From the forgotten Asian American to the invisible minority: Predictors of Filipino American ethnic identity and Filipino American social identity

The purpose of this study was to examine predictors of ethnic identity and social identity among Filipino Americans, by examining the relationship between ethnic identity and social identity in relation to perceptions of visibility of Filipino Americans and generation status.;Data was collected from 179 Filipino American adults who completed self-report inventories on demographic information, ethnic identity, social identity, and perceptions of visibility of Filipino Americans. Ethnic identity was measured by the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992) and social identity was measured by the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). The general information questionnaire and the Perceptions of Visibility of Filipino Americans Inventory (Fabella, 1998) were designed specifically for this study.;Two hypotheses were examined. The first hypothesis stated that there would be a significant relationship between perceptions of visibility of Filipino Americans and ethnic identity and social identity. A statistically significant relationship was found such that as perceptions of visibility of Filipino Americans increased, ethnic identity and social identity also increased. Although statistical significance was found, the results should be interpreted with caution, since construct validity was not obtained for the instrument used to measure perceptions of visibility of Filipino Americans.;The second hypothesis stated that there would be a significant difference between first generation participants and second generation participants on ethnic identity and social identity. A statistically significant difference was found such that first generation participants were higher on ethnic identity than second generation participants. However, there was no significant difference between first and second generation participants on social identity.;A research question looking at the relationship between gender and ethnic identity and social identity was also examined. A statistically significant difference was found such that females were higher than males on social identity, but there was no significant difference between males and females on ethnic identity.;In summary, perceptions of visibility of Filipino Americans was a predictor for ethnic identity and social identity, while generation status was a predictor for ethnic identity and gender was a predictor for social identity. A discussion of the results and recommendations for future research are included.