A few Filipina migrants in Kabalikat Domestic Workers Support Network (now MIGRANTE New York) would often joke that they lived in a place called, Queenila. Their feet in Queens, their hearts in Manila.

This place in-between, not here, nor there, elsewhere became a sticking point for me in my research for the #LaborofCare. I often wondered what it was like to live in this space, an imagined place in between but two global cities. An imagined geography that had so much materiality.

Turns out Queenila was’t just a space or place. It became the first of many lessons Filipina migrants would teach me about conducting qualitative research with them, not on them. Queenila was an intimate invitation to step into the lives of Filipina migrants and their families. It not only described their social realities but the word, the concept, the worth of Queenila was an insistence on centering their experiences as Filipina migrants and most importantly, always tethered to the experience of the families left behind. A truly transnational dynamic.

In my most recent publication, “Researching Queenila and Living In-Between: Multi-sited Ethnography, Migrant Epistemology and Transnational Families” in the Journal of Migration and Development, I write about how Queenila was at the crux of my research methodology. I insist on engaging migrant epistemology to deepen our understanding of transnationalism. You can find a free e-Print of the article here. And if you can’t access it, feel free to shoot me an email at vfm@sfsu.edu

Growing up in the Bay Area, I always fetishized the East Bay, the 510, the nickel and dime (as was referred to in voicemail intros back in the day), as the center of Filipinos in the Bay. In contrast to what was then a very homogenous (read: white) city of Concord, the East Bay was teeming with Filipino culture! My high school friends and I would drive to Newpark Mall and get our sepia toned pictures done–baby hairs combed down with gel with matching racer stripe maxi skirts. We’d run into other Filipino/a youth at the studio and all I could do was be jealous that they had more Filipinos in their neck of the woods than I had in mine.

Coming to CSU East Bay to talk about transnational families, I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe the students there were 2nd and 3rd generation? Maybe they couldn’t relate?

Oh was I wrong. This group of students that so generously organized time, space and resources to host me and The Labor of Care, did so to learn more about family separation in our community. They were, themselves, members of transnational families–separated from parents then brought over. And if they didn’t relate, they sat together to listen about our community’s issues.

After an exchange about the book’s ideas and their own experiences, these gracious students of PASA who were in the midst of PCN season related their current theme to my work. They offered me dance in return and I was so happy to bare witness.

All these years later, the East Bay is still a geography of Filipino America that is quite under organized, underrated, understudied and underrepresented. I hope one day soon, someone will organize with and write about the brilliance of its Filipino youth and the deep histories of Filipinos there. There’s definitely more to it that sepia pictures and malls.

CSU East Bay has always had a soft place in my heart, mostly because of my student organizing days with PACE, PASA and Akbayan, and the formation of Tri-Force back in the day. I’ll be back on the CSU East Bay campus after a decade to talk about my journey and how it informed my writing of the Labor of Care!

A huge part of The Labor of Care was finalized in cafes, restaurants and community meetings in Portland. Organizations like Portland Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, GABRIELA PDX, and Anakbayan PDX were political homes for my book and developing the manuscript. I’m so happy to be coming back to the PNW to share the book!

Did you know those lions in front of 42nd St library are called Patience and Fortitude? In grad school, I’d walk the few blocks from The Graduate Center and set myself on those steps to eat lunch and read my seminar’s assigned readings. I never knew they had names. Until so many years later, someone told me that finishing a book took both patience and fortitude.

Those words made so much sense as I finished up these two book talks in New York City. This place, a home to the words and ideas in The Labor of Care, often seemed chaotic and unruly. During research, I couldn’t figure out how all the pieces would fit together, if the work would every yield anything important, and even, if I’d get a job after all was said and done. Walking NYC streets and taking trains reminded me of the very visceral sensibilities that first formed the theories in my book.

And although there were times, I didn’t think I’d finish my PhD, much less transform the ideas into a book, it was patience and fortitude, the names of these lions roaring encouraging words to me, that got me to publication and back to New York. But instead of static statues atop a national monument, the roaring lions were the domestic workers whose stories I was telling, the community organizations that deemed the work important enough to invest time and effort, friends, mentors and family who believed I could turn the work into something important. I’m so grateful for them.

Image Description: Crowd standing next to one another with author for a post-event photo. 

Going to New York City to give this book back to those who gave me the responsibility of telling their stories was an absolute gift. Being in the Skylight Room at the Graduate Center talking the book’s ideas over with Premilla Nadasen and Michelle Saulon Luat of MIGRANTE NYC was delightful. We built out the ideas of scholar-activism and the importance of care work in community organizing. We recognized the neoliberal moment/crisis that forces so many families to be separated. And at the end, I felt so honored to have two amazing women, committed to the very same social justice values I hold dear, to discuss the work.

Image Description: Michelle Luat, Valerie Francisco-Menchavez, Premilla Nadasen sit next to each other discussing the book, The Labor of Care. Photo Credit: James Flores

Lastly, it was such a thrill to bring my children and partner, Raul, to NYC for this momentous occasion. We walked to road as a family of four carving out new roads and ways for our families to make sense of the city. Patience and fortitude was needed it that as well!