[Review of] Marina E. Espina. Filipinos in Louisiana

Marina E. Espina\u27s Filipinos in Louisiana is her long awaited, first collection; it is also an announcement of her book on eighteenth-century Filipino settlement in Louisiana and the United States, Manilamen in the New World. The chapters of Filipinos in Louisiana are Espina\u27s articles in chronological order covering two decades of research, all of which were published between 1976 and 1981 in Philippine News, New Orleans Ethnic Cultures and Perspectives on Ethnicity in New Orleans. Filipinos in Louisiana opens a little-known compartment in the history of the Filipino-American community. Espina, as a professional librarian, has had access to archival resources on Louisiana Filipinos from the eighteenth century to the present; consequently, Filipino inhabitation and genealogy came to be traced to 1763 and for seven (now eight) generations since 1803. (At the time of this writing, information has been disclosed that documentation of the Filipino presence in the continental United States now reaches to the seventeenth century when the Manila galleon was beached at Morro Bay in California during a storm in 1595)

Family eating and physical activity practices among African American, Filipino American, and Hispanic American families: Implications for developing obesity prevention programs

Overweight and obesity among children and adults is well-documented as an escalating problem. The purpose of this study is to determine the blood pressure, self-esteem, and eating and physical activity practices among African Americans, Filipino Americans, and Hispanic Americans; and project implications for development of childhood obesity prevention programs. This descriptive study was conducted in a convenience sample of 110 mothers recruited in health clinics and community centers located in Southeast Florida: 19% African Americans, 26% Filipino Americans, and 55% Hispanic Americans. The data, collected via self-administered questionnaires and a guided interview (Family Eating and Activity Habits Questionnaire, Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, Background Information Questionnaire), were analyzed via descriptive and inferential statistics with findings significant at p \u3c .05. Results revealed differences and similarities in eating and activity practices between Filipinos and Blacks or Hispanics. Blood pressure and self-esteem did not differ by ethnicity; however, overweight mothers tended to have overweight children. The results point clearly to the importance of the mothers’ role modeling in eating and physical activity practices of families, reflecting the influence of mothers’ behaviors in children’s healthy behaviors, albeit family health. Given that mothers own physical exercise and eating habits could influence their children’s physical activity levels and food choices, a parental advice strategy could be disseminated directly to parents by health professionals. Study findings may raise public awareness of the increasing prevalence and consequences of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents, particularly among vulnerable ethnic groups. The findings provide a database for nurse practitioners and other health service providers for the development of culturally sensitive focused public health education programs to prevent or control obesity

Application of Photovoice with Focus Groups to Explore Dietary Behaviors of Older Filipino Adults with Cardiovascular Disease

Filipino Americans have high rates of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). This study explored the dietary behaviors, a modifiable risk factor, of Filipinos with CVD. Filipinos with CVD were recruited and trained to do Photovoice. Participants took photos to depict their “food experience,” defined as their daily dietary activities. Participants then shared their photos during focus groups. Focus group transcripts were analyzed using an iterative, grounded theory approach. Among 38 Filipino participants, the mean age was 70 years old and all were foreign-born. Major themes included efforts to retain connection to Filipino culture through food, and dietary habits shaped by cultural health beliefs. Many believed that traditional dietary practices increased CVD risk. Receiving a CVD diagnosis and clinician advice changed their dietary behaviors. Household members, the physical environment, and economic constraints also influenced dietary behaviors. Photovoice is feasible among older Filipinos and may enhance understanding of drivers of dietary behaviors

Culture Counts: How Five Community-Based Organizations Serve Asian and Pacific Islander Youth

This two-year effort to examine cultural competence involved an extensive literature review, a survey of organizations, and in-depth reviews of five community-based organizations: Asian American Recovery Services (Santa Clara office), East Bay Asian Youth Center of Oakland, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, Helping and Outreaching to Peers Everywhere (H.O.P.E.) (API Wellness), and United Cambodian Culture Club (UCCC) (Cambodian Community Development)

