Home cooking and identity formation in migrant Filipino families in Hong Kong

Abstract

AbstractThis paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Filipino migrant families in Hong Kong and explores the various ways that Filipino parents instil a sense of Filipino identity in their children. I argue that for these families, the home is the primary environment in which the children learn about their ethnic heritage, in turn strengthening their sense of Filipino identity. I present three activities that strengthen Filipino consciousness in the home: speaking Filipino, visiting the Philippines frequently, and cooking Filipino food at home. I argue that these activities evoke an imagined, remembered, and reconstructed notion of the Philippines. Specifically, the paper adds to the discourse on the experience of migrant Filipino families and the development of a Filipino identity among second‐generation Filipinos in Hong Kong. In addition, it helps fill the gap in the literature relating to migrant Filipinos in Hong Kong, as most of the literature is focused on the labour diaspora of Filipina domestic helpers.