Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese Americans
Illustrated Edition
by Russell M. Jeung (Author), Seanan S. Fong (Author), Helen Jin Kim (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
Fifty-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.
by Russell M. Jeung (Author), Seanan S. Fong (Author), Helen Jin Kim (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
Fifty-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.
5.0 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
Customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top reviews from the United States
Bay Area User
5.0 out of 5 stars New methodology for analyzing belief systemsReviewed in the United States on June 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
I think this book represents a very significant breakthrough in sociology.
Family Sacrifices is a seminal text on the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.
===
礼义 Trad. 禮義
lǐ yì
righteousness
justice
==
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The strengths are that - in a compact book - so many avenues for research have been opened." -- Brett J. Esaki, University of Arizona, Religion
"Family Sacrifices is accessible reading for undergraduates and graduate students. It is a must read for scholars interested in reevaluating what is, and what is not, religious in a time in which institutional affiliations are declining rapidly, yet belief in the supernatural remains vibrant...
Family Sacrifices provides an important first step into a more robust social scientific study of religion." -- Jerry Z. Park, Baylor University
"Family Sacrifices is an important volume, given the increasing prominence of Chinese Americans in American society and politics... Family Sacrifices offers a new conceptual approach toward understanding American religious nones by applying the ritual-ethical framework of liyi to the American
context. The book does this well by focusing on praxis rather than belief in order to eschew the religious-secular dichotomy that religion scholars have employed in examining religious nones." -- Steven Hu, University of California, Santa Barbara, Koninklijke Brill NV
"Family Sacrifices is a worthy addition...representing a significant attempt by sociologists to think deeply about ethnicity and religion and provide the reader with an essential partanswer to and a better understanding of a complex question. This book, therefore, is situated well for students and
researchers who are interested in the topics of spirituality, Chinese religions, and Asian Americans' religiosity." -- Di Di, Santa Clara University, Sociology of Religion
"Family Sacrifices is accessible reading for undergraduates and graduate students. It is a must read for scholars interested in reevaluating what is, and what is not, religious in a time in which institutional affiliations are declining rapidly, yet belief in the supernatural remains vibrant." --
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
"Family Sacrifices is a fascinating and important contribution to understanding how Chinese cultural, ethical and religious traditions are passed on in the United States. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand both the Chinese-American experience and Asian-American religions." --
Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California
"Family Sacrifices debunks popular myths about of Chinese American religiosity. The authors offer a nuanced, culturally sensitive and powerful analysis of Chinese American familism as a hybridized and transpacific lived tradition rooted in Chinese Confucianism and folk religion and illuminate the
presence of rituals and moral boundary systems among non-religious Americans. A major breakthrough in the field of religious studies." -- Min Zhou, Professor and Walter & Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US-China Relations & Communications, University of California, Los Angeles
"This is a book on Chinese American religious life that we have been waiting for. It addresses longstanding sociological puzzles about the apparent lack of religious life of Chinese Americans, and it takes on the complex moral and religious discourses and practices of the so-called hyphenated
Americans, for whom their immigrant heritage is still an essential part of life. What this nuanced ethnographic account shows is that the case of Chinese Americans is both particular and universal, and the superb analysis illustrates the often-hidden habits of the heart of Chinese American life." --
Anna Sun, author of Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities
About the Author
Dr. Russell M. Jeung is Chair and Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. The author of books and articles on Asian Americans, religion, and race, he's a community activist and church leader in East Oakland, California. Dr. Jeung's memoir, At Home in Exile, shares his
family's six generations in the US and his life with refugees.
Seanan S. Fong is a writer and Unitarian Universalist minister with a focus on serving the spiritual needs of Asian Americans. He holds a BA in philosophy from Stanford University and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School. He also works as a product designer and conflict resolution professional in
San Francisco.
Dr. Helen Jin Kim is Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Emory University. She completed her PhD in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University and her BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University.
Product details
Publisher : Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (June 6, 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 224 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The strengths are that - in a compact book - so many avenues for research have been opened." -- Brett J. Esaki, University of Arizona, Religion
"Family Sacrifices is accessible reading for undergraduates and graduate students. It is a must read for scholars interested in reevaluating what is, and what is not, religious in a time in which institutional affiliations are declining rapidly, yet belief in the supernatural remains vibrant...
Family Sacrifices provides an important first step into a more robust social scientific study of religion." -- Jerry Z. Park, Baylor University
"Family Sacrifices is an important volume, given the increasing prominence of Chinese Americans in American society and politics... Family Sacrifices offers a new conceptual approach toward understanding American religious nones by applying the ritual-ethical framework of liyi to the American
context. The book does this well by focusing on praxis rather than belief in order to eschew the religious-secular dichotomy that religion scholars have employed in examining religious nones." -- Steven Hu, University of California, Santa Barbara, Koninklijke Brill NV
"Family Sacrifices is a worthy addition...representing a significant attempt by sociologists to think deeply about ethnicity and religion and provide the reader with an essential partanswer to and a better understanding of a complex question. This book, therefore, is situated well for students and
researchers who are interested in the topics of spirituality, Chinese religions, and Asian Americans' religiosity." -- Di Di, Santa Clara University, Sociology of Religion
"Family Sacrifices is accessible reading for undergraduates and graduate students. It is a must read for scholars interested in reevaluating what is, and what is not, religious in a time in which institutional affiliations are declining rapidly, yet belief in the supernatural remains vibrant." --
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
"Family Sacrifices is a fascinating and important contribution to understanding how Chinese cultural, ethical and religious traditions are passed on in the United States. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand both the Chinese-American experience and Asian-American religions." --
Carolyn Chen, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California
"Family Sacrifices debunks popular myths about of Chinese American religiosity. The authors offer a nuanced, culturally sensitive and powerful analysis of Chinese American familism as a hybridized and transpacific lived tradition rooted in Chinese Confucianism and folk religion and illuminate the
presence of rituals and moral boundary systems among non-religious Americans. A major breakthrough in the field of religious studies." -- Min Zhou, Professor and Walter & Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in US-China Relations & Communications, University of California, Los Angeles
"This is a book on Chinese American religious life that we have been waiting for. It addresses longstanding sociological puzzles about the apparent lack of religious life of Chinese Americans, and it takes on the complex moral and religious discourses and practices of the so-called hyphenated
Americans, for whom their immigrant heritage is still an essential part of life. What this nuanced ethnographic account shows is that the case of Chinese Americans is both particular and universal, and the superb analysis illustrates the often-hidden habits of the heart of Chinese American life." --
Anna Sun, author of Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities
About the Author
Dr. Russell M. Jeung is Chair and Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. The author of books and articles on Asian Americans, religion, and race, he's a community activist and church leader in East Oakland, California. Dr. Jeung's memoir, At Home in Exile, shares his
family's six generations in the US and his life with refugees.
Seanan S. Fong is a writer and Unitarian Universalist minister with a focus on serving the spiritual needs of Asian Americans. He holds a BA in philosophy from Stanford University and an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School. He also works as a product designer and conflict resolution professional in
San Francisco.
Dr. Helen Jin Kim is Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Emory University. She completed her PhD in the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University and her BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University.
Product details
Publisher : Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (June 6, 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 224 pages
5.0 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
Customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top reviews from the United States
Bay Area User
5.0 out of 5 stars New methodology for analyzing belief systemsReviewed in the United States on June 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
I think this book represents a very significant breakthrough in sociology.
In the course of solving the problem of
adequately analyzing the core belief and ethical systems of nonreligious
Chinese Americans, the authors have come up with a methodology and
framework for analyzing belief systems hitherto unknown or at least never formally presented in modern social science, which happens to have originated in the Western World, not the Chinese one. The methodology and framework presented by this book is based on analyzing and classifying the belief system’s values, practices and prescribed behaviors towards others, rather than on analyzing and
classifying the system’s theoretical constructs regarding the supernatural world.
The authors explain that this methodology and framework is actually a modern
reincarnation of the methodology and framework that traditional Chinese thinkers
from ancient times on have analyzed and critiqued the belief systems of other
cultures, and has historically provided the criteria by which the Chinese have
traditionally determined “Chineseness”. Significantly, such criteria have been
ethical or cultural and not racial ones.
I think this methodology and framework can be used not just to analyze Chinese
culture and members of the Chinese culture, but can also be used universally to
analyze any culture and the members of the culture. In my view, the real
contribution of this “new” methodology and framework may lie both in a much
better ability to provide useful ways for different cultures and members of
different cultures to interact, and in a much better ability to predict what reactions
various messages and behaviors will elicit from different cultures and their
members. This would be a very significant contribution indeed in today’s
increasingly globalized and increasingly interdependent world.
