Exploring the Role of Catholicism in Filipino American Community Volunteerism and Participation

Abstract

Filipino Americans are increasingly playing an important part in the demographic transformation of American Catholicism. However, little is known about the relationship(s) of Catholicism to Filipino American civic life. Drawing on survey analysis of the Social Capital Community Benchmark survey (SCCB), the present study explores the linkages between Catholicism, religiosity, and Filipino American community involvement. Findings suggest that being Catholic and religiously active can facilitate Filipino American community involvement. Significant differences were also found in the influence of religion on volunteering versus community participation indicating that part of the gap between Asian American Protestant and Catholic volunteering in previous studies may be due to methodological issues.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this study was presented at the 2007 meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Tampa, Florida. The author would like to thank Jerry Z. Park, Michael K. Roemer, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts. The author is solely responsible, however, for any errors of fact or interpretation that remain in the article.

Notes

¹The Asian and Pacific Presence statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops estimates that 83.0 percent of Filipino Americans (1.54 million), 29.0 percent of Vietnamese Americans (0.33 million), 17.0 percent of Indian Americans (0.29 million), 12.3 percent of Chinese Americans (0.30 million), 7.0 percent of Korean Americans (0.07 million), and 4.0 percent of Japanese Americans (0.03 million) are Catholic (see United States Conference of Catholic Bishops [USCCB] 2001 Asian and Pacific Presence: Harmony in Faith. Washington, DC: USCCB). There is some debate over the exact percentages for each, but regardless of variability by data set Filipino Americans are overwhelmingly Catholic across them (see Lien and Carnes 2004; Park 2009).

²This is not the case in comparison with non-Christian traditions, at least in the Asian American context (Ecklund and Park 2007).

³The likelihood of Asian American Catholic volunteerism was higher than Asian American Hindus and Buddhists (see Ecklund and Park 2007).

⁴Estimated number of Filipino Americans in the United States prior to 1946 was roughly 109,000; see www.census.gov.

⁵Filipino Americans are also one of the least visible Asian American Catholic ethnic groups due in large part to their English proficiency and their surnames being wrongly identified as Hispanic in Catholic parishes (see USCCB 2001).

⁶Early waves of Filipino American immigrants experienced a fair amount of discrimination in American Catholic Churches and it was not until 1965 and after that these conditions improved dramatically (Gonzalez, III 2009; Gonzalez, III and Maison 2004; Okamura 1983).

⁷See SCCB Survey Executive Summary available at www.cfsv.org/communitysurvey/docs/exec_summ.pdf for specifics and a discussion of survey methods.

⁸After comparative analysis of the Filipino American respondents in the 2000 U.S. Census and Filipino American respondents in the SCCB survey, there were no significant demographic differences found outside of citizenship. Seventy percent of the Filipino Americans in the 2000 U.S. Census were citizens compared to 75% of the Filipino American respondents in the SCCB survey (see U.S. Census 2000).

⁹Given that approximately 70% of the Asian American community was foreign-born in 2000, the nationally representative sample of the SCCB survey must include some portion of both native and foreign born (see estimations in Ecklund and Park 2007). Subsequently, since roughly 57% of the Filipino American community is also foreign-born, the SCCB survey must also include some proportion of first-generation Filipino Americans as well.

¹⁰The original church attendance measure was a five-category variable ranging from “never attend” to “weekly.”

¹¹Due to the lack of specification of two categories prior to recoding (less than $30 K and $30 K or more), the complete scale has been reduced to the six-point scale used here (see Ecklund and Park 2005 for similar concerns).

¹²Ethnic Organization is included in the sociodemographic control variables based on previous research that suggests that participation in these organizations is an important outlet for Asian Americans and Filipino Americans specifically (see Lien 2001; Bonus 2000).

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

¹³Tagalog is the national language of the Philippines.