Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement
2009; Oxford University Press; Volume: 51; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jcs/csp074
ISSN2040-4867
Autores Tópico(s)Diaspora, migration, transnational identity
ResumoFilipinos, as Joaquin Gonzalez points out early in his book, are the second largest Asian American population in the United States, second only to Chinese Americans. Moreover, if the Chinese population is disaggregated into their countries of origin (Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland, etc.), Filipinos are the largest Asian immigrant community in the United States. This significant community remains understudied, however, and largely invisible in much of the literature on immigration. Gonzalez's book provides a much needed correction to this lacuna. Using sociological and ethnographic methods to study the Christian communities of Filipinos in the San Francisco Bay area, Gonzalez and his research team create a portrait of Filipino American religious life that is theoretically innovative and ethnographically grounded. Theoretically, the book is organized around Robert Putnam's work on social capital, specifically “bridging” and “bonding” capital created through social institutions and organization. Gonzalez argues that Filipinos have a particular brand of this capital, for which he uses the Tagalog terms kasamahan (bonding) and bayanihan (bridging). It is an innovative way of working with important Filipino cultural-linguistic categories in sociological analysis that frames his exploration of how Filipino communities work through various religious institutions to organize themselves in their new home while maintaining cultural, social, and material links with their old.
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