001: Neighbors
34m | Apr 2, 2026This is One Million Neighbors, a new limited series that tells a largely forgotten story: how, in the 1970s, faith communities across the United States—especially in places like Minneapolis–St. Paul—mobilized to resettle more than one million Southeast Asian refugees in the face of widespread hostility. This episode traces the stark contrast between that history and our current moment, where immigrants are once again cast as threats. It’s a story of contradiction, courage, and possibility—one that challenges us to reconsider what faith has been, what it is now, and what it could be again.
By now, many Americans are used to hearing a certain kind of Christian rhetoric about immigration—one that frames mass deportations, strict border enforcement, and exclusion as matters of righteousness, justice, and divine order. In this episode, we begin with those voices, the ones insisting that faith demands removal, suspicion, and allegiance to state power. But we also ask a deeper question: how did we get here? How did a tradition rooted in loving the stranger become, for many, a justification for expelling them? And what happens when that theology collides with real lives—like that of Chung Lee Scott Tao, a U.S. citizen violently detained in his own home during an ICE raid in the Twin Cities?
Dr. Melissa Borja is Associate Professor of American Culture and Director of the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at the University of Michigan. Trained at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and Columbia, she is a historian of migration, religion, race, and politics and author of Follow the New Way: American Refugee Resettlement Policy and Hmong Religious Change (Harvard University Press), which won the Thomas Wilson Memorial Prize, the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize from the American Society of Church History, and the Outstanding Achievement Award in History from the Association for Asian American Studies. Dr. Borja has advised Princeton's Religion and Forced Migration Initiative and Bridging Divides Initiative. An expert on anti-Asian racism during the Covid-19 pandemic, she leads the Virulent Hate Project and has contributed research to Stop AAPI Hate. She is a co-founder of Hoosier Asian American Power and has been active in faith-based refugee resettlement efforts in Indianapolis, where she lives with her family. In honor of her research and advocacy about Asian Americans, USA Today honored her as one of its 2022 Women of the Year.
One Million Neighbors is brought to you by APARRI, the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative. It's part of the Under Gods Project funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the AAPI Stories of Faith and Life Project funded by the Lilly Endowment Incorporated.
www.axismundi.us
Executive Producer: Dr. Bradley Onishi
Producer: Andrew Gill
Original Music, Composition, and Mixing: Scott Okamoto
Production Assistance: Kari Onishi
