Filipino American Psychology

A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice

Kevin L. Nadal

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119677086
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

DISCOVER THE FOUNDATIONS AND NUANCES OF TREATING THE MENTAL HEALTH OF FILIPINO AMERICANS

Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice, 2nd Edition compiles the latest and best information about the psychology of Filipino Americans into a single, indispensable volume. Distinguished and celebrated professor and author, Dr. Kevin Nadal, explains in thorough detail the mental health issues facing many Filipino Americans today. It also covers effective techniques and strategies for working with the Filipino American population today.

Filipino American Psychology uses reader-friendly language, along with numerous vignettes and case studies, to make accessible its in-depth treatment of the subject. The book covers a wide range of topics necessary to understand how to provide mental health treatment to Filipino Americans, including:

• Filipino and Filipino American Cultural Values
• Overcoming the Model Minority: Contemporary experiences of Filipino Americans
• Intersections of Gender and Sexual Orientation
• Multiracial and Multiethnic Filipino Americans
• Mental Health and Psychotherapy in the Filipino American community

The book also includes a brand-new section on the historical traumas that still reverberate through the Filipino American community.

Perfect for mental health practitioners and students who are likely to encounter this large cultural and ethnic group, Filipino American Psychology serves as a foundational volume in any complete mental health library.

CHAPTER ONE
Introduction to Filipino American Psychology

Figure 1.1 Cecilia Espinosa Sison, a Filipina American immigrant woman, posed in Times Square in New York City in 1952.

Photo courtesy of Cecile Sison.

INTRODUCTION

In the United States, race has often been viewed as a Black and White issue. When discussing race, American people and institutions have typically focused on the historical and contemporary racial conflicts between Black and White people, while ignoring or overlooking the experiences of other racial groups. While there has been a recent shift toward including Latinx Americans into national conversations about race and racism, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans are still typically excluded. For example, when examining voting patterns in presidential elections, mainstream media outlets tend to concentrate primarily on trends of Black, White, and Latinx voters, without much regard to the opinions or voting practices of Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, or other racial/ethnic groups. When such groups are indeed included or considered, within-group differences are hardly ever disaggregated, resulting in the presumption of homogeneity of the umbrella racial group. For instance, when Asian Americans are included in dialogues about race and racism, experiences of East Asian Americans (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans) are often presumed or centered, resulting in the invisibility of South Asians Americans, Southeast Asian Americans, and Filipino Americans, otherwise known as Brown Asians (Nadal, 2019).

Perhaps this tendency to disregard or ignore other racial groups is a result of historic racial categorizations in what is now the United States. When census counts were first measured, people living in the US were originally divided into three categories: “White,” “Black,” and “Other” (Gibson & Jung, 2002). “Other” included the Native Americans or indigenous people – a group whose lands the country was founded on and whose population in North America once totaled 4.5 million prior to British colonization (Thornton, 1987). “Other” included Latinx people – particularly those who did not fit easily into the “White” or “Black” categories. In fact, “Hispanic” as a census category did not come until 1976 and even then, it would be considered an ethnic category and not a racial category (Passel & Taylor, 2009). “Other” also included Asian Americans, who were not measured in the US Census until 1860 because their numbers were too insignificant in comparison to Whites and Blacks. “Chinese” and “Japanese” people began to be counted in the California census in 1860 and 1870 respectively, and by 1910, “Filipinos,” “Koreans,” and “Hindus” were included in census counts too (Gibson & Jung, 2002).

Over the years, some of the “Other” groups have slowly grown and diversified in the US. In 2019, Hispanics and Latinx Americans have surpassed African Americans as the largest minority group in the United States, comprising 18% of the total population (US Census Bureau, 2019). Further, Asian Americans became one of the fastest-growing minority groups in the United States, with a 72% growth between 1990 and 2000 (Barnes & Bennett, 2002) and a 46% growth between 2000 and 2010 (US Census Bureau, 2011). In fact, population increases for Asian Americans in 2010 were the largest percentages of growth for any major racial group (Hoeffel, Rastogi, Kim, & Shahid, 2012). It is projected the Asian American population will increase from 20.5 million in 2015 to 35.7 million in 2040, with approximately 1 out of 10 Americans being of Asian descent (Ong, Ong, & Ong, 2016).

Despite this increase in racial diversity, previous scholars have purported that most research and training in mental health (including psychology, counseling, and social work) focuses on White, middle-class American values, and that people of color are often misunderstood and ineffectively treated in psychological treatment (see Sue, Sue, Neville, & Smith, 2019 for a review). For centuries, people from other historically marginalized groups have been neglected in the helping professions, resulting in a lack of mental health treatment and the perpetuation of mental health disparities among these groups (Holden et al., 2014). For Asian Americans specifically, a combination of cultural stigma, inaccessibility, and lack of competent providers results in the underutilization of mental health services, despite the higher prevalence of community mental health issues (Abe-Kim et al., 2007; Hall & Yee, 2012).

