IN 1998, I was 24 years old and had just been hired as an assistant to Harvey Weinstein, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Within two months, my new boss attempted to rape me in a hotel at the Venice Film Festival.
I wanted to report Weinstein to his superiors; instead I was silenced by an egregious and restrictive nondisclosure agreement that prevented me from speaking to family, friends, doctors, lawyers, or therapists about what happened. I was imprisoned in this silence for 20 years.
Two years after The New York Times and The New Yorker broke the Harvey Weinstein story, I broke my nondisclosure agreement. I also published an op-ed in The New York Times: “Harvey Weinstein Told Me He Liked Chinese Girls.”
I was deluged with messages of support from the Asian American community, from the Christian community, and a few from the intersection of the two. One message from a member of my home church stopped me in my tracks: “I’m so sorry you felt unable to share your struggles with us, back in the day. I wish we had been able to pray with you.”
Nondisclosure agreement aside, could I have come to my church for support at the time of the assault?
When I was a bullied 15-year-old coming to terms with my Asian identity, my Chinese church was a life raft in a complicated world, providing connection, love, warmth, and a sense of belonging. My home church formed my faith, my identity, and, in short, me.
Yet, in a “model minority family” you do not make a fuss. No complaining, work hard, keep your head down. I observed even then that support flowed more easily to congregants on a conventional social path—those who dated one person and married young. Support was less readily available for outliers like me, the culturally and socially unconventional.
One subject of shame, silence, and stigma in church was sex. Premarital sex was frowned upon and presumed nonexistent. But premarital sex was more prevalent than the church acknowledged; the silence around premarital sex meant postnuptial sex wasn’t openly discussed either. If talk of sex in healthy relationships was discouraged, imagine how difficult it was to discuss sex in unhealthy relationships.
In a culture of silence, where can young people turn for support when the unimaginable happens? The #MeToo movement reveals that rape and sexual assault are far more prevalent than we knew. How can we teach young people the value that sex should be preserved for the sanctity of marriage without simultaneously making them naïve to and unprepared for the realities of a sex-aware world with power differentials, where the risk of sexual assault is ever-present?
The power model between pastor and congregants in Asian churches often mirrors that of a parent and child. We need to break down this imbalance. It sends a powerful message to show someone who is considered “subordinate” to you—whether congregant or child—that you can admit fault or vulnerability. Only then can healing begin in church and at home, where people love deepest and trust the most.
If you struggle in silence with an experience of assault, find one person who can join you in coming to God with your experience in prayer. I kept my secret for two decades. Going public has helped me to find my voice, which has been transformative.
With gratitude to the team at "Asian America: The Ken Fong Podcast" (www.aapodcast.com) for help with this material.
Rowena Chiu, a former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, left the film industry after suffering sexual assault in 1998. She lives in Palo Alto, Calif., with her husband and four children.
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