attitude was if you don’t believe the way we do, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Oh, and we love you in the Lord.
This marriage of God, country, and the Bible became the root of what we know as Christian nationalism today. To be Christian is to be American. The vision is to make our nation more like God’s kingdom. Elect Christian leaders and vote for a Christian agenda primarily advocating for our views of sexuality, schools, abortion, guns, and Supreme Court justices. In the mix of all this—though perhaps not as blatant—were our church’s opinions of race and diversity. If we don’t believe in interracial marriage and you’re married interracially, are you still really one of us? Or are you now a liberal, a worldly one going down that slippery slope? The church I grew up in didn’t openly question my parents’ interracial marriage, but looking back now, I know it would have been different if my mom or my dad had been Black.
Over the years I didn’t question this much, but as I neared my teenage years, I mustered up the courage to talk to the senior pastor at our church, a man the size of an offensive tackle on a college football team. His shoulders were wide; he was tall in stature, intelligent, well spoken; and he had an authoritarian presence. Most of the time he wore an array of nicely tailored suits. He parted his hair on the left side and it was slicked back, nicely combed.
“Dr. Simpson, is it true everything in the Bible is so black and white?” I asked.
He was serious as he looked down at me and smiled.
“Yes, son. There is no gray in the Bible.”
He said this with absolute confidence and assurance. He believed this. For years, this would be my stance as well: black and white, no gray. It’s nice to be so clear on things. To have an answer for almost everything. You learn to submit to leaders and not question them. At the time, I was starting to have more questions about the beliefs and values that we were told were biblical. Yet soon, events in my life would come where this type of boundary setting would be comforting to me.
And even though I wasn’t sure about all the “truth” I was being taught, I did have a group of friends whom I loved in this community and I knew they cared for me. Our friendship has weathered a lot of storms. This is an unusual group of friends because I know that even though I have different views on issues that matter to them, they still remain friends.
Difficult storms were coming, and I would need them.
CHAPTER SIX Origin Stories
You’ll often hear Koreans talking about jeong. It’s a word layered with meanings about love, affection, loyalty, and bonding. It describes a strong, soulful loyalty deeply embedded in the Korean people. It’s a connectedness to both people and places, and can go deeper than friendship or even love. It’s a magical connection that grows with time and shared understanding and experiences.
I didn’t know how to describe it when I was young, but it was part of my Korean roots. We kids could feel it. One way we felt her deep love, her jeong for us, was when Mom took us shopping. While Mom would act like she didn’t care for us, she would shamelessly brave unfamiliar social norms to make sure we were provided for.
“We’re going shopping,” Mom would say. She liked to take us to the local shopping center called the Fiesta Mall. On one such outing, Mom decided to buy us matching outfits for Easter. We ended up with faddish leisure suits, 100 percent polyester. The lapels were huge, and the floral silk shirts had collars that resembled airplane wings. If you turned a certain way while wearing them, it felt like the wind might possibly lift you off the ground. Doug had an orange suit, while mine was baby blue. I tried to be cool and unbuttoned the shirt a couple more notches lower than normal from the collar, though being young and Asian, I had no hair on my chest to show off.
Since I was still a bit chubby, Mom went to a certain section in the boys’ department of the store to buy my clothes. When I saw the description of the clothing, I wanted to run in the opposite direction. “Husky.” She’s buying me husky pants. Already conscious of my Asian eyes, now I was going to be wearing the clothes of another subset of America that was made fun of: chubby boys.
Mom never ceased to embarrass me. On this particular shopping day, she went to the husky section and asked the clerk the price of a shirt.
“Ma’am, it’s twenty dollars,” he said.
With a smirk on her face and all her charisma flowing, she glowingly said, “Okay, I’ll give you fifteen.”
I tugged at her arm. “Mom. You can’t do this. This isn’t Korea. You don’t bargain in America at department stores.”
Whenever she did something like this, the salesperson either looked totally befuddled or they laughed, thinking it was cute that she was so audacious. I just knew I did not want to be there with her embarrassing me like that.
Mom, however, didn’t mind. We were invisible at this point. She ignored any of our sighs or sounds of embarrassment.
