I'm feel sad about the women working as a teacher at Baltimore. I feel sorry for them. They have captured my feeling being as a mother leaving their families far away only because just to earn more than 20 times they are earning in their own country for the reason of the bad economy in the Philippines. They also have to miss all the important occasions, the precious times to be with their own children while they are growing and as a mother without their presence. As a mother, it's so painful and hurting.They don't have a choice.These women has to struggle. I ask myself why? They were given the better opportunities to grab the job outside the country, so whose going to take the mother role for their children? In that film, I admire Dorotea for sharing her thoughts and feelings of her braveness. The other teachers who left with her are helpless too. I can feel the passion and pain that surrounds them. When they took the job, they face challenges in their life, the culture shock, the students are different, especially in Dorotea's class where students are so disrespectful and defiant. I can see how brave she accepted and face the turmoil in her class. She said she accepted this job then why will she give up! i didn't see tears on her, i saw braveness and strength on her, but at the end.....she broke out. There's the pain! she cried i know she would...she is a woman. The other teacher whose husband in the jail, ..gosh she couldn't do nothing! but what she said is to move on..very positive woman!!!. There's another teacher that's all she think important is to send money to support her siblings for school in the Philippines instead of his own father doing that role. Her father kept on asking for money!!!!! As i was watching the video, it captured my mind the questions why women? why women has to suffer?, why women has to take this role? why women has to be the brave one? ....Isn't it that it should be the role of a men to provide and make a living for his own family? I salute all this women for their courage, strength and never gave up!! ..why women?
Maybe, because in the Philippines, the man is the one working as a craftsman or a higher position, to provide for these women. While they get the job of being a teacher, or nurse, or housewife, or whatever. Normally, isn't it women who are teachers though? I'm not sure. But I think this is why. Plus females are smarter, hehehhehehehehe :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Jennica!!! Women's Power!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! AND you're VERY welcome for putting the picture for you! She's beautiful.. She looks soOoooOoOOoOo much like you..................................... :3
ReplyDeleteHi Lillian!
ReplyDeleteYour post about the emotional cost of overseas foreign workers. It's a difficult calculus, figuring out the balance sheet between emotional and financial sacrifices and potential gains.
You also notice the "gendered" aspect of Asian American immigration, the way that the different waves seem to be characterized by one sex or the other. Several books and studies discuss the ways in which particular types of labor encourage one gender's migration to the US.. Think of the manong generation - the need for manual labor that favored men coupled with the laws that barred women from immigrating. Then we have the professional wave, largely female nurses.I'm curious if the teachers being recruited are primarily female - or if it just that in the Philippines, teaching is considered a job for women?
Next semester, we will read selection from Yen Le Espritu's book Asian American Women And Men: Labor, Laws and Love. This scholar from UCSD is interested in thew ays in which immigration laws, gender and class, masculinity and femininity. Her book begins to address some of the questions you bring up. While your concerns are about the human cost of the immigrants, Espritu's book speaks more to larger historical and sociological factors that condition people like Doratea'sexperiences.
Thanks for the compliment Jennica. Though i can never put my hair up like that girl in the picture and wear a saya or patadyong ( traditional Filipina blouse).......no more maria clara type now adays!!!!
ReplyDelete