by VFM
I just finished watching this really heartbreakingly real documentary called Motherland on POV/PBS. I started and stopped and started it again about 5 times because I was crying my eyes out. I’m not exactly sure what to write about but I am feeling compelled to think through writing. There’s no context or interviews or voiceover. Throughout the documentary we see the labor and delivery room … Read More Motherland
by VFM
On Saturday, in the midst of celebrating my cousin’s freshly pressed MBA, I received a text message from a comrade informing me that George Zimmerman was acquitted for murdering 15-year old Trayvon Martin. My heart felt heavy and light–heavy in despair for Trayvon’s lost life, his parents, his family and his friends; and light as my family of immigrants who strove to thrive in … Read More Talking to my Immigrant Parents about Trayvon Martin
+ caregivers, Domestic Workers, Filipino migrant workers, GABRIELA, Immigration, Nurses, People Power, Politics, Trafficked workers
by VFM
What is May 1? Four days before Cinco de Mayo. The day after April 30. AND, International Workers Day all over the globe. Whatever you need to do to remember it, do it. In the US, May 1 has also doubled for Immigrants/Workers Day. A kasama once said, “It’s like Christmas for workers.” Its the day folks come out to celebrate the fact that … Read More Why May 1 Matters
by VFM
Forced migration puts hundreds of migrant workers to Louisiana to work long hours without fair wages and indentured servitude. Their living conditions are cramped in substandard facilities. They are kept from the passports and freedom of mobility, therefore kept from their family. This has got to be a scene out of Django. Nope. Its about Filipino migrant workers working at an oil barge in … Read More Legal Trafficking is The Philippines’ Labor Export Policy
+ caregivers, Domestic Workers, Filipino migrant workers, Immigration, Poetry, Politics, Power, Sociologizing
by VFM
One Sunday afternoon when I was 15 years old, I went to visit my father who was working as a caregiver. He was a live-in caregiver with 5 elderly patients, one of them non-ambulatory. He worked 6 days a week, and because he lived in the facility, I can only imagine, he worked 24 hours a day. He’d been in the US for over … Read More Who Cares for Caregivers?
+ GABRIELA, Philippines, Politics, Power, Women
by VFM
The RH Bill has and continues to stir all kinds of frenzy in the Philippines, the only country in the world that still hasn’t made divorce illegal nor has it legislated comprehensive reproductive health education and services. In the 21st century, the resistance of the Philippine government to provide women with access to pap smears, breast and cervical cancer scans, etc. is at best … Read More RH Bill in the Philippines
by VFM
Yea, right. In my handy dandy Apple dictionary app, indefinite means, “lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time.” Something about the word indefinite always kinda puts me on edge, depending on context, of course. When people say, “I’m moving here indefinitely!” I feel like, yay, you’re choosing to be somewhere for a long time! But when someone’s like, “I don’t know … Read More Indefinite
