Filipina, immigrant, woman, aware, exposed, outraged, wanting change...
by: Aimee Beboso
This is who I am and hope to be more--
I feel the constant need to define myself because I find it offensive when I am constantly classified and “labeled” based on preconceived notions about Filipinos and the Philippines. The resulting description seems to imply that I have checked the box that ‘best describes’ who I am in a society that proudly claims itself as multicultural.
I have lived half of my life in Canada. This is my other home. And yet, I sometimes find myself ‘not quite at home’. I have not been back to the Philippines since my family and I left in 1993. A lot has changed in my country since we left; even my hometown of Victorias in the island of Negros Occidental has experienced tremendous changes. The once flourishing sugarland (main crop: sugarcane) has collapsed; the town (now a city) is still rebuilding.
As I reflect at a life experience, spent equally in the Philippines and Canada, I have come to realize the past, present and future of Filipinos who have struggled and continue to struggle in order to ensure that the younger generation (including myself), may struggle a little less as an immigrant living in Canada.
A sheltered life shattered; I am getting a glimpse of reality.
I learned to hold on to my identity having been transplanted in Northern Ontario from the Philippines with only my family-no friends, to an unfamiliar territory. Having gone through junior high in the North, I know how if feels to be bullied, having been the short, dark, shy and quiet girl with a ‘weird’ accent, who wears turquoise suits to school.
On many occasions, I thought I had lost my identity. I struggled with who I was and where I belonged; but I don’t think that I, at any point in my life, lost my identity. I always had it. The challenge was I had to find it, hold on to it and protect it.
It is difficult to be sure of one’s identity when you come from a country that until today remains victim to foreign domination. From the moment that the Spanish arrived on Philippine shores, looking for the coveted spices of the East, the Philippines has been passed down from one foreign master to another. It is a country wrought with the evils of colonization that continues to exist and persist within the shackles of neocolonialism.
I am constantly asked, “Where are you really from?”
I have long gained my Canadian citizenship, so technically I am Canadian.
Regionally, I can say that I am from Northern Ontario.
But I cannot lay claim to that identity; my identity is defined for me, by those who at first glance, see me through my visible features. Questions like this can certainly make you feel like you truly do not belong, to your new home, in your new community.
“Why did your family leave such a beautiful, tropical country and move to the cold, white north of Canada?”
-Because we had to—my parents were left with little choice. Like any parents, they wanted to make sure that we had a future. They did not want their children to struggle like they had, in a country suffering from poverty, high unemployment, and political instability. My family was fortunate to have been sponsored to come to Canada. We did not have to suffer through family separation in Canada. Many of the migrant Filipino youths I encounter have been separated from either one their parents or both.
My brothers and I did grow up having an absentee father in the Philippines. We would only see him once a year (if we were lucky) or once every two years for a short period of time. Like many Filipino men, my father was among many who left the country to fill the demand for labour in the Middle East. I grew up thinking that this was a common practice because I was surrounded by friends whose fathers also ‘worked abroad’. We often did show-and-tell where we showed off the latest toys, clothing and trinkets we received from our ‘working abroad’ parent(s).
When we immigrated to Canada, the issue of family separation caught up to us. My brothers (who by the time of our big move were already adults) and I were faced with a new authority in our life--our father. We did not realize until later that we could not makeup for the years that our father spent abroad. Until today, my brothers and I have not managed to reconnect with our father. We have a civil relationship with him, out of respect for our mother. Upon reflection, it is rather sad, but unfortunately, we are not the only ones who face this situation.
We can expect that more Filipino children will be left behind by parents who leave the Philippines in search of greener pastures overseas. Family separation will also be part of their life struggles. Some of these children will have mothers working in Canada as nannies under the federally-instituted Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), where over 90% of the women that enter the program are from the Philippines. These women will be part of the already lucrative business in the export of cheap labour.
Working overseas has become a culture in the Philippines. I am sure that every Filipino either has a family member or knows of someone who is working overseas. Deploying people to work in other countries has become the norm. It has been regularized by the Philippine government under its Labour Export Program (LEP).
Under the current president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, one million Filipinos are intended to be sent abroad each year. It is not surprising then, that the President praised migrant workers as the Philippines’ modern heroes. Indeed, Filipino migrant workers are modern heroes, they help an otherwise dwindling economy to stay afloat. Every year, billions of dollars are remitted to the Philippines.
Filipinos will continue to be pushed to leave because of still unanswered problems such as corruption, high unemployment, poverty, and political instability that have long plagued the Philippines. Until the Philippines experiences significant change such as the development of national industries (which will help the country to be more self-sufficient) and gain a capacity to reassert its right to sovereignty from foreign influence and ownership, it will continue to send its people to work overseas, and remain a country that is semi-colonial and semi-feudal.
I am glad that I am aware of the struggles of migrant Filipinos. I would like to think that knowing why they struggle contributes to my remolding and to my continuous education and understanding of who I am, where I come from and who I ought to be.
With this in mind, I look back to the message of the veterans of the First Quarter Storm in the Philippines to Filipino youths around the world on what it means to MAKIBAKA (struggle). This is our time and our opportunity to make a stand – to help turn the triangular system upside down so that the oppressed majority can regain their dignity and stand on their own.
As Filipino youth, we need to educate ourselves. This is an essential tool in understanding our history. We can only make sense of who we are here in Canada by knowing the history of where we came from as Filipinos.
By understanding our past, we can make sense of the present and better our future.
Aside from educating ourselves, we also need to organize and mobilize. Indeed, there is strength in numbers. As the youth, set to become the future leaders of tomorrow, we need to organize around issues that affect the Filipino people. We need to mobilize in order to be heard and to bring to the forefront the issues that matter to us. We need to ask those in the seat of power to address them and address them now.
As Filipino youth, this is our challenge. Are you up for it?