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Chains, Culture, and Coming Home: Fiel Sahir on Indonesian American Shame

What does it mean to carry shame in your skin?

Indonesian American social worker Fiel Sahir joins DJ for an honest conversation about shame, identity, and faith. Fiel describes shame as “chains” and traces his story as a third-generation survivor of racial violence — a dark-skinned grandfather mocked in China, forced name changes after the 1965 purge, and being singled out as “Chinese,” including through the 1998 Jakarta riots. He shares how a multicultural therapist, the witness of Hawaiian Christians, and the conviction that “God is there first” pulled him out of shame toward hope and human connection.

About the guest Fiel Sahir is an Indonesian American licensed master social worker (LMSW), seminary-trained, and a former classical guitarist and tour guide. He also works with Pearl Dive, Fuller Seminary’s Asian American Christian History Institute Substack, telling stories of the Asian American church.

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Watch this conversation on YouTube

Show Notes

Transcript

DJ: Welcome to the Erasing Shame podcast. On this episode I’m joined by Fiel Sahir — did I pronounce that well? Good enough; he gave me a thumbs up, for those of you listening on audio. Fiel’s coming in from New York City for this online conversation, and I’m here in Orange County, California. Fiel, welcome.

Fiel: Thank you, DJ. It’s a pleasure to be here.

DJ: We get to have a spontaneous conversation — unscripted, raw, and unedited. So watch yourself. No, actually — sometimes the best stuff comes through when it’s unedited and raw. I recall the last time I was in New York, you met up with me in Chinatown and we had a good meal and conversation. That’s the kind of thing we like to have here at Erasing Shame — a genuine, honest conversation about life as Asian Americans and what we experience as shame. I’m Chinese American. Describe your family background, and what you think of when you hear the word “shame.”

Fiel: Indonesian American, pastor’s kid, with a bi-coastal upbringing — born in Portland, Oregon, and half-raised in New York City. Shame is definitely a big factor that dictated how I grew up — church culture, all of that. But what I think of when I hear the word “shame” is chains. I think of things that keep people bound, whether systemic, mental, social, or physical. I think of how people get stopped from becoming who they really are and who God made them to be. And it makes me sad. So I do my best to live in the opposite way — despite the fact that we’ll all experience shame at some point. And then we bounce back.

DJ: Well, there’s plenty of conversation right there. Let’s double-click and drill down. You’re a licensed clinical… something. Therapist?

Fiel: Master social worker. Not clinical yet — hopefully one day.

DJ: I’ve learned about mental health because of my own diagnosis and being an advocate. There are so many letters and acronyms and professionals and academics in this world of mental health, and I’m sorry, I can’t keep it straight.

Fiel: It’s all good.

DJ: So as a social worker, what do you do that’s similar to — and different from — the typical licensed therapist we seem to hear more from?

Fiel: Let me start with this. I had a conversation with the wonderful historian and author Beth Allison Barr. I happened to mention I was a social worker, and she perked up, because her husband is also a social worker — and a pastor. She said, “I don’t know how pastors do it without a social work degree.” If there’s any clergy listening, this is not an insult. It’s that there’s some stuff we do in our training that you don’t get in seminary — and I’m also seminary-trained. For example, if a 16-year-old girl happened to walk into the average congregation pregnant on a Sunday, chances are the church would freak out and not know what to do. But for a social worker — because we’re trained to know where our resources are, how to handle situations, how to evaluate family dynamics and systems — that’s Tuesday. It’s not something to freak out about. And if you do freak out, that’s okay; it’s just not in your training.

In terms of what I do that a clinical social worker might do differently: as an LMSW — licensed master social worker — most people become clinical at some point, because they do therapeutic clinical training. It’s not the case for everyone. Social workers in general are very broad. When people think “social work,” the image that comes to mind — it did for me, until I found out what it really was — is Lilo & Stitch, where the kid is about to get taken away from her family. That’s the stereotype. But social workers are incredibly broad, which is why I came into the profession — I’m quite the generalist, which is how God made me. You can work with young mothers experiencing domestic violence, with Asian American elderly, in government, in hospitals, in clinical settings with all kinds of populations, one-on-one or in groups. The possibilities are endless.

