Catholic Faith-Based Filipino Organizations in Japan

This study looks into the Catholic faith-based groups of Filipino mothers in Japan. This paper argues that organizing or mobilizing such groups  enabled the Filipino to cope with their situation as immigrant housewives.  It explores how Filipino Catholic communities in Japan organize themselves collectively and how their activities are associated with identity affirmations both in religious and ethnic standpoints at their intercultural homes and the community in which they belong.  Discussion of this paper is partly based on an author’s three year stay in Japan as a doctoral student and one of the founding members of a Catholic Church-based Filipino community known as the Kaagapay Oita Filipino Associations or KOFA. A reflexive account, this paper narrates the experiences of the organization as it tries to cultivate a “space” in a Japanese Catholic Church. The views of the author cannot be ignored in this writing as he was involved in the process of founding such a group.