Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese AmericansFifty-two percent of Chinese Americans report having no religious affiliation, making them the least religiously-identified ethnic group in the United States. But that statistic obscures a much more complex reality. Family Sacrifices reveals that Chinese Americans employ familism, not religion, as the primary narrative by which they find meaning, identity, and belonging. As a transpacific lived tradition, Chinese American familism prioritizes family above other commitments and has roots in Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism. The spiritual and ethical systems of China emphasize practicing rituals and cultivating virtue, whereas American religious research usually focuses on belief in the supernatural or belonging to a religious tradition. To address this gap in understanding, Family Sacrifices introduces the concept of liyi, translated as ritual propriety and righteous relations. Re-appropriated from its original Chinese usage, liyi offers a new way of understanding Chinese religion and a new lens for understanding the emergence of religious "nones" in the United States. The first book based on national survey data on Asian American religious practices, Family Sacrifices is a seminal text on the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Chinese American Nonreligiousness and Familism | 27 |
Chinese American Liyi Socialization | 47 |
Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism in the United States | 72 |
Chinese Americans Highest Values | 96 |
Ritualizing Family Food and Fun | 127 |
Implications of Chinese American Familism and Liyi Theory | 156 |
Research Methodology | 173 |
List of Respondents | 177 |
Interview Questions | 181 |
Notes | 185 |
| 195 | |
| 201 | |
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Common terms and phrases
acculturation adherence Agnostic American atheists American millennials ancestor veneration ancestral spirits Asian American atheists Buddhist California career celebrate chapter China Chinese American familism Chinese identity Chinese Popular Religion Chinese religious Chinese traditions Christian church concept Confucianism Confucius context customs Daoist elders ethnic Evangelical explained extended family Family Sacrifices father feel fengshui festivals grandparents gravesite grew heritage households identify immigrant parents incense individual Laura lives liyi luck maintain meaning migration millennials moral mother nonreligious norms one’s Pew Research Center potlucks practices of Chinese professional racial red envelopes relationships Religion and Confucianism Religion in China Religious Affiliation religious nones respect respondents reunion rituals role sample Scott secular siblings sister skepticism social spiritual supernatural Taiwan temple theory of liyi things unaffiliated understand United University Press values Wendy Western Wong working-class worldviews Xunzi zongzi