MAID IN MANHATTAN?

I tumbled upon a research by an American-born Filipina named Grace Ebron entitled: Not Just the Maid: Negotiating the Filipina identity in Italy. She starts with how she travelled to Europe to meet her boyfriend’s family and how they were surprised to that she was Asian/Filipina and not Caucasian as they had expected. They asked their son why his American girlfriend had sent the maid instead.

It is a situation that faces many Filipinas in first world countries - to be associated with jobs as maids, housekeepers, nannies. I personally have not had an experience to speak of. But is anything wrong with it? It is a job just the same, isn't it?

Grace Ebron’s write-up is complete with statistics and a thorough backgrounder on the issues that confront compatriots employed in Italy managing domestic chores. Her paper merely validates what is already common knowledge in the Philippines. My first encounter of the word ‘domestic helper’ was in college when I was told that one of teachers in high school had resigned because she was moving to Hong Kong to work as one. Since then I’d often hear of a neighbour leaving their teaching jobs to work as maids (or as euphemized - a domestic helper), nannies or the more recent, as caregivers to the elderly. I used to imagine these women working like ‘Maria’ in ‘The Sound of Music’ until news of the death of one Filipina maid working in Singapore who was killed by her employer. Her body was flown back to Manila and the tragedy opened a can of worms. Reports of abused Filipinas working in Hong Kong, Singapore, and in Europe began to fill the broadsheets and exaggerated by the tabloids. And so it created a new surge of awareness on the fate of the OCW or the overseas contract workers. The horror stories however did not stop the enlisting of more Filipinas for the chance to work abroad. When the OCW trend was just starting, it was the mothers or the women above 30 who went away and earned the dollars. Eventually, high school graduates, some faking their papers to meet the age 18 requirement were leaving by the hordes to work abroad including for factories that made them toil for long hours for meagre salaries.

There are not always sob stories however. There are stories of maids who met and wed their millionaire male employers. Some got entangled in controversy with million dollar bequests after the husband’s death and some chose to live quietly in their hometowns, displaying noveau riche fashion and building palatial houses.

The exodus continues as I speak. Many families have chosen (forced?) their children to study nursing or physical therapy in college for the ultimate chance to be recruited for work abroad. When as before, if you were undecided as to what you wanted to take up in college everyone advised you to take up commerce or management (logic: so you can start your own business), now everyone is urged to, “Mag-narsing ka na lang para me dollars ka” (“Take up nursing so you’ll earn dollars").

And if you’re not so smart, people will actually tell you to: “mag-asawa ka na lang ng foreigner para yumaman ka,” (“go marry a foreigner so you’ll get rich”) because they presume it would be impossible for you to make it through school and find a good paying job anyway. And so that brings about another kind of Filipina - the kind that when you find when you search for “Filipina” on the internet -it brings you to mail-order bride web sites. I did and found very young provincial ladies advertising themselves complete with pictures in hopes of landing a husband who’d take them away from the hot humid weather of the Philippines into snow. How I wonder if they’ve been informed of stories of men who have found their wives here in these websites and then married them and brought them to a foreign land not to live happily ever after. To be insured for huge sums and murdered; or abused and live a life more miserable than what they have left behind.

It is tragic that so much has happened after the Filipinos have ousted the dictatorship of Marcos in 1986 and still the economic and political situation remains volatile. The peso is in its most unstable state, fluctuating with every bit of news – reel or real. Movie stars with nary any political, economic or diplomatic experience run the gamut of the arena further threatening the stability of the economy. The bull in the stock market not having been seen for many years the economists might have forgotten how it looks. And with another actor, FPJ most likely becoming the next president, that bull is definitely on its way to seek another job in some country as another OCW. These factors, which might seem funny to many a cartoon artist that contribute to the editorials of the newspapers, do not create even a chuckle anymore. Sadly, the bottomline to any family is always, will there be food on the table in the next meal? And if there is not, they will look outside of their window and into the far horizon seeking either the dollar earning job or the foreigner husband.

I write with sympathy and at the same time with embarrassing hypocrisy because suddenly I find myself more self-conscious about how people outside of my work environment see me, my culture and my people. I cherish the fact that I come from a people known for their hospitality, friendliness, cleanliness, good food and the women - their being 'carinoso'. Qualities that have also made us sought after doctors, nurses, teachers, nannies, housekeeprs, domestic helpers and caregivers. Somehow though I wish that the other attributes of the Filipino as a people can be recognized. That we are a highly literate culture (96% can read and write after age 15), that many are college educated, professionals, computer-savvy or are skilled workers.

That is an obviously defensive reaction and comes from the fear that one day I will be asked to meet my boyfriend’s family and they would ask him why they’ve been sent the maid instead.

Popular Posts