Abstract
Ethnography relates to a culture and shares the story into larger cultural patterns of culture, class, ecology, and region. The purpose of the essay are to examine an aspect of Filipino culture through interviews and understand the culture. Filipino youth often abandons their culture even as the immigrant families try to teach their children their culture and heritage language. They fear that children will get have a foreign accent and will not be able to people preserves their culture and heritage. The mental health of Filipino Americans immigrants is influenced by how they adjust to their new adopted country and within their own community as well as how they can relate back to their home country. The essay interviews Filipino Americans from different generations to take their views and understand their lived realities. For a Filipino, who has newly arrived in the US, it is quite unsettling and challenging for his to maintain his culture and the importance of remaining attached to his roots.
Introduction
Culture is a dynamic and changing field and is made of competing values and ideas. It makes communication possible and thus creates patterns of thinking among the human beings, who try to understand each other with their experiences. A traditional Norwegian definition of culture runs like:” The sum of experience and insight that through the times are laid down in faith, common practice, art and poetry, science and technology and in institutions.” (Gunnestad, 2006).
The essay studies the culture of Filipinos in the USA and the current trends among the younger and the senior populations. Immigrant families often prefer to remain connected to their roots via their cultural practices, language, clothing, rituals and food. It is natural to expect Filipino American families fear for their children acquiring American ways and culture while ignoring their heritage.
Culture is the condensed wisdom of previous generations and its definition is rooted in history and carried forward with every generation. The new age deserves new solutions and therefore the current culture is directed more towards the future. It is made of the norms, rules, values and ways of life that require both traditional and dynamic perspective for a complete understanding. Cultural processes can be diverse, and some can be frozen at a certain point in time, for example, the folk fairytales or the national costumes (Gunnestad, 2006). Many elements of culture get abandoned because of new needs and understanding. It develops and progresses based on the needs, insights and the experiences of the people. When describing who a Filipino is, he is often looked as the English-speaking Malay, who is a Roman Catholic with a Spanish name and a fondness for Chinese food. This very mix shows the significant consequences of international exchanges in the present-day Filipino (Mulder, 2013).
The U.S. Census Bureau classifies Filipinos as Asians, although their physical characteristics are different from East Asians. Ethnicity in a particular cultural group is how it observes its customs, beliefs and languages and transmits them across generations. Identity refers to how a group feels belonged in a society based on his interactions and experience. Ethnic identity impacts the thoughts and behaviors of one and how he is perceived by others (Dirige, 2016). Filipinos have become the “invisible minorities” as they have been almost forgotten and are the least researched ethnic group. However, Filipinos share a long history with America and are well aware of the English and American values. They do not get a culture shock like other immigrants from the Middle East or Asia (Osalbo, 2011).
Filipino-Americans make the second largest Asian-American group in the US after Chinese-Americans. Religious communities help them deal with challenging ethnicity and stress as well as participate in group activities (Manalang, 2013). The majority of Filipino-Americans are Christians, and most of them are Catholics. They are a mixture of Chinese, Spanish, Malay, Indonesian and Arab. Spanish and American cultures have influenced them. The more recent arrival of Filipino immigrants into the United States traces back to when the Philippines was made an American territory in 1898. As they were regarded as U.S. nationals during that time, it was easy for them to enter the United States (David & Nadal, 2013).
In order to study the ethnographic study of Filipinos in the US, I observed some Filipinos students in my college and conducted some interviews of Filipinos Americans so as to learn more about how they feel about their being a Filipino and the acquired American identities. Some of the participants were of the younger generation while others from the senior age group. Cheskka Maglalang, a grandmother, lives alone and three children and has four grandchildren. She missed the Philippines in the beginning and used to fly back frequently to the native country to meet my family. She remembers that when meeting other people she preferred to say that she is mixed as it was looked upon as a desirable trait and mixed was considered exotic. She is not very satisfied with the way her children and grandchildren are following American way of life. Her grandchildren hardly speak Tagalog, and she is not able to communicate freely with them.
Cearo Abaygar has been living in the US for the past thirty-five years and is in his fifties. He remembers that in the beginning he did not like the country at all, the customs and the culture here. However, he knew he had a better future, and chances here as unemployment was high back home in the Philippines. He remembers facing difficulty following his professors, fellow students, and their accent. His children did not speak Tagalog fluently but his wife more particular and made sure that they understand Tagalog if they listen to what is being said. He speaks in Tagalog with his parents, and his children prefer to speak to him in English. However, he feels at home in the US today, having studied and worked here. The youngest interviewee was 34 years old Caro Abaygar, who was born and raised in the San Francisco. She has been to the Philippines a couple of times but definitely like living in the US. She hardly think of herself as being a Filipino-American and has been exposed to the American way of life right from childhood. Her parents were strict about their religious culture and the language, and they were allowed to speak only in Tagalog at home. They met a lot of other Filipinos during weekends, who hardly spoke English. She cannot speak Tagalog fluently but feels that the Philippines culture is great, but don’t like to be forced to follow certain rules.
