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Filipino Home Care Workers, Unseen Frontliners
There are frontlines that are behind the scenes. And there are workers on those unseen frontlines, who day in and day out, are also fighting the battle against COVID-19. Home care workers are some of those who are doing this work in private homes, in non-hospital settings, in residential care facilities. They, too, are in…
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Let the music play me off the stage
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about some awards I received from the Association for Asian American Studies. I couldn’t thank everyone I wanted to but here’s a list of folks who stood behind my nomination. And I want to thank you all here: Michael J. Viola, Associate Professor of Justice, Community, &…
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Solidarity In Place, today and tomorrow
I’ve been thinking and writing about space and thinking about how separation, and seeming isolation, can lend itself to solidarity and transnational resistance. When I wrote and delivered the paper you’ll see above at Arizona State University in February, I was really theorizing about how migrant Filipinas working as domestic workers are often rendered isolated…
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Award Assembly, then and now
When my family arrived to the U.S. in 1992, our whole lives were upended. The only thing, ya girl Val, could hold onto for some stability was school. At Fair Oaks Elementary in Concord, CA, the monthly (?) awards assembly was always a treat for me. I always waited with bated breath to see if…
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The Power (or PAR) of Migrant Workers
Ethel Tungohan and I wrote an article on PAR and building migrant worker power and it is out now in the link below and downloads are free until the end of April! Our article “Mula Sa Masa, Tungo Sa Masa, From the People, To the People: Building Migrant Worker Power through Participatory Action Research” would be…
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Care in the Time of Corona
Two full weeks has passed since the “shelter in place” mandate was passed in the San Francisco/Bay Area. And we are all learning. My partner and I are working from home and have full-time work expectations that we must carry out while we juggle the care and learning of our 5 and 3 year old…
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Together But Apart: Virtual Connection in the time of Corona
A centerpiece of my book The Labor of Care is the chapter called “Skype Mothers and Facebook Children”. In it, I look at how care work and intimacy between transnational family members is shaped by information communication technologies (ICTs), specifically, Skype and Facebook during the time I was collecting research in the 2000s. In the…
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The Power of the Collective
During these days of social isolation, I’ve been at awe at the power of collective support and solidarity. The photo here is of my chosen family, people whom I love and share a flat with in the Bay Area. Usually, we’re all busy bodies, ships in the night. But since “shelter in place”, we have…
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Phoenix, here I come!
Professor Mary Margaret Fonow has invited an amazing set of scholars to talk about gender, labor and migration at Arizona State University’s School of Social Transformation. And I couldn’t be more excited to speak and participate about Filipina migrant activism and its connections to the vibrant national liberation movement in the Philippines. I’m looking forward…
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Filipino San Francisco
In Filipino, kapwa refers to a cultural value of a collective well-being or togetherness in which Filipinos construct their selfhood, families and communities. In my work with conducting research about Filipino American lives with Filipino American undergraduate students at San Francisco State University, kapwa has been a driving force in uncovering Filipino immigrant and Fil-Am…
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