Even as a licensed social worker, it’s given me such a framework to understand the world better — to be a better husband, a better Christian, a better pastor’s kid, someone in ministry across various communities. It gives me a calm, non-anxious presence that sometimes isn’t there in churches and organizations, because the training just isn’t there. This isn’t a critique of seminaries — it’s just different training. You can’t get mad at a Japanese person for not knowing how to cook Chinese fried rice. Different country, different things. But we all come together, and that’s why we’re one body.

DJ: It’s good to learn more about what social workers do. It’s a very broad kind of work, which means it’s not easy for those of us outside the field to understand. You understand how to navigate social services, government situations, home situations, family dynamics — and on top of that, the psychological and relational dynamics we live with. And then add our bicultural Asian American contexts and cultures, often a crisis, and then faith on top of that. Honestly, I’m not so sure the pastor or the church would freak out — I think they’d smile politely and walk away.

Fiel: Yeah — and I wouldn’t blame them. It’s a different animal; they just don’t know what it is. It’s really hard to know what social workers do until you’re connected to one — and even then it might not be enough, because it’s so broad. I had no idea until I was in it.

Just to share a bit more: I got into social work because of my therapist. I was in seminary at the time, taking classes with Tim Keller, and even set to take more with him. I thought I was going to do ministry — become an itinerant speaker for the Indonesian American community, or Asian Americans at large, because I was doing a lot of preaching. My therapist challenged me and straight up said, “I don’t know if that’s where God really wants you to go.” I was really upset — I was about to study preaching with Tim Keller; what could be better than that? I was deeply challenged, had a whole crisis, trying to figure out where to go. But she was right.

It expanded my understanding of the world. If we look at what’s happening in our country and just blame different people groups, that’s easy to do when you don’t know the underlying histories of how we got here. We don’t look at Chinese people and say, “Oh, they all just wanted to get up and move here.” There’s always a reason people move. If a group is known for X, Y, and Z, it helps to investigate why. Ministry doesn’t necessarily lead you there — you’re caretaking people’s souls directly, giving daily sustenance, stepping into family issues with some counseling. Social work takes a more holistic approach, analyzing the system. That’s how I got into it — my therapist thought it might be a good idea, among other things.

DJ: I’m glad you discovered this joy in your career so early. For me it’s been a lifelong journey, and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for — but I found work to do, and joyful things to do outside my paid jobs, like this podcast.

Fiel: For those listening — I’m in my 30s and I’ve gone through at least nine career changes. I used to be a classical musician, a tour guide, seminary-trained, social work; I was even a podcaster at one point, before it was cool. A whole plethora of things. One thing I’m being reminded of this season — especially because my wife and I are expecting in the fall —

DJ: Congratulations.

Fiel: Thank you, DJ. A friend reminded me that nothing is lost in God’s economy. I’ve known that, but it really does come together for the good of those who love him. One tangible example: I recently had the opportunity to lead the RCA — the Reformed Church in America — on an Asian American Sankofa journey. A Sankofa is a type of pilgrimage where we look to the past so we can go forward; it comes from a Ghanaian word from the Akan people. Leading them, I got to relive my former life as a tour guide — we had to bus from New Jersey to New York City, and on the bus I reused my tour-guiding skills, my ministry skills, and got to have really tough conversations about race, mental health, and how it all comes together for Christians. That’s the thing I’m trying to get better at accepting — that everything does come together at some point. The lines meet, come apart, and crisscross again.

DJ: So, as a social worker with your interest in faith and cultures, you’ve gotten to work with all kinds of Asian Americans. For someone who’s Indonesian, what do you notice that’s similar in the Asian American space — which tends to be dominated by East Asians, partly because of history and demographics; there have been more generations of Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans over recent history. What are the connection points, and what’s a little different, where you have to find your sense of belonging with fellow Indonesians?

Fiel: Wow, quite the question. There are a lot of similarities and differences. One big piece: it’s very easy to not know our history. I’ve talked with Indonesian teens who don’t even know the city their parents were born in. That’s not a requirement, but it helps shape people’s understanding of who they are.

