Curtis Chang: The Real Thing Driving American Politics

**Lee C. Camp** (0:02)
I'm Lee C. Camp, this is No Small Endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.

**Curtis Chang** (0:09)
My earliest memory of Taiwan is I was suffering from a very severe flu and was very feverish.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:20)
This is Curtis Chang.

**Curtis Chang** (0:22)
And what they did in those days was bundle you up and try to sweat out a fever. I remember being just drenched in sweat. And then somehow the fever broke. And my mom came in and took me out on the balcony.
And I just remember the fresh cool air blowing over me, feeling safe in my mom's arms and looking out over Taipei.

**Lee C. Camp** (0:48)
When he was just three years old, Curtis and his family immigrated to the United States from Taiwan.

**Curtis Chang** (0:53)
I have a photograph of us landing in Chicago.
And I remember seeing my dad for the first time in two years because he immigrated to the States ahead of us to prepare the way.
And I remember hiding behind my mom because I wasn't sure I would recognize him. Because remember, he left when I was a year, year and a half old.
And then when my mom pointed out, that's your dad, I ran over to hug him. But it was this sort of moment of like, is he going to remember me? Am I going to remember him?

**Lee C. Camp** (1:26)
Curtis says he spent those early years navigating a profound sense of cultural displacement. Even as he began to embrace a new American identity, some of his first memories of the US or of kids using racial slurs against him in the playground.
But the experience of being a first generation immigrant has also left him with a very specific skill set.

**Curtis Chang** (1:47)
To succeed in a new society, new culture, while at the same time having your past and also a present reality of being in a Chinese American community, eating Chinese food, speaking Chinglish in our house. Even as that term Chinglish suggests, you end up being a bridge person. You end up bridging to cultures. And that's your essential reality. You're formed to be that kind of person. And I think that has formed me in my vocational work.

**Lee C. Camp** (2:18)
That bridge building work informed by his experience as an immigrant has entailed three broad swaths, serving as a local church pastor, then working in the business world as a consultant on business leadership and strategy, and these days as founder and executive director of Good Faith, a nonpartisan nonprofit.
Distressed with the partisan co-option of Christian faith in America, this most recent work of Curtis' seeks to explore faith and politics in a way that can build bridges in a deeply polarized America. Yet, he realized some years ago that even in the midst of his vocation of bridge building, that his immigrant experience also left him with a persistent sense of anxiety.

**Curtis Chang** (3:02)
I would lead in very like strong, forceful ways that other people's would interpret, wow, Curtis is a hard driving leader.
When in reality, the emotional core of that was I was anxious. I was like, so I wanted to control things. I wanted to make sure things happened in order to respond to my anxiety. I think I did a lot of damage to myself, but to people around me, to my staff because I didn't realize that.

**Lee C. Camp** (3:27)
Eventually, Curtis experienced a severe episode of debilitating anxiety that forced him to change vocational direction.

**Curtis Chang** (3:34)
I changed roles from being a pastor to running this consulting firm precisely because as a pastor, I felt like my congregation who are all made of Silicon Valley professionals, were disconnected from using their professional skills to serve the secular world so that their Christian faith was something that happened on Sunday morning, but didn't connect with the world of secular civic institutions like the homeless shelter, like the after-school program, the environmental nonprofit, and so my firm was created to bridge that and bring those skills and expertise from the world of faith, the world of church, and really bring it in service to the wider common good.

**Lee C. Camp** (4:17)
Curtis went on to win a White House Award for Social Innovation as the founder and head of Consulting Within Reach, and in 2019, he embarked on a new project.

**Curtis Chang** (4:27)
I've had deep experience in faith, deep experiences with institutions in the secular world. How do those two connect?
That's what led me to really my current work as the founder and executive director of Good Faith and a comrade and colleague of you in the podcast world, in our own podcast, Good Faith. The mission of Good Faith really is to try to be that bridge, to help both sides see how each of us, worlds of faith, world of institutions, are meant to bless one another.