Derek Wu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley (Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies) broadly exploring the effects of race and class inequalities on democracy in cities. His dissertation project uses archival work and more than 75 ethnographic interviews spanning five languages to explore how community organizing practices changed after the 1960s in an extremely diverse neighborhood of Oakland, CA known as the Murder Dubs. He compares types of civil society organizations (such as churches and neighborhood councils) and neighborhood empowerment strategies (such as place- and race-placed programming) and examines how these are shaped by social policy and by access to social, economic, and cultural capital. His work has been supported by UC Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the Asian Pacific Americans Religions Research Initiative, and the Louisville Institute.
In addition to a forthcoming chapter on class in the Oxford Handbook of Asian American Religions, written with his advisor Carolyn Chen, he has published writing on intergenerational relations and youth innovation in ethnic churches (https://doi.org/10.1163/22144471-bja10052), the history of Asian American youth ministries in the U.S. (https://caacptsem.substack.com/p/chinatown-rising-to-evangelical-rising), and his experiences as an Asian American seminarian (https://www.asianamericanchristiancollaborative.com/article/an-asian-american-seminarians-journey-homeward).
Derek received his B.A. in Bible and Theology from Biola University and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, earning a certificate in Black Church Studies and winning the Asian American Ministry Award and Friar Club Award for exceptional contributions to student life. At PTS, he helped establish the Center for Asian American Christianity and was a Lead Researcher on the Imagining Church Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment's Thriving Congregations Initiative. Currently, he organizes the Religion and Race Working Group for the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, which brings together graduate students from UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and the Graduate Theological Union.
Religion, Race, Urban Development
