Filipino Families as the Source in Early Childhood Education

• In Event: Decolonizing Educational Research: Re-Storying How We Empower and Transform Filipina/x/o Communities

Abstract

Objectives
This qualitative study explored the experiences of Filipino American immigrant families in California and how they helped shape their children’s identities during early childhood. The following research questions were examined: (1) How can we inform the Early Childhood Education (ECE) field to support Filipino American families and children?, (2) What funds of knowledge do they draw from to build positive collective and individual identity with their children?, (3) For marginalized groups, such as Filipinos, what can we learn about their ways of being that draw on their source of resiliency and strength?

Theoretical Framework
This study drew upon three major areas: (1) cultural funds of knowledge to help us discover how families transmit knowledge through traditions, values, and relationships overtime (Moll, 2005) (2) Early Childhood Education to understand the developmental period between birth through 8 years old, where children learn how to navigate the world through social relationships and their environment (NSCDC, 2020) and develop a sense of identity, place, and purpose (NAEYC, 2022), and (3) immigrant and Filipino families and cultural identities. For immigrant families, cultural identity is formed collectively and individually (Ozun, 2019). Amongst the Filipino population, colonial mentality can negatively affect the development of cultural identity (David & Nadal, 2013). Maintaining connection with one’s culture positively affects well-being and identity (Halagao, 2010). Focusing on involving the culture and strengths of Filipino families can act as protective factors, such as familism, which “counter negative effects of risks” for child development and build stronger family relationships (David et. al, 2017; Espiritu & Wolf, 2001; Feliciano & Rumbaut, 2018).

Methodology
This ethnographic study of my extended family explored and compared the experiences of Filipino immigrant and second generation families in California. A culturally relevant form of Tagalog Filipino storytelling called kuwentuhan, which includes pasalita (oral) and pasalin-salin (transmitted through time), observations, and artifact sharing (Francisco-Menchavez, 2020; Javier, 2004) were utilized as methods for data collection. Transcriptions and researcher memos were analyzed and coded through an epistemological framework that drew on families’ funds of knowledge.

Results
This study revealed decolonization as a protective factor through each families’ kuwentos and increased self-awareness. The following knowledge were passed down differently outside of schools: (1) values such as education and faith, (2) traditions such as foods, (3) language preservation, (4) maintaining intergenerational relationships and family roles, (5) pakikisama (sense of a Filipino community), (6) healing from generational cycles of colonial mentality, and (7) bridging identities. These contributed to the ways each family described what it meant to be Filipino, including: (1) resiliency, (2) gratitude, (3) pag-aalaga (taking care), and (4) pride.

Significance
Few ECE research articles include the Filipino population in the US and are generalized with Asian or Hispanic groups (Seki, 2015; Choi et. al, 2017). This study (1) affirms kuwentuhan as a cultural form of storytelling for our community and (2) contributes to ECE with the potential for transformative educational programing and professional learning that can support the collective and individual identities of Filipina/x/o through the insights of Filipina/x/o families.

Author

• Tryshna Malonzo, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa