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My Turnby Maileen Hamto |
 |
From The Asian Reporter, V18, #16 (April 15, 2008), page 6.
‘Floating’ as a way of life
Floating is a term some Filipino workers who work outside of the Philippines use to describe themselves. After a few years of adjusting to the rhythm of life as a guest worker abroad and spending only holidays in one’s native country, a person ultimately realizes they belong neither here nor there.
As a Filipina immigrant in the United States, I can relate to that sentiment. Among immigrant communities, many of us — especially those who moved here as teenagers and young adults — have attachments to different identities We feel as though we’re straddling two cultures. Some people say straddling provides some degree of stability (albeit awkward), but at least both feet are on the ground.
The term "floater" is derived from the famous line characterizing the will and grace of boxing legend Muhammad Ali — "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." Like butterflies that flit from flower to flower, Filipino guest workers often have to "float" from one country to another, and really don’t have anywhere to land or rest their wings, permanently.
To be a floater means being in suspended animation about one’s identity and sense of place. At least immigrants and refugees have a new place to call home; being a floater means being in limbo. This is especially true for migrant workers whose host countries do not make provisions for people to become permanent residents or citizens. One gets used to the creature comforts of living in a more prosperous country, yet everything that provides true comfort — friends, family, familiar things — are back in the old.
Filipinos were among the first people to realize the coming of globalization. Decades ago, when work back home was decreasing, Filipino men signed up to be part of the U.S. Navy, a career path that offered opportunities to travel and the promise of U.S. citizenship down the line. Other Filipinos took work on merchant ships as seamen. In the latter part of the 1960s, nursing became a career of choice for Filipina women who were bright enough to enter nursing school in the Philippines and take the requisite credentialing exams.
It is estimated that roughly ten percent of Filipinos work abroad. Migrant Filipino workers often take jobs beneath their education and skills and work in countries where the path to residency is arduous and not clear-cut. Others work as "domestics," cleaning other people’s homes, providing childcare, or serving as caregivers for the elderly. Many work in professional jobs requiring a four-year college education, such as nursing, physical therapy, and other healthcare professions.
In an era of increased competition in the business landscape and emphasis on profitability, the United States and other industrialized nations need workers who are trained, inexpensive, reliable — and more importantly, grateful. Ever resourceful and industrious, Filipinos have always found their unique niche in the global workforce.
Within the global migrant workforce, it takes money, resources, and a penchant for risk-taking to obtain the right to work in another country. Costs include job-specific training expenses in addition to headhunting and job-placement agency fees. By the time people obtain their first job overseas, they have accumulated a lot of personal debt, which can take years to pay back.
Lacking residency status, guest workers also don’t enjoy the same rights and access to benefits. They work hard and pay taxes, but the host country gives little back. Even when working in so-called "welfare states," Filipino workers have to be fully self-sufficient to survive.
Then there is the social cost to families left behind. The Filipino family dynamic has changed over the decades as a result of parents leaving home to work overseas for extended periods of time. Mothers and fathers leave young children behind to be raised by a single parent. Fortunately, extended family — grandparents, titos, and titas — are often able to help.
Having lived half my life in the Philippines, I know many friends who, as children, dealt with a prolonged period of separation from their parents, often for many years. Parents working overseas would come home once a year, for two or three weeks at a time.
A close friend recently expressed regret that when she was growing up she was only able to spend two or three weeks out of the year with her father. When she finished college, her father finally retired from being a seaman. Then it was her turn to leave the family home to pursue career opportunities in the United Kingdom.
My friend now considers herself a floater — belonging nowhere and everywhere. Living and working in Wales for a number of years, visits to Manila are slowly losing their appeal. Crowds are tiresome, as are attitudes that anyone who comes from abroad is swathed in cash. But being away from family, friends, and everything familiar for too long also becomes unbearable.
"Sometimes you just want to see family, shed your adopted English accent, and just be," she says.