Healing Heritage:
Stories of Faith, Selflessness, and Service of Filipino Nurses
April 11, 2025
Hybrid Event at Princeton Theological Seminary
About this Event
Join us for “Healing Heritage: Stories of Faith, Selflessness, and Service of Filipino Nurses,” a pioneering event that brings together Filipino nurses, researchers, clergy, and Asian American Christian faith leaders to explore how spirituality, culture, and healthcare intertwine. Inspired by the Healing Heritage project—the most ambitious and most comprehensive project to date, this interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, transnational effort highlights the lived experiences of Filipino nurses. We will delve into personal narratives from the COVID-19 pandemic onward, illuminating broader themes of resilience, compassion, and community care.
Designed to foster open dialogue and active participation, the event will offer a rich exchange of ideas through keynote presentations, panel discussions, and small-group breakouts. Attendees will hear first-hand accounts of Filipino nurses’ journeys, explore the cultural and spiritual dimensions of nursing, and reflect on the broader implications for healthcare, ministry, and social advocacy. By centering the perspectives of both healthcare workers and faith leaders, we aim to build a space where participants can learn from each other and imagine new ways to support frontline workers and uplift marginalized voices.
Whether you are an academic, healthcare professional, seminary student, church leader, or simply curious about the intersection of faith, culture, and public health, this event offers a unique opportunity to engage with an inspiring community. Gather with us to honor Filipino nurses’ spiritual heritage, share insights with fellow participants, and create a collective vision for a more compassionate and culturally attuned healthcare future. This research advances a sophisticated new understanding of religion in the twenty-first century that reimagines the intersection of historical and institutional forms and deeply considers public health and religious coping as a vital component of analysis.
Please check out our project website for more information: https://www.healingheritage.org/
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All lectures and workshops will be accessible both in person and online. The in-person location is Cooper Room, Erdman Center, Princeton Theological Seminary. Virtual attendees will participate via Airmeet.
Sponsors
Speakers
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Aprilfaye Manalang
Aprilfaye Manalang is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Norfolk State University, a Historically Black College/University in Virginia. She trained in the Social Sciences (University of Chicago, MA) and the Humanities (Bowling Green State University, PhD) and ranked as a top 10 finalist for the National Hiett Prize in the Humanities, an “annual award aimed at identifying young candidates…whose work shows extraordinary promise and has a significant public component related to contemporary culture.”
Manalang internationally expanded her current project, “Filipino American Nurses: Faith and Professional Communities in the Age of COVID and Anti-Asian Hate,” with her co-investigators, Drs. David Chao and Christian Gloria: We secured the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life; and U-C Berkeley, Asia Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI); grants. Manalang also won the 2023-2024 competitive Sabbatical Grant for Researchers from the Louisville Institute. Moreover, Princeton Theological Seminary (Spring/Summer 2025); the Asian American Center, UNC Chapel-Hill; and Religion, Race, and Democracy Project, University of Virginia, appointed Manalang as a visiting scholar. Religion and Public Life, Harvard University Divinity School also lends support for this project.
A former Georg-Bollenbeck (University of Siegen) and Virginia Humanities fellow, in her previous research, Manalang secured the internationally competitive Early Career Award from the John Templeton Foundation for her project “Minority Millennials and the Rise of ‘Religious Nones.” Her research interests include: Immigration; Postcolonialism; Diaspora; Sociology of Religion; Citizenship; Race/Ethnicity.
Email: atmanalang@nsu.edu
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Christian Gloria
Christian Gloria
Christian T. Gloria, PhD, MA, CHES, studies the protective and resilience factors that enable people to adapt, grow, and thrive against chronic stress and adversity. He has worked with and served various vulnerable communities including immigrant, marginalized, military, minority, and low-SES populations in Texas, Hawaii, and the Republic of the Philippines. His present research is focused on the health and well-being of Filipino communities locally in New York and nationally across the United States. Other professional and scholarly interests include physical activity, nutrition, weight management, employee-work engagement, and public health workforce development.
Dr. Gloria is a Visiting Scientist of Mental Health for the Philippine Council for Health Research & Development and a Visiting Professor of Public Health for several higher education institutions in the Republic of the Philippines (specifically, Angeles University Foundation, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, Silliman University, University of San Agustin, University of the Assumption, and University of the Philippines Manila).
Previously, Dr. Gloria was the Department Chair and Associate Professor of Public Health at Hawaii Pacific University (2012-21) as well as the Vice President (2016-17) and President (2017-18) of the Hawaii Public Health Association. With over 20 years of experience, he has planned, implemented, and evaluated public health programs and research projects with various organizations including community health centers, hospitals, NGOs, government agencies, private/corporate institutions, and school systems.
