This classic was re-issued to meet the continuing demand for an introductory text on the sociology of the family in the Philippine setting. The book examines family structures and values in the context of an evolving society.
One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year "A remarkable book...indispensable."--The Boston Globe "A sweeping, deeply reported tale of international migration...DeParle's understanding of migration is refreshingly clear-eyed and nuanced."--The New York Times "This is epic reporting, nonfiction on a whole other level...One of the best books on immigration written in a generation."--Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted The definitive chronicle of our new age of global migration, told through the multi-generational saga of a Filipino family, by a veteran New York Times reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age--the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism," DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class. At the heart of the story is Tita's daughter, Rosalie. Beating the odds, she struggles through nursing school and works her way across the Middle East until a Texas hospital fulfills her dreams with a job offer in the States. Migration is changing the world--reordering politics, economics, and cultures across the globe. With nearly 45 million immigrants in the United States, few issues are as polarizing. But if the politics of immigration is broken, immigration itself--tens of millions of people gathered from every corner of the globe--remains an underappreciated American success. Expertly combining the personal and panoramic, DeParle presents a family saga and a global phenomenon. Restarting her life in Galveston, Rosalie brings her reluctant husband and three young children with whom she has rarely lived. They must learn to become a family, even as they learn a new country. Ordinary and extraordinary at once, their journey is a twenty-first-century classic, rendered in gripping detail.
Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, this pioneering volume reveals how the power of the country's family-based oligarchy both derives from and contributes to a weak Philippine state. From provincial warlords to modern managers, prominent Filipino leaders have fused family, politics, and business to compromise public institutions and amass private wealth--a historic pattern that persists to the present day. Edited by Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families explores the pervasive influence of the modern dynasties that have led the Philippines during the past century. Exemplified by the OsmeƱas and Lopezes, elite Filipino families have formed a powerful oligarchy--controlling capital, dominating national politics, and often owning the media. Beyond Manila, strong men such as Ramon Durano, Ali Dimaporo, and Justiniano Montano have used "guns, goons, and gold" to accumulate wealth and power in far-flung islands and provinces. In a new preface for this revised edition, the editor shows how this pattern of oligarchic control has continued into the twenty-first century, despite dramatic socio-economic change that has supplanted the classic "three g's" of Philippine politics with the contemporary "four c's"--continuity, Chinese, criminality, and celebrity.
Stephen M. Cherry draws upon a rich set of ethnographic and survey data, collected over a six-year period, to explore the roles that Catholicism and family play in shaping Filipino American community life. From the planning and construction of community centers, to volunteering at health fairs or protesting against abortion, this book illustrates the powerful ways these forces structure and animate not only how first-generation Filipino Americans think and feel about their community, but how they are compelled to engage it over issues deemed important to the sanctity of the family. Revealing more than intimate accounts of Filipino American lives, Cherry offers a glimpse of the often hidden but vital relationship between religion and community in the lives of new immigrants, and allows speculation on the broader impact of Filipino immigration on the nation. The Filipino American community is the second-largest immigrant community in the United States, and the Philippines is the second-largest source of Catholic immigration to this country. This ground-breaking study outlines how first-generation Filipino Americans have the potential to reshape American Catholicism and are already having an impact on American civic life through the engagement of their faith.
"If the Outsider's eyes are sympathetic, we discover a dimension of our society that we ignore because we are used to it. Lukas Kaelin, a Swiss philosopher, taught at the philosophy department of the Ateneo de Manila University in 2006-2008. Interested in the affairs of his host country, he decided to write his observations on the relationship between the family, civil society and the state. . . . Kaelin's framework is relatively new in the Philippines: Hegelian thought. Misinterpreted in the past as too abstract, Hegel's thought is now enjoying a significant rediscovery worldwide for its profound analysis of still relevant themes, such as the relationship between the family and the state, or the distinction between the private and the public spheres."--Fernando N. Zialcita, Ateneo de Manila University