Philippine American Writers & Artists

In order to understand the formation of Filipino history, culture and society in the Philippines, the United States, the Asia Pacific and globally, we need to go back and study the Filipino family. Developing the families’ sensitivities for the values, behaviors, ethics, and perspectives of Filipinos, this study identifies and discusses the psychological, sociological and environmental issues relevant to the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora.

Flores with Resus surveyed the family attitudes and constructs within a multicultural and ethnically diverse high school in Daly City, California. Their findings in general reveal that the current Filipino American students are more likely to be conflicted about their identity as they grapple between being Asian, Pacific Islander, American, and Filipino. They support their families sending dollars to family back to another “home.” They don’t mind marrying outside the race. Their idea of a nuclear family includes grandparents, aunts and uncles. They agonize within the “me first” as against the “my family first” construct. The three-generational family household, almost always realized in its pure form, stifles their independence but are most resilient to the demands of straddling two worlds: first, the world of their parents and their families back home, and second, the contemporary world of the youths in transition to US society’s demands for peer assimilation, acculturation and adherence to social norms.

These students, ages 16, 17 and 18, while adapting to US environmental pressures, weave a distinct brand of Filipino American family culture, history, local politics, economics, psychology, arts, music, food, spirituality and language into their social high school milieu.


	The Philippine Jeepney A Filipino Family Metaphor Understanding The Filipino American Family by Penélope V. Flores with Araceli N. Resus Library of Congress Control Number: 2007941835 ISBN 978-0-9763316-2-9 144 pages, Perfect Binding Published by Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. P.O. Box 31928 San Francisco, CA 94131-0928 pawa@pawainc.com www.pawainc.com Printed in the United States of America Cover Art: Jeepney by Manuel Flores Book and Cover Design: Edwin Lozada Book Production: Carayan Press

	12.95 + 2.05 (postage) = $15.00 For a copy send check or money order to PAWA, Inc. P.O. Box 31928 San Francisco, CA 94131-0928 or use your credit card or checking through Paypal.

In order to understand the formation of Filipino history, culture and society in the Philippines, the United States, the Asia Pacific and globally, we need to go back and study the Filipino family. Developing the families’ sensitivities for the values, behaviors, ethics, and perspectives of Filipinos, this study identifies and discusses the psychological, sociological and environmental issues relevant to the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora. Flores with Resus surveyed the family attitudes and constructs within a multicultural and ethnically diverse high school in Daly City, California. Their findings in general reveal that the current Filipino American students are more likely to be conflicted about their identity as they grapple between being Asian, Pacific Islander, American, and Filipino. They support their families sending dollars to family back to another “home.” They don’t mind marrying outside the race. Their idea of a nuclear family includes grandparents, aunts and uncles. They agonize within the “me first” as against the “my family first” construct. The three-generational family household, almost always realized in its pure form, stifles their independence but are most resilient to the demands of straddling two worlds: first, the world of their parents and their families back home, and second, the contemporary world of the youths in transition to US society’s demands for peer assimilation, acculturation and adherence to social norms. These students, ages 16, 17 and 18, while adapting to US environmental pressures, weave a distinct brand of Filipino American family culture, history, local politics, economics, psychology, arts, music, food, spirituality and language into their social high school milieu.
Excerpt from Preface by Araceli N. Resus. This book focuses on the Filipino family, its basic nature, and the historical development that brought about its uniqueness, its strengths, and weaknesses. The Filipino family is in the throes of a fast changing world, and the issues that it faces exert a heavy load on its basic structure. This book highlights these issues together with those of the Filipino American families as they struggle in their adoptive country. The book also provides possible answers to the questions frequently asked by confused young Filipino Americans: Who am I? Am I Filipino? What is a Filipino? Am I Filipino American? Am I not Asian? Why am I referred to as a Pacific Islander? We found a fascinating metaphor to exemplify the nature of the Filipino family through the Philippine Jeepney, an icon on the streets of Manila and other major cities of the Philippines. It is a remnant of Philippine colonization, a symbol of Filipino colonial way of thinking, Filipino ingenuity, and a representation of indigenous Filipino characteristics. The jeepney is “the most obvious form of folk art; a microcosm that displays the communal nature of Philippine society” (Rodell, 2002, p.57, 58). For most people, family is the most important unit in life. This attachment is expressed in various ways depending on ethnicity, gender, class, age, and individual temperament (Coles, 2006, p. x). As a basic social institution the family is involved in the multiple ways of shaping people’s lives, in building communities, in governance of nations, and in keeping up with this fast changing digital world. In many ways, it has been blamed for a lot of social problems. But with all the heavy pressures put on it, the family remains a strong pillar of society. Excerpt from the Introduction by Penélope V. Flores. A complex portrait of Filipinos in America emerges in this book: Filipinos are family oriented with multigenerational co-residences within households. We set out to measure these attitudes by sampling a group of Filipino American students in a local California high school. In this introduction we start with What we Know, What we Present, and What we have Learned. What We Present This book has two parts. Part One’s approach is historical, anthropological, and sociopolitical. Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 are in Part One. Appended to Chapter 1 is a glossary of Philippine concepts used in the jeepney analogy. Part Two is based on survey data analysis of 75 Filipino Americans in Daly City, California. This section consists of Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. From the Part titles one can glean at the orientation of the chapters. Mangoes and Tamarinds in Part One are typical tropical fruits in the Philippines. Hence, we talk about the antecedents of history and how the Filipino American Family has evolved during the transmigration from the home country to the United States. Apples and Peaches in Part Two represent fruits produced in California. This section introduces the family attitudes by Filipino American youths. Chapter 10 concludes with an examination of the correlates of being a Filipino, a variable we call Filipino-ness. Bringing back full circle is the early connection we presented in Chapter 1.
Contents Preface Introduction Part 1: Mangoes and Tamarinds Chapter 1 The Filipino Family: A Jeepney Metaphor Easy Reference Philippine Concepts used in the Jeepney Metaphor Chapter 2 The Barangay (Pre-hispanic Filipino) Family as a Social Construct Chapter 3 Affinal, Fictive Family Relations and Kinship Terms Chapter 4 The Contemporary Filipino American Families Part 2: Apples and Oranges Chapter 5 The Study: Conceptualization and Methodology Chapter 6 Family Compositions: Results
		Chapter 7 Helping the Family Chapter 8 Me First Before Family Needs Chapter 9 Filipino Identity Versus Asian Identity Chapter 10 Filipino-ness: An Exploratory Analysis Postscript Tables and Figures Bibliography Index