I observed a group of Filipinos Americans in canteen and saw that most of them speak Tagalog, which is the language of Manila and English. However, they carried varying degrees of fluency. I introduced myself and joined their group. They were a little apprehensive first when I asked them questions about their culture and community. The major complaint hey had was that they were often mistaken for Latino. Seem of their names were Spanish because Spanish gave them those names and according to the province of the Philippines where they lived during the time of Spanish colonization. When asked about their families and neighborhoods, they discussed how their families got together for social, religious and charitable functions. The purpose behind is to help the new arrivals from the Philippines settle down in the US and support ongoing community activities. There were local Filipino clubs where holidays were celebrated together, and they got to know the essential customs from the home country. Those associations and get together helped the immigrants to adjust well to the new country and acquaint the Filipinos Americans with the customs and cultures back home.
One of the girls said she remembers the Filipino-American Society in her area organize Easter parties, Christmas parties, and other social functions., when she was younger The family-centered club was frequented by a mixture of generations on Friday or Saturday nights. However, the senior generation enjoyed a meal or card game together while the younger adults and teens enjoyed dance nights. She remembered the Filipino stir-fry food – pansit and a pork stew- dinuguan that was enjoyed by all and the crowd spoke English, Spanish or Tagalog. She admits how the Club taught her so much and kept her in touch with her ancestral roots. However, today, the new generation has little time for such clubs and with the older members beginning to pass away, the membership of the club has suffered and dwindled. She misses the friendly warmth and the lively conversations. Maria Madlangbayan has just arrived here as an international student and had trouble adjusting to the new culture and leaving behind her own community. Still, she finds support in other students and attends those clubs regularly to know other Filipino-Americans and enjoy good Filipino food.
Philippine Independence Day on June 12th is one of major non-religious occasion that commemorates the history of Philippines and independence from both Spain and America. However, the United States government does not acknowledge the day. Still, the Filipinos Americans celebrate the Independence Day that is organized and attended by Filipinos with great enthusiasm. The United States and Philippine national anthems are sung, and a song of importance to all Filipinos called "Ako Ay Pilipino" is sung by everyone. The participants gather together to remember and celebrate freedom and community as Filipinos. The community is proud of their culture and celebrate their freedom taking pride in their heritage that is passed on to the new generations.
Based on the inferences from the interview, and the observations made, it is evident that the senior population of Filipinos still feel disconnected with their surroundings in the US, although they nothing negative to say about Whites. However, they feel negative about the way their children and grandchildren have grown up. They are anxious about their disappearing roots and rely on language and cultures to feel connected to their past and future. These findings suggest that the older generations share similar views on the next generations and maintain a colonial mentality. People no longer have the spare time for such activities as they once did. However, the community members still honor their culture and show respect to their elders trying to maintain old-fashioned customs. The Filipino community is very close, but the new generations are very open to new friendships and welcome changes. The people are independent but like to keep their community together. The different generations have managed to assimilate into American life to varying degree but maintain a strong sense of unity. The dynamic community absorbs the new while retaining the traditional and every generation encourages the next to
retaining important aspects of Philippine traditions.
References
David, E. J. R., & Nadal, K. L. (2013). The colonial context of filipino american immigrants' psychological experiences. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 19(3), 298- 309. doi:10.1037/a0032903
Dirige, Dr.O. (2016). Contemporary Asian American Issues, asianjournalusa Retrieved from http://asianjournalusa.com/ethnic-identity-p11649-161.htm
Gunnestad, A. (2006). Resilience in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: How resilience is generated in different cultures, Journal of Intercultural Communication Retrieved from http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr11/gunnestad.htm
Mulder, N. (2013). Filipino identity: The haunting question. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 32(1), 55-80.
Manalang, A.T. (2013). How Does Religion Shape Filipino Immigrants' Connection to the Public Sphere?: Imagining a Different Self-Understanding of Modernity, , CalifoGraduate College of Bowling Green State University, 1(1), 1–243.
Osalbo, G.J. (2011) .Filipino American Identity Development and Its Relation to Heritage Language Loss, California State University, 1(1), 1–69.