4 people found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
bianca
5.0 out of 5 stars Reframing spirituality, ethics, and identityReviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020
Verified Purchase
Through compelling storytelling and well-structured quantitative data, the authors set up and frame Liyi in a way that is accessible and easy to follow. This research provides significant insight on the values and motivations of Chinese Americans. It expands our cultural and academic language to capture the ethics of populations that don't fit neatly into normative sociological constructions of religion. The research moves beyond religion as belief and belonging, and proposes liyi (right relationship sand just behavior) as a more imaginative and expansive framework to capture Chinese American spirituality and values. As a Chinese-American from a non-religious family, this book affirms and celebrates the family rituals and values that make up my spirituality, but were never acknowledged by mainstream western frameworks on religion and identity.
One person found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
Russell Yee
5.0 out of 5 stars A deep and helpful dive into one slice of Asian North AmericaReviewed in the United States on June 7, 2019
Released this week, the Netflix movie “Always Be My Maybe” is receiving an enthusiastic and appreciative reception by the Asian American community. Reviews by Asian Americans in national media outlets dwell on this theme: I loved recognizing us, our family and home settings, our relationships with our parents, our food, and our ways of relating to our social settings.
But what values and behaviors actually constitute this recognizable “us”? How did these values and behaviors come about and how do they now function? And might understanding these values and behaviors on their own terms provide useful new sociological insights?
This book, also released this week, is an in-depth look at the values and behaviors of one slice of Asian North America: non-religious second-generation Chinese Americans. It proposes the following:
“Through 58 in-depth interviews and national survey data, [this book] argues that Chinese American familism operates to provide (1) ultimate values about the purpose and meaning in life for Chinese Americans, (2) ethics to guide their relationships and behaviors, and (3) core identities that offer self-understanding and belonging. As a hybridized and transpacific lived tradition, Chinese American familism has its roots in Chinese Confucianism and Chinese Popular Religion. Through the process of migration and adaptation, this lived tradition has continuously transformed and has become distilled. Within a postindustrial, racialized, and multicultural American context today, it pervades how second-generation Chinese Americans conceptualize and maintain their human relationships and responsibilities, as well as how they embody, enact, and transmit the practices of family.” (p. 6).
To develop and apply this concept of “familism,” the authors use the Chinese concept of “liyi” (“li” = correct observances and practices, and “yi” = rightly formed and conducted relationships). Their dense but concise chapters describe the historical origins and development of “liyi”; its transpacific and generational transmission; its adaptation in the bicultural, minority, “foreign” setting of America; and its prospects given current sociological trends.
The text makes a liberal use of quotes and stories from the interviewees, giving a wide portrait of these families and their shared values and behaviors. The range of concrete examples is unsurprising (practices around births, weddings, and funerals; practices concerning ancestors; values around money and careers; practices involving “feng shui” and “qi”; Lunar New Year celebrations; and the legacy of actual Temple worship and related practices) but are described with an engaging level of variety and insight.
The special interest of this book is Chinese American “nones”—the strikingly high (51.8%) portion who do not identify with any particular religion. The 58 interview subjects (listed by name in Appendix B) are all self-described as atheists, agnostics, or spiritual-but-not-religious. By choosing this cohort, the authors press specifically into their question of how values and behaviors get formed and transmitted apart from received belief structures or organized religious traditions. This flows from their insight that western concepts of belief and behavior—focused on exclusive adherence to creedal faiths and their institutional expressions—fall short in trying to describe and understand Chinese worldviews, values, and behaviors. The authors further propose that their use of “liyi” in understanding Chinese American “nones” might also be quite useful in understanding the growing pan-racial cohort of “nones” in America.
The various chapters provide a good overview of Chinese religious history and thought from antiquity to the present. The text uses Pinyin romanzation (though without tone marks) alongside traditional Chinese characters and English glosses. The authors acknowledge and give some attention to distinctions between those of Mainland vs. Taiwan vs. Hong Kong ancestry. There are numerous charts and figures, nine pages of endnotes, and a six-page bibliography.
