On July 2, 2014, I have the honor of sharing my multi-sited research project about Filipino transnational families that have migrant members living in New York City and families in Metro-Manila at a round table discussion hosted by scholars and faculty with the Department of Women and Development Studies at the University of the Philippines. I hope to articulate my arguments about the shifts in the Filipino family form vis-a-vis the Philippine’s Labor Export Policy and forced (and feminized) migration. I’m critical of the Philippine state’s over-reliance on its migration and remittance industry and my aim is to show that, behind its faulty political economics, that families are bearing the brunt of these neoliberal immigration policies.

This opportunity means so much to me because it is so important to me that I can share my work, analysis and theories in the Philippines, where the families in my research study can attend and hear about how I’ve been interpreting their lives in the past years. I am and will continue to be accountable to those who have shared the intimate parts of their lives with me. Moreover, I feel so honored to be in dialogue with the nation’s leading scholars on women and gender studies and development studies.

But of course, I’m excited to be coming home and participating in this round table discussion for other reasons too.

==== Flashback Mode ====

The first time I stepped into the University of the Philippines, Diliman, I felt honored to see the oblation at the entrance, walk the halls of Vinson’s that housed (currently housing and will house) important revolutionary youth and student movements, and see the classrooms of such significant scholars and professors who take seriously the character of “Serve the People”. In 2008, I was just a kid–in my second year of grad school, first time back to the Philippines, first time on an integration trip with the League of Filipino Students (LFS)–and UP Diliman was my first stop. The picture below is of the first UP Diliman friends I made, after a we all marched the streets all day for the People’s SONA. It was not only UP’s educational prestige that took my breath away, it was the way the students and organic intellectuals (such as the Anakbayan chapters organizing in communities on the UP campus, workers and teachers organizing within the UP system, etc.) acted on their knowledge. It was their organizing. It was their commitment to genuine social change that made me a fan of UP. They breathed life into what scholarship looked like and meant for me.

Add sauce to that: my Mama, favorite aunt, cousins (all of whom are in education at some point or another in their careers) are all alumni of the UP system. And I’m such a big fan of these women, to say the least.

In short, I was on that UP hype.

==== Back to reality ====

So yes, if you or your fam or your scholar homie are in the Philippines on July 2, tell them to come check on me at UP Diliman. Ya heard?