Filipinos make up one of the largest immigrant groups in Canada and the majority continue to retain their Roman Catholic faith long after migrating. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in Canada and the Philippines from 1880 to 2017, Bayanihan and Belonging aims to understand the role of religion within present-day Filipino Canadian communities.

With a focus on Winnipeg, home to Canada’s oldest and largest Filipino Canadian community, Alison R. Marshall showcases current church-based and domestic religious routines of migrant Filipinos. From St. Edward the Confessor Church, the principal site of worship for Filipino Catholics in Manitoba, to home chapels, and healing traditions, Marshall explores the day-to-day celebrations of bayanihan, or communal spirit. Drawing on experiences from Manitoba’s Filipino population, Bayanihan and Belonging reveals that religious practise fulfills not only a need for spiritual guidance, but also for community.

Alison R. Marshall is a professor in the Department of Religion at Brandon University.

Alison R. Marshall's profile page

"This study of Filipinos in Manitoba is highly recommended for its scholarly value and as an interesting read about energetic and hardworking new Canadians."

<em>Historical Studies </em>

"Alison Marshall is a wise ethnographer. She is keenly aware of her own positionality as both non-Filipino and a researcher interacting with her participants…Marshall is self-aware, and she knows that what appears mundane to some reveals just as much about the beholder as the object of their gaze."

Journal of Folklore Research