TABLE
OF CONTENTS
|
A
Family Abroad
Jessica
Von Wendel
On
any Sunday,
along every street,
park, and open public space in Hong Kong
sit
hundreds, if not thousands, of Filipino women. Here
in the center of the city the migrant
Filipina domestic workers relax and enjoy each other’s company. I see many lounging on flattened
cardboard
boxes or blankets on the ground. Some
are reading, playing cards or eating, but everyone is sitting in a
group. There is a sense of companionship
and
familiarity in these groups. Perhaps
this is a result of being the minority in a foreign country. By coming together and making their numbers
and situations known, these Filipinas are a transnational, migratory
group
struggling to gain a foothold in a foreign global city.
I
talked with
many of the
women. They all spoke English very well
and were very polite. In one group a
girl was getting a manicure while the others chatted.
Two women in particular were eager to
talk. They were sitting on a wall
watching the speakers and performers advocating for migrant rights. They both wore yellow visors.
Julie talked about her family. She
has an eight year old son back home in
the Philippines and
her
husband is working in the Middle East. Her sister and her mother are raising her son
back home. I asked when she will see him
again. She shook her head and said that
most of the Filipino domestics get only two weeks off to go back to the
Philippians every two years. She said,
“This
is why we are getting together and speaking out.” The
banner in the performing center reads
“Defend our land, life, and livelihood at home and overseas.”
It was on every
woman’s mind. Their families back home
were their number
one priority. I asked Julie if there was
anything else beside her family that she missed, but they were all she
could
think of. In Lisa Law’s article “Defying
Disappearance: Cosmopolitan Public Spaces in Hong Kong” she describes Statue Square
where
most of the Filipinas gather, as being "connected to both Hong Kong and Philippine national imaginaries; a
public space that defies
routine analysis.” A bridge is made
between two nations, even if one refuses to acknowledge the other's
presence. In a way, the groups of women on
the streets
become a surrogate family; people to talk with in their native language
and laugh
with over the week's trials. Transnational
migrations and globalization may be splitting families apart, but they
simultaneously are
also creating new ones.
|