Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese Americans

by Russell M Jeung, Seanan S. Fong, Helen Jin Kim

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.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Hardcover

Published June 6, 2019

Reviews

[Bianca Mabute-Louie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors set up and frame Liyi in a way that is accessible and easy to follow through well-structured storytelling alongside quantitative data. As a Chinese American from a non-religious family, this book was affirming and celebrating of family rituals and values that make up my spiritually but were never acknowledged by mainstream western frameworks on religion and identity.

This research provides insight not only on Chinese Americans, but expands our cultural and academic language to capture the ethics of populations who don’t fit normative sociological constructions of religion. The research deconstructs religion as belief and belonging, and instead proposes liyi (right relationships and just behavior) as a better framework to understand the Chinese American spirituality and values.