One thing I notice in New York — I won’t say it’s New York–specific — is that there’s more of a New York identity than an Asian American identity. In the NYC high school system, you can go to any high school in any of the five boroughs, which leads to interesting combinations. My sister and I went to different high schools. Mine was mainly Asian — though it had a huge population of white, Latino, and African American students too — but because of the honors system, I was mostly around other Asian students. So I came out a lot more stereotypically Asian, whatever that means. My sister’s school, across the street, was new and had more African American and Latino students, so she turned out different from me culturally.

I’ve noticed that with Indonesian Americans in the NYC churches I’ve ministered in — sometimes they’re confused, because they’re not Chinese, right? Nationally we now present as East Asian, and most of us in New York do have Chinese heritage. But there’s a reason for that: in 1965, because of a communist purge and a lot else in the ’60s, we had to change our names. I have documents of that — my whole dad’s side of the family had to legally change their names, because they used to be Chinese names. So there’s that whole history.

DJ: So part of it is that Indonesians find belonging more as New Yorkers, blending in with East Asians — but there’s also the part where you enjoy your own culture and being with people like yourself.

Fiel: Right. That’s the funny thing — I’m very big into connecting with other Indonesians. And it’s also generational. Growing up in the ’90s, there weren’t as many Asians in the U.S. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, if you saw another Asian person — didn’t matter what country they were from — you’d cross the street, get their phone number, connect. In the 2000s there were so many people that you’d maybe do that only with your own ethnic group. Among people younger than me, that wasn’t really the case at all — people would go to school together, know the other person was Indonesian, but not talk until they were forced to by a class. There was some anxiety, but also people just trying to figure out who they were.

Unfortunately, some general Indonesian Christian cultural practices can be harmful to certain people. I noticed a lot of youth I worked with sometimes just didn’t want to be Indonesian — it was too painful, too much pressure. The Indonesian language could be used as a vehicle for what an older generation called correction and a younger generation might call oppression. Some parents speak to their kids in Indonesian in a commanding way — “clean up your room” — then switch to English for everything else; or they speak only Indonesian because of the authority that comes with the language. I’m curious what others think. But generally, American-born Indonesian Americans don’t tend to speak the language, and I wonder if there’s some pain associated with that.

There’s a lot of similarity, but one big difference: without India and without China, Indonesia wouldn’t exist culturally. It used to be a Hindu and Buddhist place. And “Indonesia” itself is a relatively new concept — within the past 100 years. Before that it was hundreds of little kingdoms, princedoms, and dukedoms, that eventually got lumped together through colonization. I was thinking the other day — if that happened in the Caribbean, it’d be like Cuba, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Virgin Islands, and Venezuela all becoming one big country. That’s basically what happened to Indonesia. We have a lot of cultural roots from India — we don’t touch people’s heads; when we say thank you we often put our hands together. And we’re partly culturally Chinese — a lot of Chinese food, and many people do red envelopes throughout the year, not just at Chinese New Year. But that’s the surface level of culture.

DJ: Here we want to open up a safe space to explore aspects of shame. You’ve touched on a lot of it — changing your language, not knowing your history. There’s shame involved there. And living in America now, instead of a historically Buddhist and Hindu context — but today Indonesia is about 90% Muslim, so that’s another layer. Which aspects of shame stand out — felt the most — across all those dimensions?

Fiel: Two come to mind. One: I’m at least a third-generation survivor of racial violence and bullying. My grandfather — this is a longer story, but I’ll make it short — his ancestors had been in Indonesia since around the 1500s. I can’t fully verify this, but his ethnic group supposedly mixed when Zheng He came to Indonesia, and they stayed — which meant his skin was brown, very dark. He was then adopted by a Hakka Chinese family and moved to China in the 1920s–30s, and grew up there experiencing a lot of hardship because of his skin color. They called him “Fankwe” — I’m told it means “rice ghost” — the idea being that because of his skin color he was a lazy good-for-nothing who’d just nab people’s rice. A leech, in English.

My dad, growing up in Indonesia in the ’60s, came out looking East Asian, and that led to a lot of racialization, racism, bullying, fighting, and sexual harassment — which happened to Indonesians in general, very normally, on public transportation, because of skin color, because people could get away with it. That led to the name changes and this overwhelming “we are not Chinese” feeling — because to be Chinese was to be shameful.