Hazardousness of place : a new comparative approach to the Filipino past

© Ateneo de Manila University. The historiography of the Philippines has been largely bounded by the nation-state, which has defined how its past has been conceived and to whom its peoples are mainly compared. A more transnational environmental history, however, seeks to situate the archipelago within the context of the daily threats that its peoples have to face. This article focuses on the hazardous nature of living in the islands and explores the ways in which Filipinos have adapted to natural hazards as a frequent life experience over time

Emergency department use among Asian adults living in the United States: Results from the National Health Interview Survey (2006 – 2013)

This paper presents secondary analyses of the National Health Interview Survey data focused on emergency department (ED) utilization among Asian adults residing in the United States. National Health Interview Survey data provided from survey years 2006-2013 was pooled and disaggregated by single-race Asian ethnic subgroups (Filipino, Chinese, Asian Indian, other Asian). We explored trends in reports of an ED visit over the survey years for the purpose of determining whether reports of an ED visit increased or decreased over survey years. We also explored background/biologic, environment, access to care, and behavior factors and their associations with having an ED visit. The majority of respondents were foreign-born (75.9%) and had lived in the United States for ten or more years (54.3%). Estimates for reports of any ED visits ranged from 8.3% for the Chinese to 15.3% for the Filipino subgroups. Filipinos were more likely to have an ED visit compared to the Chinese and other Asians (except Asian Indians). For the eight years of survey data, estimates indicate a trend of fewer reports of any ED visit among the Asian Indian and Filipino subgroups. Among Filipinos, having diabetes and a smoking history were associated with an ED visit. The odds of an ED visit were higher among Asians in the youngest age category, among other Asians born in the United States, and among those who saw/talked to a mental health professional within the previous year. As there is a paucity of information available about ED use among Asians or Asian subgroups, this report adds to the literature on patterns of health care utilization among Asian subgroups living in the United States with a specific focus on ED utilization

Culture and rapport promotion in service encounters: protecting the ties that bind

The present study aimed at investigating possible cultural effects on the perceived importance of interactional concerns in service encounters. Individual values were examined to establish an explanatory framework for any effects that might emerge. Hong Kong Chinese and Filipinos participated in the present study by rating the importance of 12 interactional concerns in five hypothetical scenarios involving service provision. “Rapport promotion” was the only consistent factor of interactional concerns to emerge from the five scenarios in each of the two cultural groups. The dimensions of individual values, labeled “Conservation” and “Self-Transcendence” by Schwartz (1992), significantly predicted a respondent’s level of rapport promotion across all scenarios, with self-transcendence partially unpackaging the cultural difference that emerged in one of the service scenarios. We use these results to support a model of communication in service provision that predicts communication concerns as arising from cultural socialization for personal characteristics and situational features of the encounter, leading to the petitioner’s being more dependent on the good will of the service provider

Death-scapes in Taipei and Manila: a postmodernnecrography

This paper analyses changing geographies of disposal in the urban centres of Taipei in Taiwan and Manila in the Philippines, specifically shifts from burial to cremation and the extent to which such shifts reflect changing patterns of residence, fraternity, mobility and conceptions of locality in both places. In this essay the term 'postmodern' will refer not to a body of theory but to material transformations in the structuring of the economy and polity marked by migration from rural areas to cities and the production of places and localities where 'traditional' signs of hierarchy, memory and belonging appear to have been abolished. It has been claimed that the analysis of social practices surrounding death 'throws into relief the most important cultural values by which people live their lives and evaluate their experiences' (Huntingdon and Metcalf 1979: 25). However, I shall argue that conventional anthropological approaches to death practices – which tend to focus on ritual rather than the sites of disposal – need radical revision in order to satisfactorily account for the kinds of changes that are specified over the course of this essay. Indeed, the privileged contextual horizon for conventional anthropological and sociological approaches to death, dying and disposal has been the concept of 'culture'. I will argue that the structuring of contemporary death rituals in both Taiwan and the Philippines is not local culture but rather, on the one hand, the modern state that seeks increasingly to intervene and regulate the minutiae of daily life and, on the other, the 'market' which continuously opens up new areas to the grasping hand of capital accumulation