From Faith to Action

OCTOBER 1, 2026

The Fight for AAPI Women and Girls

McCormick alumni carry their theological education into many forms of ministry—congregations, classrooms, nonprofit organizations, justice movements, and communities working toward change. For Sung Yeon Choimorrow, MDiv ’09, that calling has meant transforming faith into action and building collective power with Asian American and Pacific Islander women and girls.

Her journey to McCormick began with a question that would shape her vocation: What does it mean to understand injustice if we are unwilling to do something about it?

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN AWARENESS AND ACTION
Only days after arriving in the United States for her freshman year at a Christian liberal arts college, Sung Yeon realized that she saw the world differently from many of her peers.

Her classmates discussed injustice, debated it through a theological lens, and wrote thoughtful papers about what needed to change. But Sung Yeon saw few people willing to move from words to action.

For the international missionary kid who had grown up in India, the disconnect was striking. Those with the greatest access and resources seemed to spend the least time doing something with them.

By graduation, Sung Yeon had discovered organizations creating meaningful change alongside AAPI women. Inspired by their work, she shifted her studies from international relations to political science and urban studies—and committed herself to transforming the realities facing AAPI women and girls.

FINDING A TRAINING GROUND AT MCCORMICK
After college, Sung Yeon immersed herself in community work, volunteering with Rainbow/PUSH, a Korean church, and an Asian American civil rights organization. There, she unexpectedly encountered someone from her undergraduate institution.

“I did not expect someone from my school to be in these spaces,” she recalls.

Seeing someone with a similar background putting their convictions into practice strengthened her resolve. She continued organizing and eventually found her way to McCormick Theological Seminary.

McCormick’s Center for Asian American Ministries had recently opened, offering an ideal setting in which to continue her education while serving in the community. Sung Yeon approached McCormick as a training ground for putting faith into public action.

She would later be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) while serving as director of organizing for Interfaith Worker Justice. For Sung Yeon, ministry and advocacy were never separate callings. Both were expressions of a faith compelled to move.

FIGHTING THE STATUS QUO
That calling eventually led Sung Yeon to the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, where she served for more than a decade as executive director.

“I spent the last decade fighting the status quo and defending the community,” she says.

NAPAWF builds collective power so AAPI women and girls can exercise full agency over their lives, families, and communities. Sung Yeon helped advance workers’ and immigrants’ rights, access to affordable and reproductive health care, and economic justice.

The work was especially urgent because AAPI women were too often overlooked.

“They slip through the cracks,” she says.

Asian Americans have long been minimized as a minority group or positioned as a “wedge” between white communities and other communities of color. As a result, the distinct experiences of AAPI women—including the intersecting effects of racism, misogyny, immigration, labor, and sexualization—can disappear from public narratives.

That danger became devastatingly clear in March 2021, when six Asian American women were among those killed at three Atlanta-area spas. Sung Yeon traveled to Atlanta to advocate with officials, listen to local communities, and call attention to the racialized and gendered violence at the heart of the tragedy.

“We need to talk about the racism and not live it in isolation,” she says.

STAYING COMMITTED TO CHANGE
Sung Yeon believes one of today’s greatest challenges is sustaining the patience and collaboration that meaningful change requires.

“I’ve seen a lessened willingness to collaborate and work with people and to be patient with change,” she says. “The need for immediacy creates risk because people don’t slow down and think about how to build a progressive and equitable country.”

Policymaking and systemic transformation take time. Progress depends on people willing to remain committed long after public attention has moved elsewhere.

Today, Sung Yeon serves as chief of staff at a nonprofit committed to this work. After more than a decade in executive leadership, the role allows her to remain engaged in the movement while creating more space for her children.

As a parent volunteer at her daughter’s school, she has been grateful to see Asian American history included in the curriculum—a sign of how much has changed since she began organizing. Yet she knows there is more to build.

“How do I spend the next portion of my career pushing what we stand for?” she asks. “What do we want to create?”

Her journey reflects the kind of leadership McCormick seeks to form: theologically grounded, deeply engaged with the world, and prepared to turn conviction into meaningful action. Across congregations, organizations, and movements, McCormick equips leaders to meet the realities of their time with courage, collaboration, and hope.

For Sung Yeon, the next chapter is about creating a future in which her daughters—and AAPI women and girls everywhere—can fully thrive.