Children from Asian and Pacific American Cultures

1
Children from Asian and Pacific American Cultures

• General Information

2
Geography of Asia

• Individuals who have immigrated to the United
  States from Asian countries have mostly come from
  three groups East Asia, Southeast Asia, and
  South Asia.
• A large number of Asians also come from countries
  in the Pacific Rim.
• The countries designated as East Asia include
  Japan, Korea, and China.

3
Geography of Asia

• The countries designated as Southeast Asia
  include the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia,
  Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore,
  Myanmar(Burma),Vietnam, and Malaysia.
• South Asia includes the nations of Sri Lanka,
  Pakistan, and India.
• The Pacific Rim area includes all nations and
  regions touching the Pacific Ocean.

4
Geography of Asia

• There are three major geographic Pacific Island
  areas Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
• Within each area are several island groups.
• The geographical area known as Melanesia
  comprises hundreds of tiny islands with the main
  ones being Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Papua
  New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. 

5
Geography of Asia

• Micronesia includes the Mariana, Marshall,
  Caroline, Gilbert, Palau, and Ellice island
  groups.
• Guam the most populous island in all of
  Micronesia.
• Polynesia includes the following island groups
  Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, and New Zealand.

6
Asian and Pacific American People

• Asian and Pacific American people (APAs) have
  been immigrating to the US for more than two
  centuries.
• The first records of arrival of Chinese date from
  1785.
• Since that time, more than 17 Asian groups have
  immigrated to the US.

7
Asian and Pacific American People

• The most numerous immigrants have origins in
  China (i.e., Taiwan and the Peoples Republic of
  China), Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, India, Pakistan,
  Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and
  Samoa.
• Since 1975, more than 1 million refugees from
  Southeast Asia have settled in the US.

8
Asian and Pacific American People

• Each of the countries of Asia and the Asian
  Pacific represent an individual and distinct
  culture with unique values, beliefs, and world
  views.
• Each has its own language and dialect,
  communication behaviors, and styles.
• APAs are a heterogeneous group with unique
  characteristics defining each subgroup.

9
Asian and Pacific American People

• Refugees and immigrants from Asian and the
  Pacific Islands come from a variety of
  historical, social, education, and political
  backgrounds.
• Some are affluent, well educated, voluntary
  immigrants, and some are preliterate refugees.
• They bring a variety of financial profiles,
  languages, folk beliefs, worldviews, religious
  beliefs, child-rearing practices, and attitudes
  toward education.

10
Folk-Beliefs, Religions, and Philosophical Views

• The APA populations hold a variety of religious
  and philosophical beliefs.
• Major religions and philosophies include
  Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism,
  Animism, and Islam.
• In addition, because of Western influence,
  Christianity is also practiced.

11
Folk-Beliefs, Religions, and Philosophical Views

• Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are
  collectively referred to as the three teachings
  of Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Buddha Gautama.
• They serve as the religious-philosophical systems
  that undergird all facets of Asian life.
• Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism contribute to
  the commonalities evident in the worldviews,
  ethics, social norms, values, folk-beliefs, and
  lifestyles of Chinese and Asian people.

12
Confucianism

• Confucianism, named for the Chinese teacher
  Confucius (551-479 BC), is a philosophy of
  humanity.
• Confucius offered prescriptions for regulating
  proper human relationships, which served to
  maintain the social order.
• His goal was not religious salvation, but rather
  the full realization in this life of the human
  potential for wisdom and virtue.

13
Confucianism

• He believed that social harmony and good
  government lay in the cultivation of five
  individual virtues
• Ren or Jenbenevolence and humanism
• Yirighteousness or morality
• Liproper conduct
• Zhi or Chihwisdom or understanding and
• Xintrustworthiness.

14
Confucianism

• The embodiment of these five virtues was filial
  piety, the duties owed to ones parents and
  ancestors.
• Filial piety consists of unquestioning loyalty
  and obedience to parents and concern for an
  understanding of the needs and wishes.
• It also includes reverence for ancestors whose
  spirits must be appeased.

15
Confucianism

• Filial piety also extends to relations with all
  authority figures.
• It defines a social hierarchy of allegiance and
  reciprocal moral obligations characterized by
• King/justice, Subject/loyalty
• Father/love, Son/filiality
• Elder brother/brotherly love, Younger
  brother/reverence
• Husband/initiative, Wife/obedience
• Friends/mutual faith

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Taoism

• Unlike Confucianism, Taoism was not associated
  with any definitive historical figure, although
  Lao Tzu (604-? BC) is viewed as the legendary
  patriarch.
• He advocated the cultivation of inner strength,
  selflessness, spontaneity, and harmony with
  nature and man, as opposed to Confuciuss
  group-oriented propriety and codes of conduct.
• Tao means the way or the path to an ultimate
  reality that is eternal and enigmatic.

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Taoism

• Taoist philosophy stressed the need to transcend
  artificial man-made human culturesocietyand to
  avoid worldly entanglements.
• Taoism encouraged the practice of training,
  asceticism, meditation, and discipline in the
  pursuit of good health and long life.
• Lao Tzu also explained the natural and social
  phenomena by incorporating the ancient theory of
  the cyclical counterbalancing forces of yang and
  yin.

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Taoism

• Everything in reality is not only regarded as
  generated from the interactions between these two
  forces, but everything is also composed of both
  yin and yang.
• Yang is viewed as the creative, forward,
  dominating, and manifest force represented by the
  male and heaven.
• Yin is viewed as the receptive, recessive,
  submissive, and hidden background force
  represented by the female and earth.

