Category: Politics
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Motherland
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…
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Talking to my Immigrant Parents about Trayvon Martin
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…
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Why May 1 Matters
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…
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Legal Trafficking is The Philippines’ Labor Export Policy
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…
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Who Cares for Caregivers?
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…
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RH Bill in the Philippines
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,…
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