Halo-Halo Epistemology: Congruent Social Work Science, Practice, and Policy for Pilipinx American Cultures

Background and Purpose: Coloniality / modernity discursively produces lived conditions of marginalization through genocidal practices of injuring bodies, minds, and epistemologies, imparting psychological harms on the colonized which pass intergenerationally (Boda, 2022; David & Okazaki, 2006; Evans-Campbell, 2008). Pilipinx Americans (PAs) descend from heterogeneous Peoples variously impacted by colonization, immigration, and racialization, and make up the third largest Asian diaspora of 4.2 million people (Budiman & Ruiz, 2021). Though sparse research attention has been paid, for example, in 26 years only 0.17% of the National Institutes of Health budget went to studies on Asians, Native Hawai’ians, and Pacific Islanders combined, literature indicates PAs have disparate negative outcomes compounded by lower help-seeking rates (Ðoàn et al., 2019; Tuazon & Clemente, 2022). Colonial mentality (CM), an embodied colonial harm, is linked to increased anxiety, depression, and body image concerns (Sevillano et al., 2023). Stigma and lower rates of help-seeking are documented barriers to PA mental wellness, however the epistemological mismatch with westernized systems of care is underexplored (La Torre et al., 2024; Sevillano et al., in press). The Halo-Halo Epistemology, a framework for understanding PA cultural survivance, is presented to intervene on damage centered narratives and recenter PA perseverance, joy, and sovereign intellectualism. The Halo-Halo Epistemology makes legible PA survivance despite colonial logics of erasure.

Methods: This study used reflexive thematic analysis to investigate how PA social work scholars and practitioners (N=12) understood healing and wellness for PAs given their hybrid context as colonial subjects and diasporic settlers (Braun & Clarke, 2024). Three sequential kuwentuans, or culturally embedded, collaborative knowledge generation conversations, were conducted, yielding transcripts, reflexivity journals, and chat transcripts for analysis (Gutierrez et. al., 2023). Decoloniality and the Indigenist Stress-Coping model were also used as analytics in answering the research question. (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Walters et al., 2009).

Results: Analysis observed the Halo-Halo (mix-mix) Epistemology, defined as the enacted and narrated dual thinking, or multidimensional approach that enhanced PA survivance. Halo-halo, a metaphor participants used when describing their praxis, is a Pilipino dessert that mixes ingredients from various cultural entanglements since prior to colonization yet remains distinctly Pilipino. Halo-Halo Epistemology is articulated through three themes: (1) (un)learning / (un)knowing histories- the importance of participants’ engagement with specific and shared histories; (2) sustaining community- the ways participants and communities engaged in tending together inside colonial contexts; and (3) creating / adapting- PAs’ liminal and evolutionary impetus.

Conclusions and Implications: This presentation describes the problem of attempted epistemological erasure, the persistence of PA sovereign intellectualism and ancestral knowledges, and provides practical applications for social work and research to interrupt PA erasure. The Halo-Halo Epistemology fortifies foundation knowledge for building culturally grounded, as opposed to culturally adapted, evidence based practices. The Halo-Halo Epistemology recenters PA practices of joy, ancestral wisdom, and communal care to interrupt legacies of colonial harm. Building from the basis of culture shifts scientific, practice, and policy interventions to center the epistemologically attacked and provides and is untested with PAs who are critically understudied.