19
Taoism

• Taoism was ultimately transformed from an elite
  philosophy to an elaborate religion.
• Its rituals and mystical practices were
  compatible with animism and the alchemical search
  for immortality.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vlynaDSQ0V0Y
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vbjLVr1fG5Ec

20
Buddhism

• Buddhism was founded by Prince Siddharta Gautama
  (560-480 BC) and entered China as an alien
  religion from India long after Confucianism and
  Taoism were already established as mature
  traditions.
• Original Buddhist doctrine is summarized in the
  four noble truths
• All life is suffering.
• Suffering is caused by desire or attachment to
  the world.

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Buddhism

• Suffering can be extinguished and attachment to
  all things (including the self) can be overcome
  by eliminating desire.
• To eliminate desire, one must live a virtuous
  life by following the eightfold path right
  views right thought right speech right
  conduct right livelihood right effort right
  mindfulness and right medication.
• Buddha Gautama taught his followers that the
  world has no reality it is an illusion that only
  seems real because people want it to be so.

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Buddhism

• Attachment to the illusion of reality inevitably
  produces suffering and leads to an endless cycle
  of rebirths governed by the law of karma.
• The only escape from the cycle of birth, aging,
  sickness, and death is Buddhahood or
  enlightenment in dharma.

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Buddhism

• The Buddhists goal is to be released from the
  wheel of life or circle of reincarnation and
  reach nirvana, a state of complete redemption
  wherein the world and all suffering are
  transcended, and ones soul is merged into the
  cosmic unity, the only true reality.
• Indian Buddhism was at odds with the more
  down-to-earth and practical Chinese attitude.

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Buddhism

• Consequently, Chinese Buddhism had to accommodate
  itself to Chinese cultural imperatives by
  adopting the basic philosophy that filial piety
  is the highest morality and it influenced a
  reinterpretation of Confucianism as well.
• Ultimately, Mahayana Buddhism became the dominant
  form in China.

25
Buddhism

• The Chan, or Zen sect, was most widely practiced
  in Japan and emphasized meditation and rigorous
  self-discipline, almost indistinguishable from
  philosophical Taoism.
• Buddhism also spread to Korea and had a profound
  long-term influence on its culture.

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Ancestor Worship

• The three teachings are further complemented by
  ancestor worship, which is considered the
  universal religion of China.
• Ancestor worship serves as the central ink
  between the Chinese world of man and the Chinese
  world of the spirits.
• Chinese ancestor worship, is characterized by
  three assumptions
• All living person owe their fortunes or
  misfortunes to their ancestors.

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Ancestor Worship

• All departed ancestors, like other gods and
  spirits, have needs that are the same as the
  living.
• Departed ancestors continue, as in life, to
  assist their relatives in this world, just as
  their descendants can assist them.
• There remains a social tie between departed
  ancestors and living descendents.

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Ancestor Worship

• Ones condition may by improved by the spiritual
  efforts of departed ancestors and the spiritual
  welfare of the departed ancestors may be enhanced
  by the worldly actions of living descendents.
• Beliefs in the mutual dependence and interaction
  between the living and the dead reinforces
  efforts to maintain a positive and close
  relationship with ones departed ancestors as
  well as living kinsmen.

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Polytheism

• Adherence to the three teachings reflects a
  polytheistic orientation that stresses
  complementarity rather than conflict among
  Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
• Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and ancestor
  worship have been embraced by a collectivistic
  Chinese society in which human relationships are
  inclusive rather than exclusive.

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Polytheism

• Many Chinese temples were built expressly to
  house Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Buddha together.
• A person might typically pray at a Confucian
  temple before taking the civil service exam, call
  a Taoist doctor to cure an illness, and invite a
  Buddhist priest to chant at a funeral.
• Polytheism encourages a belief in many goods and
  emphasizes the coexistence of all supernatural
  beings.

31
Language

• The hundreds of different languages and dialects
  that are spoken in East and Southeast Asia and
  the Pacific Islands can be classifed into five
  major families
• Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian), including
  Chamorro, Illocano, and Taglog
• Sino-Tibetan, including Thai, Yao, Mandarin, and
  Cantonese
• Austroasiatic, including Khmer, Vietnamese, and
  Hmong

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Language

• Papuan, including New Guinean and
• Altaic, including Japanese and Korean.
• Additionally, there are 15 major languages in
  India from four language families
• Indo-Aryan
• Dravdian
• Austroasiatic
• Tibeto-Burman.

33
Education

• The prevailing views toward education in most
  Asian and Pacific cultures present challenges for
  American educators and SLPs.
• People from China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam
  often view education as the most important goal
  one can achieve in life.
• This is due largely to the influence of the
  teachings and principles of Confucius.
• They often have different approaches to and
  strategies for learning.

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Education

• Educational Implications

• Asian Cultural Themes

• Teachers are formal and are expected to lecture.
• Teachers are not to be interrupted.
• Students are reluctant to ask questions.
• Students are not to show off or volunteer
  information.
• Fiction is not considered serious reading.

• Education is formal.
• Teachers are to be highly respected.
• Humility is an important virtue.
• Reading of factual information is studying.

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Education

• Asian Cultural Themes

• Educational Implications

• It is important to have order and to be obedient.
• One learns by observation and by memorization.
• Pattern practice and rote learning are studying.

• Students are to sit quietly and listen
  attentively.
• Rote memory is considered an effective teaching
  tool.
• Homework in pattern practice is important and is
  expected.