Another time, something set her off. I don’t remember what it was, but Mom got tickled by something and started laughing. She laughed so hard that she eventually folded forward, started shaking, and then rolled onto the floor, overcome by laughter. She would often laugh this way at home, but in the middle of the largest shopping mall in our city? I bolted as far away from her as I could get, trying to be incognito. I didn’t want people to think we were related. But it wasn’t hard to deduce that we were all family; after all, we were the only Asians in the mall.
While I was hypersensitive, always trying to blend in, Mom was the exact opposite. Somehow, she had learned not to care. She knew she was unique. She owned her anomaly status. She was ahead of her time in fashion. She could wear things that didn’t match and still look cool.
My childhood self didn’t realize that this was what made my mom so refreshingly unique. She was an iconoclastic Korean immigrant, irreverent of customs. Mom became a model for us on how to be yourself without fear of public criticism or need for approval. She knew who she was. She already had to go through the gauntlet of societal scrutiny that categorizes you based upon your education, family, friends, titles, and material possessions, and she just didn’t care.
This was never more evident than at the buffet. Sundays after church were all about feasting. We would head on over to the best buffet restaurant near our house, called Royal Fork. It was the most economical place to take the Gibbons boys as we were growing into manhood. We were buffet experts. After filling our trays and finding our tables, we could sequester ourselves there for hours. With great pride, my brother and I saw how many empty plates we could stack up. I think my mom was even prouder.
The buffet line was like a classical music concert to us. Where the concerto might start off slow and soft, what awaited you at the end was the glorious crescendo of music that left you breathless and fully satisfied. Pass on the stuff like Jell-Os and salads up at the beginning of the buffet line. Those who were well versed in buffet culture knew you left room on your plates and space in your stomachs for the most expensive and tastier items at the end of the buffet line. At the end of the buffet line were fried chicken and then, the very last item, the glorious, mouthwatering, juicy prime rib. Awaiting you at the end of the buffet line was the Maestro, who was most likely a high school senior making minimum wage, but he looked good. With a white chef’s hat and a white chef’s jacket bloodied by the meat, a knife in one hand as well as a large carving fork in the other, he’d look at you, smile, and say, “Sir, would you like prime rib today?”
Trying to act calm, I’d smile, hold out my plate, and say, “Of course! And could I have an extra slice, too?”
My brother and I were both in training—me for football, Doug as a bodybuilder and karate master. We could consume massive amounts of food. We would have fun stacking our plates after each trip to the buffet line. We were determined that the buffet ownership would lose money on us.
After two hours of constant consumption, I would then do a very Korean thing. When you were full to the brim, you unbuttoned the top of your pants and, if necessary, pulled down your zipper slightly so that the inflated size of your belly could comfortably breathe and pop over the waistline of the pants.
As we were chilling in a food stupor with our buttons open and our zippers slightly down, Mom would get up quietly and head to the buffet line. She’d take a plate. Proceed to the end of the line and pile her plate up with fried chicken. Then she came back to our table. Ignoring the looks from other diners and staff, Mom would slowly unfold a large paper dinner napkin on her lap, then elegantly and neatly place all the fried chicken on it.
We’d all want to hide.
“Mom—the sign says you can’t take food home!”
Once again, she never said anything. She acted like she didn’t hear us. She would proceed to gently enfold the chicken in the napkin and then place the whole bundle of contraband into her purse. We’d roll our eyes and tell her how she was embarrassing us.
But later when we got home, my brother and I always ate the chicken straight out of the napkin, grinning at each other with crumbs on our faces, licking our fingertips.
We just thought Mom was trying to save money. Mom worked so hard, and her superpower was saving money. She would consistently save enough money to purchase a new car for my father every couple of years. And Mom loved buying us new clothes. With an eye for fashion, her outfits were always colorful and in vogue. Yet despite her love for fashion, I noticed how Mom spent most of her money on our clothes rather than on her own. She had so much joy in giving us things she never had growing up.
At the time, none of us could have imagined the conditions she lived under as a child that made her want to save money yet be so generous to her children. She would get anything for us. To my mom, a few odd looks at the mall or the cafeteria were nothing compared to what she had physically, emotionally, and psychologically endured all her life. She never seemed concerned how people stared at us or made fun of us. She’d stay silent about others’ opinions about us. She knew it wasn’t something she could control, but more important, she had dreams for us, and she wasn’t going to let a few stares get in her way.
