Jeanne Choy Tate is an author, early childhood educator, multicultural curriculum developer, and lay pastor. Her book, Something Greater: Culture, Family and Community as Living Story, was recently awarded third place in the Presbyterian Writers Guild "First Book" competition. Building on personal experiences in San Francisco's Chinese American community, Jeanne Choy Tate explores the intergenerational childrearing of biblical and Chinese communities as a contrast to America's individualism. At age 19, Jeannie crossed the American continent to "find her identity" as a live-in volunteer at Cameron House in San Francisco's Chinatown. Later, as a bilingual/bicultural early-childhood educator, she discovered the interdependent values of Chinese culture to be, in many ways, closer to the values of early biblical communities than modern individualism. These experiences inspired an MA with Robert Bellah and a PhD at the Graduate Theological Union. Building on her experiences as a Presbyterian lay pastor, partner in a biracial marriage, and parent of a bicultural child, Tate writes of life lived on the borders, in the tension between individual and community, between the longing to belong and being one's self. She explores how living stories of culture and faith, dynamic and filled with diversity, create healthy families, bind a society together and speak to the deep hunger of Americans who long to find meaning in something greater than the individual self.
"Jeanne Choy Tate prophetically and competently tackles the challenge of diversity in a fresh and compelling manner! In a postcolonial spirit of engagement, she prioritizes the stories of people at the margins. We readers would all do well to listen, engage, and let go of our parochial biases."
--Joseph F. Duggan, Founder, Postcolonial Networks
"Jeanne Choy Tate's new book, Something Greater, is a real breath of fresh air in a culture suffocating from the abuses of American individualism. Drawing on the rich heritage of the Chinese and other ethnic cultures, and the power of the Christian tradition, she shows the importance of . . . balancing individualism with the values of community and family to build a healthier society in America."
--Clifton Kirkpatrick, Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Studies and Global Ministries, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary