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This concluding chapter argues that the story of the Legendz suggests key conditions important to the cultivation of healthy Muslim American identities. The Legendz's deep and pervasive sense of themselves as Muslims and Americans, as well as their cultivated ability to skillfully navigate the cultural rubrics of American youth culture and Islamic religiosity, are attributable to three key conditions present within their social environment. First, the adults in the Legendz's community maintained an openness and understanding that allowed the boys room to engage in some measure of American youth culture without fear of harsh punishment or communal ostracism. A second important condition seems to have been the presence of a familiar and consistent group of friends located within the same culturally complex situation. The Legendz developed a sense of their ability to manage competing sets of cultural expectations as young Muslims together. A third condition that seems to have contributed to the Legendz's ability to effectively manage their culturally contested lives was a social and physical space in which these processes could unfold and take place. An underlying theme cutting across all three of these conditions is the need for a productive overall understanding of Muslim American teenagers as being in the midst of a process of identity development, cultural negotiation, and growing up.

This introductory chapter sets out the book’s purpose, namely to interrogate cross-cultural dynamics in two major ways. First, it examines Bruce Lee’s emergence as a cross-cultural hero and global cultural icon through his films and explores how he resonated with the experiences of African American, Asian American, and Hong Kong youth affected by the rise of a global economy in the 1970s. Second, it uses Lee’s films, which prefigure themes that reflect cross-cultural negotiations with global culture, to interrogate post-1990 Afro-Asian novels, films, and anime. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

The chapter provides a historical survey of the Christian century of Japan and its representation in later years. Japan’s first encounter with Christianity happened at a time that was highly charged in both European and Japanese history. In Europe, the departure of Jesuit missionaries for Japan was the result of two defining events in modern history: the inauguration of the so-called “age of great discoveries” and the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. In Japan, the same period saw the transition from the Sengoku period, a time of civil war among competing local powers, to the unification of the country under the Tokugawa Shogunate. Reflecting on the cultural negotiations of this period thus provides us with precious insight into the formation of both European and Japanese modernity, an important background to the modern creative interpretations of the “Christian century” that I examine in the rest of the book.

Adopting a grassroots approach, this chapter argues that in its response to, and appropriation of, missionary teachings, the early Anglican Church in Kenya was heavily indebted to indigenous models and experiences for its impetus, dynamism, and direction. The author’s findings are compared with related studies elsewhere in Africa, especially in Uganda, to ask why the Anglican Church in Kenya was different, and to point to what was distinctly its own. The study focuses on central Kenya because it is inhabited by a relatively homogeneous people. It discusses three elements of central Kenya’s culture that shaped its response to Christianity: its pragmatic nature, its conflict resolution mechanism, and its desire to master and exercise power. The period of study starts with the arrival of the first missionary in 1900 and ends in 1932 with the young Church having overcome its first major crisis.