An Exploratory Study on Filipino Immigrants’ Acculturation Option and its Association with Job Satisfaction in the American workplace

Abstract

In spite of the Filipino immigrants’ growing role in the U.S. workforce, communication research about their acculturation experience in the host country and its role that acculturation plays in the process of integration of immigrants into the workplace is still very limited. Thus, the researcher aims to explore on the acculturation experiences of the immigrants, specifically the Filipino-born in the U.S to fully understand how they adapt to the new culture and the challenges and opportunities they encounter, and whether these Filipino immigrant workers are satisfied with their jobs in the new destination. Since the respondents of this study are Filipino immigrants residing in the United States, the interview questions were sent through e-mail and Facebook. A semi-structured, open-ended questionnaire was generated to address the research objectives, which associate with the factors contributing to the stages of pre-migration, acculturative stress, acculturation strategy, and post-migration. Based on the data presented, it was found out that individuals living in plural societies might have to develop a variety of acculturation strategies, with which they navigate and cope with the multicultural contexts and diversity of the people with whom they interact. The majority of the participants reported that they simultaneously use the assimilation, integration and separation acculturation strategy to adapt to the mainstream culture in the United States while marginalization as being their least utilized acculturation strategy. Also, individual factors such as length of residence, level of education, social support, and mainstream language usage that put forward in our theoretical framework did impact the acculturation process of the respondents both in the host country and workplace.