Reading the book I felt the same way I did watching “Always Be My Maybe”: the pleasure of recognizing “us,” though here in the form of a full scholarly analysis. I was especially grateful for the authors’ proposal of an analytical framework that provides a very promising and helpful alternative to longstanding western approaches.
While I appreciated the tight focus of this book, it also left me wondering how Chinese American values and behaviors compare with those of others, whether other Asian North American groups (some with heritages inside the Confucian Sinosphere and others not), or really just any and every group with recent and ongoing immigration dynamics. To what degree is high family cohesion an inherited legacy of Confucian values and to what degree is it simply a function of generational necessity after migration?
In “Always Be My Maybe,” the adult son Marcus lives out his sense of special responsibility for his (aging but still healthy and working) father’s care. We can attribute this to a Confucian legacy of “yi” family dynamics transmitted through a lifetime of “li” behaviors such as using generational honorifics, deferring to elders at meals, and witnessing parents’ care for grandparents. But taking responsibility for parents is hardly unusual (indeed in historical and global perspective what is unusual is western individualism). A comparative approach might further help reposition Chinese American values and behaviors somewhere better than as a “foreign” presence in American majority culture.
And while the authors make a good case for their choice of “nones” as an object of study, of course this leaves the task of analyzing religiously committed Chinese Americans along these same lines. Thankfully, there is certainly sufficient groundwork here to help pick up that task.
Thank you Russell M. Jeung, Seanan S. Fong, and Helen Jin Kim for taking on this project and carrying it through at such a high level of scholarship, community investment, and personal care.
Russell Yee, PhD
Affiliate Associate Professor
Fuller Theological Seminary
Disclaimer: I was provided a free review copy of this book.
2 people found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
adequately analyzing the core belief and ethical systems of nonreligious
Chinese Americans, the authors have come up with a methodology and
framework for analyzing belief systems hitherto unknown or at least never formally presented in modern social science, which happens to have originated in the Western World, not the Chinese one. The methodology and framework presented by this book is based on analyzing and classifying the belief system’s values, practices and prescribed behaviors towards others, rather than on analyzing and
classifying the system’s theoretical constructs regarding the supernatural world.
The authors explain that this methodology and framework is actually a modern
reincarnation of the methodology and framework that traditional Chinese thinkers
from ancient times on have analyzed and critiqued the belief systems of other
cultures, and has historically provided the criteria by which the Chinese have
traditionally determined “Chineseness”. Significantly, such criteria have been
ethical or cultural and not racial ones.
I think this methodology and framework can be used not just to analyze Chinese
culture and members of the Chinese culture, but can also be used universally to
analyze any culture and the members of the culture. In my view, the real
contribution of this “new” methodology and framework may lie both in a much
better ability to provide useful ways for different cultures and members of
different cultures to interact, and in a much better ability to predict what reactions
various messages and behaviors will elicit from different cultures and their
members. This would be a very significant contribution indeed in today’s
increasingly globalized and increasingly interdependent world.
4 people found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
bianca
5.0 out of 5 stars Reframing spirituality, ethics, and identityReviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020
Verified Purchase
Through compelling storytelling and well-structured quantitative data, the authors set up and frame Liyi in a way that is accessible and easy to follow. This research provides significant insight on the values and motivations of Chinese Americans. It expands our cultural and academic language to capture the ethics of populations that don't fit neatly into normative sociological constructions of religion. The research moves beyond religion as belief and belonging, and proposes liyi (right relationship sand just behavior) as a more imaginative and expansive framework to capture Chinese American spirituality and values. As a Chinese-American from a non-religious family, this book affirms and celebrates the family rituals and values that make up my spirituality, but were never acknowledged by mainstream western frameworks on religion and identity.
One person found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
Russell Yee
5.0 out of 5 stars A deep and helpful dive into one slice of Asian North AmericaReviewed in the United States on June 7, 2019
Released this week, the Netflix movie “Always Be My Maybe” is receiving an enthusiastic and appreciative reception by the Asian American community. Reviews by Asian Americans in national media outlets dwell on this theme: I loved recognizing us, our family and home settings, our relationships with our parents, our food, and our ways of relating to our social settings.
But what values and behaviors actually constitute this recognizable “us”? How did these values and behaviors come about and how do they now function? And might understanding these values and behaviors on their own terms provide useful new sociological insights?