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David C. Chao, Director of the Center for Asian American Christianity
David C. Chao, Director of the Center for Asian American Christianity
Dr. David C. Chao is the director of the Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He teaches courses on Asian American theology and organizes academic programming in Asian American theology and ministry. His research and writing focus on Asian American theology, the uses of Christian doctrine for liberation, the convergence and divergence of Protestant and Catholic dogmatics, and the theology of Karl Barth.
His first book, titled Concursus and Concept Use in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Providence, is under contract with Routledge. He is grant co-author and project editor for the $300,000 translation grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Karl Barth Translator’s Seminar. He is co-leader of a $250,000 Henry Luce grant project titled “Religiously-Inspired Asian American Coalitional Justice Work.” He is principal investigator of a Louisville Institute-funded project titled “Stories of Faith, Resilience, and Politics: First-Generation East Asian American Christians.”
Chao is a graduate of Yale University (BA), Regent College (MDiv), and Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM, PhD). He is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the Association for Asian American Studies. Chao has a wide range of pastoral experience with Chinese American, Korean American, and Pan-Asian churches and ministries and is an active member of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Read his article “Evangelical or Mainline? Doctrinal Similarity and Difference in Asian American Christianity: Sketching a Social-Practical Theory of Christian Doctrine” here. You can also check out “The 1517 Project and World Christianity: Migration and the Uses of Doctrine” here or download the free PDF version here. This paper was presented at the 2023 Asian American Theology Conference “Multiple Belongings in Transpacific Christianities: Christian Faith and Asian Migration to the US.”
Register Now
In-person location: Cooper Room, Erdman Center, Princeton Theological Seminary
In-person attendees will receive access to the Airmeet event. In-person attendance is $10 to cover brunch reception before event.
Virtual location: Airmeet
Virtual attendance is free! Registrants can access the session replays indefinitely.
*Isaac Sharp at isaac.sharp@ptsem.edu if you have any questions, require a discount or waiver to attend in person, or need to inform us of any dietary restrictions or accessibility needs.
Schedule
- 10:30 AM – 11:00 AM: The Healing Heritage: Origin Story
- Dr. Aprilfaye Manalang, Dr. Christian Gloria, and Dr. David Chao share how this pioneering collaboration took shape. Discover the circumstances that first inspired the project, the crucial role of faith traditions in Filipino nursing communities, and the initial steps that set the stage for its interdisciplinary expansion.
- 11:00 AM – 11:30 AM Preliminary Research Findings from the Interviews
- Drawing on recent conversations with Filipino nurses across Virginia, New York, Chicago, California, and the Philippines, the panelists highlight early themes and insights. Attendees will hear anonymized quotes and stories that illustrate the deep intersections of faith, cultural identity, and frontline care.
- 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM Panel Discussion & Q&A
- Engage with the researchers in an open forum. Explore deeper questions about the spiritual and sociocultural dimensions revealed by the interviews, and discuss future directions for the Healing Heritage Project. This is an opportunity for attendees to share reflections and connect with others passionate about honoring and supporting Filipino nurses.
Organizer
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David C. Chao, Director of the Center for Asian American Christianity
David C. Chao, Director of the Center for Asian American Christianity
Dr. David C. Chao is the director of the Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He teaches courses on Asian American theology and organizes academic programming in Asian American theology and ministry. His research and writing focus on Asian American theology, the uses of Christian doctrine for liberation, the convergence and divergence of Protestant and Catholic dogmatics, and the theology of Karl Barth.
His first book, titled Concursus and Concept Use in Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Providence, is under contract with Routledge. He is grant co-author and project editor for the $300,000 translation grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Karl Barth Translator’s Seminar. He is co-leader of a $250,000 Henry Luce grant project titled “Religiously-Inspired Asian American Coalitional Justice Work.” He is principal investigator of a Louisville Institute-funded project titled “Stories of Faith, Resilience, and Politics: First-Generation East Asian American Christians.”
Chao is a graduate of Yale University (BA), Regent College (MDiv), and Princeton Theological Seminary (ThM, PhD). He is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the Association for Asian American Studies. Chao has a wide range of pastoral experience with Chinese American, Korean American, and Pan-Asian churches and ministries and is an active member of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Read his article “Evangelical or Mainline? Doctrinal Similarity and Difference in Asian American Christianity: Sketching a Social-Practical Theory of Christian Doctrine” here. You can also check out “The 1517 Project and World Christianity: Migration and the Uses of Doctrine” here or download the free PDF version here. This paper was presented at the 2023 Asian American Theology Conference “Multiple Belongings in Transpacific Christianities: Christian Faith and Asian Migration to the US.”
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