No Time for Church: School, Family and Filipino-Japanese Children’s Acculturation

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Studies on immigration have frequently overlooked the importance that religion plays in the lives of migrants. Filipinos living in Japan (now its third largest ethnic group) identify heavily as Roman Catholic, for which they use existing church structures to teach their children about being Filipino. Using religious institutions to teach culture has not gone unchallenged, especially within the Filipino-Japanese household. This paper delineates the cultural politics involved within the Japanese-Filipino household among Filipinos, their Japanese husbands and in-laws and exposes the habit of Japanese to defer authority to teachers and classmates instead of supporting the Filipino mothers’ culture. Key to Japanese hegemony is the role that time-allotment plays in controlling children’s activity. The education system commands wide support within the Japanese household to the extent that demand for long hours of extracurricular practice functions as a paradigmatic expression of Japanese culture. Children’s entrance into elementary school is marked by an aggregate reduction in time that only increases as they age. Middle age Filipino mothers attending church alone is the result of an educational policy that obstructs the time foreign parents can spend with their children teaching them about forms of education alternative to those found in the public schools.