Filipino Americans

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Filipino Americans, also Fil-Ams called the second largest Asian population in are the United States of America . Filipino-Americans are people who can trace their origins back to the Philippines and who are Filipino and US citizenship. Most Filipino-Americans live in the states of California , Hawaii , New Mexico , Florida, and the New York metropolitan area .

Culture

The Philippines are the most westernized country in Southeast Asia due to the more than three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule and the more than 50 years of American occupation . The British historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee described the Philippines as a part of Latin America, which was washed into the Orient by a gigantic wave . Not least because of the former affiliation to the former New Spain and the Spanish-tinged Filipino culture. Most Filipinos have Spanish first and last names for this reason. Because the Philippines lived under US occupation from December 12, 1898 to July 4, 1946, the archipelago experienced, among other things, an influence of US culture at the beginning of the 20th century. But even after the end of the occupation by the Americans, the Filipinos adopted American customs. English also became the first foreign language taught in most Filipino schools. This also means that many people have Spanish surnames, but English first names. For all these reasons, there is no great culture shock for a Filipino who emigrates to the USA. In spite of everything, some people in the Philippines also have an antipathy towards the United States ( see also Philippine-American War ).

language

In the Philippines, English is the language of business and education, and the government also uses it. Tagalog / Filipino is the official national language and the symbol of their Filipino identity, with which they gained independence from Spain . Parents of children living in the United States have a particular concern that their children speak Tagalog or the dialect of their province so that they can converse in their native language with their relatives in their homeland. In the American-Asian Society, Tagalog (over 2.25 million members) is spoken more than Chinese (2.6 million).

education

Filipino-Americans value a good education in the United States. Many Filipinos take a college graduation exam in the States only to return to the Philippines later, particularly in medicine, architecture, engineering, and the arts. 40 percent of Filipino academics studied in the United States.

economy

Due to the high level of education, Filipinos enjoy a life in the American middle class. This is especially true for those who work in the healthcare sector. Because of the shortage of nurses in the United States, most American hospitals are trying to recruit Filipino nurses - with wages that are attractive to Filipinos - because Filipino workers are much cheaper than other immigrants.

religion

Unlike most countries in Asia ( excluding East Timor ), Filipinos are devout and practicing Catholics , as a result of the long Spanish colonial rule. Filipinos are traditionally God-fearing people and attach great importance to attending church regularly, reading the Bible and raising their children in the Catholic faith .

Community

Unlike most minorities in the United States, Filipino-Americans do not tend, like the Latinos or Chinese, to own Chinatown or Spanish Harlem neighborhoods alone. Filipinos are rather scattered in the cities, with exceptions in California and Hawaii , where there are so-called Filipino Towns .

politics

Filipino-Americans were traditionally seen as right-wing and conservative in terms of social policy, and as such also predominantly as voters of the Republican Party .

In fact, Republicans won the majority of Filipino voters with their presidential candidate George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, and gained an even larger majority in the 2004 presidential election, almost two to one over the Democratic Party and its candidate John Kerry .

In recent years, however, a political change has been observed within the community of Filipino-Americans, at least with regard to their voting behavior. A clear shift towards the Democratic Party can be observed: in the 2008 presidential elections , the majority of Filipino-Americans voted for the Democratic Party candidate, Barack Obama . According to a poll by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund of Asian Americans from 37 cities, 65% of Filipino Americans voted for Obama in the 2012 presidential election .

Discrimination

In many areas, such as construction, Filipino-Americans are still discriminated against; for example, a Filipino still earns much less than his or her Hispanic - or African-American counterparts. Filipino-Americans have been fighting for equality in their workplaces for decades. Racially motivated assaults are another problem, including the 1999 murder of Filipino-American Joseph Ileto by the Aryan Nations . There are also cases of Filipinos being harassed with unjustified deportations and visa refusals.

Well-known Filipino-Americans

literature

  • Rick Baldoz: The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946. NYU Press, New York 2011, ISBN 9780814791097 .
  • Veltisezar Bautista: The Filipino Americans from 1763 to the Present: Their History, Culture, and Traditions . Bookhaus Publishers 1998, ISBN 0931613175 .
  • Isabelo T. Crisostomom: Filipino Achievers in the USA & Canada: Profiles in Excellence . Bookhaus Publishers 1995, ISBN 0931613116 .
  • Allan Punzalan Isaac: American Tropics: Articulating Filipino America. University of Minnesota Press 2007, ISBN 0816642745 .
  • Yen Le Espiritu: Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and Countries. University of California Press 2003, ISBN 0520235274 .

Web links

Commons : Filipino-Americans  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Thomas Chen: WHY ASIAN AMERICANS VOTED FOR OBAMA . PERSPECTIVE MAGAZINE. February 26, 2009. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 14, 2014: "A survey of Filipino Americans in California — the second largest Asian American ethnic group and traditionally Republican voters" @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.perspy.com
  2. ^ Bendixen & Associates and The Tarrance Group: National Poll of Asian Pacific Islanders on the 2004 Election . In: New American Media . Pacific News Service. September 14, 2004. Archived from the original on August 19, 2014. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 14, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / news.newamericamedia.org
  3. Jim Lobe: Asian-Americans lean toward Kerry . In: Asia Times , September 16, 2004. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved on August 14, 2014. 
  4. ^ Thomas Chen: Why Asian Americans Voted for Obama . In: PERSPECTIVE . Harvard University. February 26, 2009. Archived from the original on April 30, 2010. Retrieved on August 14, 2014.
  5. Ujala Sehgal: New Findings: Asian American Vote in 2012 Varied by Ethnic Group and Geographic Location . In: Press release . Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. January 17, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2014.