Family Sacrifices : The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese Americans

__Family Sacrifices__ provides a comprehensive, sociological portrait of Chinese Americans’ most cherished values, practices, and ethics, ultimately illuminating why this ethnic group is the most nonreligious (52%) in the United States. Though unaffiliated, Chinese Americans adhere to the moral system of familism, a transpacific lived tradition rooted in Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism, which prioritizes family above other commitments. Hybridizing their Chinese and American sensibilities, Chinese Americans employ familism as the primary narrative for constructing meaning, identity, and belonging. Research on the religiously unaffiliated in the U.S. focuses on nonbelief and nonbelonging. Yet the spiritual and ethical systems of China place more emphasis on ritual and virtue. To address this gap in understanding non-Western moral systems, __Family Sacrifices__ employs the new theoretical concept of __liyi__, translated as “ritual propriety and righteous relations.” Reappropriated from its original Chinese usage, __liyi__ is a needed breakthrough for understanding Chinese religiosity and the emergence of religious “nones” in the United States. __Family Sacrifices__ is the first book based on national survey data on Asian American religious practices and a seminal text on the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. At the intersection of Asian American studies, sociology of religion, and religious studies, it is a much needed text for anyone working with Chinese Americans and the unaffiliated. "Family Sacrifices provides a comprehensive, sociological portrait of Chinese Americans’ most cherished values, practices, and ethics, ultimately illuminating why this ethnic group is the most nonreligious (52%) in the United States. Though unaffiliated, Chinese Americans adhere to the moral system of familism, a transpacific lived tradition rooted in Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism, which prioritizes family above other commitments. Hybridizing their Chinese and American sensibilities, Chinese Americans employ familism as the primary narrative for constructing meaning, identity, and belonging. Research on the religiously unaffiliated in the U.S. focuses on nonbelief and nonbelonging. Yet the spiritual and ethical systems of China place more emphasis on ritual and virtue. To address this gap in understanding non-Western moral systems, Family Sacrifices employs the new theoretical concept of liyi, translated as “ritual propriety and righteous relations.” Reappropriated from its original Chinese usage, liyi is a needed breakthrough for understanding Chinese religiosity and the emergence of religious “nones” in the United States. Family Sacrifices is the first book based on national survey data on Asian American religious practices and a seminal text on the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. At the intersection of Asian American studies, sociology of religion, and religious studies, it is a much needed text for anyone working with Chinese Americans and the unaffiliated" -- University Press Scholarship Online 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.