This book, also released this week, is an in-depth look at the values and behaviors of one slice of Asian North America: non-religious second-generation Chinese Americans. It proposes the following:
“Through 58 in-depth interviews and national survey data, [this book] argues that Chinese American familism operates to provide (1) ultimate values about the purpose and meaning in life for Chinese Americans, (2) ethics to guide their relationships and behaviors, and (3) core identities that offer self-understanding and belonging. As a hybridized and transpacific lived tradition, Chinese American familism has its roots in Chinese Confucianism and Chinese Popular Religion. Through the process of migration and adaptation, this lived tradition has continuously transformed and has become distilled. Within a postindustrial, racialized, and multicultural American context today, it pervades how second-generation Chinese Americans conceptualize and maintain their human relationships and responsibilities, as well as how they embody, enact, and transmit the practices of family.” (p. 6).
To develop and apply this concept of “familism,” the authors use the Chinese concept of “liyi” (“li” = correct observances and practices, and “yi” = rightly formed and conducted relationships). Their dense but concise chapters describe the historical origins and development of “liyi”; its transpacific and generational transmission; its adaptation in the bicultural, minority, “foreign” setting of America; and its prospects given current sociological trends.
The text makes a liberal use of quotes and stories from the interviewees, giving a wide portrait of these families and their shared values and behaviors. The range of concrete examples is unsurprising (practices around births, weddings, and funerals; practices concerning ancestors; values around money and careers; practices involving “feng shui” and “qi”; Lunar New Year celebrations; and the legacy of actual Temple worship and related practices) but are described with an engaging level of variety and insight.
The special interest of this book is Chinese American “nones”—the strikingly high (51.8%) portion who do not identify with any particular religion. The 58 interview subjects (listed by name in Appendix B) are all self-described as atheists, agnostics, or spiritual-but-not-religious. By choosing this cohort, the authors press specifically into their question of how values and behaviors get formed and transmitted apart from received belief structures or organized religious traditions. This flows from their insight that western concepts of belief and behavior—focused on exclusive adherence to creedal faiths and their institutional expressions—fall short in trying to describe and understand Chinese worldviews, values, and behaviors. The authors further propose that their use of “liyi” in understanding Chinese American “nones” might also be quite useful in understanding the growing pan-racial cohort of “nones” in America.
The various chapters provide a good overview of Chinese religious history and thought from antiquity to the present. The text uses Pinyin romanzation (though without tone marks) alongside traditional Chinese characters and English glosses. The authors acknowledge and give some attention to distinctions between those of Mainland vs. Taiwan vs. Hong Kong ancestry. There are numerous charts and figures, nine pages of endnotes, and a six-page bibliography.
Reading the book I felt the same way I did watching “Always Be My Maybe”: the pleasure of recognizing “us,” though here in the form of a full scholarly analysis. I was especially grateful for the authors’ proposal of an analytical framework that provides a very promising and helpful alternative to longstanding western approaches.
While I appreciated the tight focus of this book, it also left me wondering how Chinese American values and behaviors compare with those of others, whether other Asian North American groups (some with heritages inside the Confucian Sinosphere and others not), or really just any and every group with recent and ongoing immigration dynamics. To what degree is high family cohesion an inherited legacy of Confucian values and to what degree is it simply a function of generational necessity after migration?
In “Always Be My Maybe,” the adult son Marcus lives out his sense of special responsibility for his (aging but still healthy and working) father’s care. We can attribute this to a Confucian legacy of “yi” family dynamics transmitted through a lifetime of “li” behaviors such as using generational honorifics, deferring to elders at meals, and witnessing parents’ care for grandparents. But taking responsibility for parents is hardly unusual (indeed in historical and global perspective what is unusual is western individualism). A comparative approach might further help reposition Chinese American values and behaviors somewhere better than as a “foreign” presence in American majority culture.
And while the authors make a good case for their choice of “nones” as an object of study, of course this leaves the task of analyzing religiously committed Chinese Americans along these same lines. Thankfully, there is certainly sufficient groundwork here to help pick up that task.
Thank you Russell M. Jeung, Seanan S. Fong, and Helen Jin Kim for taking on this project and carrying it through at such a high level of scholarship, community investment, and personal care.
Russell Yee, PhD
Affiliate Associate Professor
Fuller Theological Seminary
Disclaimer: I was provided a free review copy of this book.
2 people found this helpful
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