Michael Luo: Exclusion and Belonging in Immigrant America

Good Faith

News, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What does it mean to truly belong in America?

Michael Luo, executive editor at The New Yorker and author of Strangers in the Land, joins Redeeming Babel’s director of content, DT Slouffman, to explore the Asian American experience—from the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from personal stories and a viral moment that sparked national conversation, Luo confronts the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype and envisions a more inclusive vision of American identity. DT and Michael unpack how race, immigration, and belonging continue to shape all of our lives.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We gravitate towards people we're alike, and this relates to ethnicity and race, in class, and education, and producing churches that reflect the diversity of God's creation.
0:13.0	That's hard, because, D.T. Slater. where friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world. I'm Good Faith's,
0:39.6	Director of Content, D.T. Sloughman. Curtis Chain is off this week. Listeners, have you ever thought
0:47.4	about what it means to be a stranger and a strange land? To look for belonging and hope you find it, to come to a new place as an outsider,
0:59.1	bringing all of your uniqueness with you. My great-grandparents were just such strangers
1:04.8	when they came to America from Czechoslovakia. They traveled across the ocean and were greeted by these words from the
1:14.4	Statue of Liberty. Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she. With silent lips,
1:22.7	give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of
1:31.2	your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden
1:41.9	door. Now, not every immigrant story is made equal. Not everyone that comes here
1:49.6	like my great-grandparents did feels the light from that lamp beside the golden door. As we watch the
1:58.4	United States immigration policy change daily before our very eyes,
2:03.6	we need to now more than ever take a look at the historical narrative of immigration in this country,
2:10.6	to learn from the past so we don't repeat its failures.
2:14.9	We have the perfect guess to help us do just that, to take a look at an immigrant
2:20.1	people's story, specifically the Chinese in America. Michael Luo is an executive editor at the
2:28.5	New Yorker and The New Yorker.com. Michael leads the magazine's online editorial operation and writes regularly about
2:37.3	politics, religion, and Asian American issues. His first book, Strangers in the Land, Exclusion,
2:45.5	belonging, and the epic story of the Chinese in America is both a historical account and a personal reflection.
2:54.7	Michael's narrative leaves together his amazing archival research with contemporary experiences
3:01.1	that make for a powerful commentary on America's struggles with race and belonging. Michael, welcome to the Good Faith podcast.
3:11.8	Thanks so much for having me. That was actually really moving to hear about your family story.
	...

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