{"id":1816,"date":"2022-03-17T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthwatchminute.com\/?p=1816"},"modified":"2022-03-17T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T07:00:00","slug":"how-hiya-kapwa-and-other-cultural-values-play-a-role-in-filipino-american-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthwatchminute.com\/?p=1816","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018hiya,\u2019 \u2018kapwa\u2019 and other cultural values play a role in Filipino American mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Lauren Soriente\u2019s grandfather told her that he expected her to pay for her younger sister\u2019s college tuition. When he was growing up in the Philippines, the oldest sibling paid for their younger siblings\u2019 tuitions, he said.<\/p>\n

Soriente\u2019s mother, meanwhile, has been unclear about what financial support her parents expect from her \u2014 and unwilling to have a serious conversation about it. Years ago, the 27-year-old felt pushed by her family into pursuing accounting. It\u2019s a field that offers financial stability, but it\u2019s not something the Northern Virginia resident is passionate about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess looking back now, I realize, did they make me do this so I would be their retirement fund?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The possibility that she might have to financially provide for her family adds to the existing stressors she faces, with student loans, wage stagnation and inflation.<\/p>\n

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Soriente\u2019s experience is common among Filipino Americans, who place a high value on looking after their families. The indebtedness Soriente feels and the expectations her family has are rooted in the cultural value of utang na loob<\/i>, which translates to \u201cdebt of gratitude.\u201d It refers to reciprocity and doing what\u2019s good for the collective. In a listening session with 16 Filipino Americans from across the U.S., the majority of participants shared similar experiences about the pressure of putting family first as a common source of tension.<\/p>\n

Christine Catipon, a senior staff psychologist at the UC Irvine Counseling Center, sees the effect of utang na loob<\/i> in almost all her Filipino students. They often feel pressured not only to pay their parents back for all they\u2019ve done but also to support them for the rest of their lives. For Soriente, she attributes the indebtedness she feels for her family to a strong sense of duty and close connection to family members. Another part of it is the expectations they have of her, in part because they\u2019ve fulfilled her basic needs.<\/p>\n

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Lifestyle<\/a><\/p>\n

More from this project: Mental health in the Filipino American community<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This is a collection of articles about mental health in the Filipino American community and the factors that influence it. <\/p>\n

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What\u2019s known about the nuances of Filipino American mental health is limited by a dearth of resources and researchers dedicated to studying it. One 1995 study found that 27% of Filipino American respondents had a major depressive episode or clinical depression of varying severity, more than three times that of the general U.S. population<\/a><\/u>. Another study, published in 2017<\/a>,<\/u> found that Filipino American youth were at higher risk of depressive symptoms during adolescence and young adulthood compared with their Chinese American peers.<\/p>\n

Dr. Joyce Javier, a pediatrician and researcher at Children\u2019s Hospital Los Angeles and an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, has conducted research on suicidal ideation in Filipina American teens. She said the group has been shown to have higher rates of suicidal ideation compared to other ethnicities<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that much is unknown, Catipon said a good place to start is understanding the role cultural values play when it comes to mental health.<\/p>\n

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Kevin Nadal, a professor of psychology at the City University of New York and author of \u201cFilipino American Psychology,\u201d cited four main cultural values that may affect Filipino Americans\u2019 mental health. In addition to utang na loob<\/i>, there are:<\/p>\n