To combat these racial and social inequities, the American Psychological Association published Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach to context, identity, and intersectionality (originally published in 2003, with a revision in 2017). The guidelines primarily focus on ways of that psychologists must be culturally competent toward working with people of color and people from other historically marginalized groups. Through these sanctions, psychologists learn that it is an ethical imperative to integrate multiculturalism and social justice into their work. Ethical psychologists commit to working effectively with various people of color and other marginalized groups, by constantly increasing and challenging their cultural knowledge, awareness, and skills. Helping professionals who are committed to improving the human condition recognize the importance of understanding all aspects of an individual's experiences and intersectional identities – including their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, social class, ability status, age, size, and others. Psychologists, physicians, social workers, and other social service agents who are interested in being best equipped in working with people of all backgrounds acknowledge the need to learn about groups and communities with which they may have varying levels of exposure, and that it is important to expand their knowledge beyond what they learn in the classroom.

Thus, the purpose of this book is to examine the experiences of Filipino Americans – an ethnic group that is often invisible in academia, despite their history as the first Asian people to arrive in what is now the US and their current population as one of the largest Asian American groups in the United States. In upcoming chapters, readers will have an opportunity to gain knowledge about Filipino Americans, to increase their awareness of different dynamics that may impact interpersonal relationships with Filipino Americans; and to learn about skills or approaches in effectively working with Filipino Americans in psychotherapy and counseling settings.

This first chapter reviews the history of Asian Americans as a racial group, while exploring how the historical experiences of Filipino Americans may be different from other Asian American ethnic groups. This chapter also introduces socioeconomic demographics and contemporary experiences of Filipino Americans – a group that has been present in the United States since 1587. Finally, this chapter reviews relevant psychological literature of Filipinos in the Philippines and current mental health issues of Filipino Americans in the United States.

EXPERIENCES OF ASIAN AMERICANS

The term “Asian American” refers to persons who have common ancestral roots in Asia and the Pacific Islands, with a similar physical appearance and comparable cultural values. The Asian American racial category comprises over 40 distinct ethnicities, which includes Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Cambodian, and Hmong. Sometimes Pacific Islanders are lumped into this category when discussing multicultural issues, forming broader racial categorizations such as “Asian/Pacific Islander” (API), “Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders” (AAPIs), or “Asian Pacific Americans” (APAs). However, in the US Census (and in general racial discourse), Pacific Islanders constitute a separate category.

When using the term “Asian American,” it is important to understand the heterogeneity of the Asian American community. Three points are significant.

1. There are hundreds of languages within the Asian American racial group, including Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Farsi.
2. There are over 20 major religions within the Asian American racial group, ranging from Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
3. There are many differences in phenotype (physical characteristics/attributes) between the major Asian subgroups. Most East Asians (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) may have a lighter peach skin tone, Filipino Americans and Southeast Asians (e.g., Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian) may possess a light to dark brown skin tone, and South Asians (e.g., Asian Indians, Pakistanis) may have a darker brown skin tone. Eye shapes are also different between different Asian groups, with East Asian Americans typically having smaller eyes, and South Asians having larger eyes.

Because of this heterogeneity, it is common for many Asian Americans to identify themselves in terms of their ethnicity (e.g., “Chinese,” “Indian,” “Filipino”), instead of the broader racial category of Asian or Asian American (Nadal, 2004, 2019). Further, in the past few decades, many Asian Americans may identify themselves or others as belonging to various Asian American subgroups, including South Asians, Desis, or...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Companion Website
• CHAPTER ONE: Introduction to Filipino American Psychology
• CHAPTER TWO: Filipino and Filipino American Cultural Values
• CHAPTER THREE: Racial and Ethnic Identity Development for Filipino Americans
• CHAPTER FOUR: Colonial Mentality of Filipino Americans
• CHAPTER FIVE: Filipino American Groups and Communities
• CHAPTER SIX: Filipino Americans and the Model Minority Myth
• CHAPTER SEVEN: Filipino American Experiences with Gender and Sexual Orientation
• CHAPTER EIGHT: Multiracial, Multiethnic, and Adopted Filipino Americans
• CHAPTER NINE: Mental Health Experiences and Psychotherapy with Filipino Americans
• References
• APPENDIX A: Historical References in the Poem “Ikaw”
• APPENDIX B: Further Readings and Resources
• Glossary
• About the Author
• Subject Index
• End User License Agreement