Coming to me, as a young Indonesian American, I also didn’t want anything to do with anything Chinese. I was bullied in school; I got jumped. I also happened to be in Indonesia in 1998 during the horrendous riots, where over a thousand Chinese women specifically were targeted, assaulted, and/or killed. Many people had to flee. Somehow I survived that. The shame of my skin color was very deep. When I was 16, I had the chance to go to Africa for a community-service trip on a scholarship — and despite how problematic that framing is now, at the time I was happy to go, because the sun was strong and I was hoping the tan would stay so people would stop calling me Chinese. Ironically, there was another Asian on the trip, a Japanese guy, and they never once called him Chinese — only me. To this day, on public transport, people walk past and say “Chinese” or “Chino.” So a lot of the shame was racial — people attacking the fact that I was made in God’s image and just happened to be Chinese. That’s been on multiple continents, in multiple countries.

Another aspect is in church circles — people who grow up unable to have their own apartment, so they live with their parents, which means they have to play music at church every Sunday, follow all the rules, can’t have friends, can’t do X, Y, and Z. These are broad strokes, but very real for a lot of Indonesian Americans I know, where anything they do is immediately scrutinized. There’s a lot of pain and fear from parents — fear in the community that it’ll be “contagious,” or that parents are disappointed because their child didn’t achieve what they hoped.

DJ: This echoes how we started — that when you hear “shame,” it’s like a chain, confining. You’ve described how it comes from history, racism, bullying, family, and the people around you who don’t give much healing, support, or freedom. So having grown up with that affecting so many parts of your being, what has helped you and others get out of that shame and find healthy living as Indonesians?

Fiel: Really good question — this is where the hope comes in. This is a tough one. My journey into getting help began because someone told me I was insane and deluded. I didn’t know what to do with that. My world shattered for two weeks. But thank the Lord, he led me — through one person to another — to a wonderful, multicultural therapist who understood all these things. I could explain what was happening at home, in my personal life, in my thought life, and she could explain, “Okay, this is what’s happening, here’s where God is, and how do we navigate it?”

Through all that healing — and reading wonderful books — what also helped nail down the Asian American side for me was meeting Hawaiians. Going to Hawaii and meeting people for whom being Christian and being Hawaiian were one and the same. It wasn’t, “Because I have three tablespoons of Hawaiian, I have to do 200 grams of Christian.” It wasn’t a baking formula. It was: Jesus loves me, he loves my culture, and God is there first — which many know from Don Richardson’s book Eternity in Their Hearts. God is at work in each culture. God didn’t make someone Vietnamese because he wanted them to suffer. You can look at it that way, but that’s a painful, stressful way to live. Being around these Hawaiians, seeing them live as who God made them to be, showed me: to be Asian American is a good thing. God is there first; he is at work. So what’s underneath the surface that I haven’t yet discovered, where God’s grace was, too? In the 1800s and 1900s, when the Chinese first arrived here — or the Filipinos before them, in Louisiana — the stories are endless of God at work in the midst of suffering. And he’s at work now. There’s a huge wave of Asian American leaders meeting together again — it happened in the ’90s and early 2000s too — recognizing: let’s come together, minister together, learn together. I think God is doing something new, and I’m excited to see where it goes — for everyone, not just people in ministry.

DJ: Amen. I really resonate, and I’m grateful you’ve found community — and a part of faith that’s helped you through a lot, connecting with different kinds of people, even Hawaiians, as part of this AAPI umbrella. It just dawned on me: Indonesia is a huge island country — over 17,000 islands — so maybe the island vibe connects too. And for us as Asian Americans, coming together and valuing each other a bit more deeply than just a multicultural context — having honest conversations like this, appreciating our heritage, history, and one another. Plus Hawaii. Three H’s. That’s been so good. I’m hopeful this conversation will help others as they listen. As we close, is there a place you’d point people — socials or a website — to connect with you?

Fiel: I totally invite that. The best place is pearldive.net — Fuller Seminary’s Asian American Christian History Institute Substack, where I work currently. It’s the easiest place to find me, since my name might be hard to spell. We feature many stories from the Asian American church over time — stories of solidarity, what’s happening in the Burmese American church, the history of Burmese Christianity, the history of South Asians, people from Kerala in Philadelphia. There’s a plethora of resources, and you can contact us there. I’d love to connect with anybody who wants to.

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