Choose: Filipino or Filipinx?

2020/09/08 Leave a comment

Just as in Latino and Latinx:

There’s a specter haunting the Filipinos today. I came across its presence when I stumbled upon a Facebook post by Gio Caligiua, a fellow scholar in the university, one cool September evening.

He was analyzing the emergence of #Filipinx and #Pinxy. This month, media made a buzz about Dictionary.com’s standardization of these words as the name, term, or signifier for all native inhabitants of the Philippines! Imagine, we will be calling ourselves Filipinxs if we want gender-neutrality.

Gio observes that Filipinx is rooted in US multiculturalism where gender neutrality is part of the culture’s consciousness. Implying that we shouldn’t be surprised at all by the popularization of such word because Filipino Americans are battling the system of gender oppression and racism in the United States. Ergo, carve a name for them, Filipinx. He adds that the suffix of -x can be read as homage to gender-neutrality of Filipino culture (doubtable because we are still haunted by the specters of patriarchy, misogyny, and gender discrimination from the Church and the State). US made it just more explicit. Then, he says we should not act like purists in our country crazed by the conflict between national and regional languages, for calling Filipino a language is problematic because it’s really just Manila Tagalog.

It is quite unsettling at first to encounter new words. And to read them on a Facebook post critical of “Filipino” itself as a national language and conflicting it with our identifier of ethnicity, seems quite a lot to handle. I put on my glasses, opened the libraries, and for once, read on why this word seems to be popular among Twitter users today.

The practice of gender-neutralizing all gendered words began in the 1960s with the purpose of supporting gender equality. Though we may see Filipinx as something to be celebrated for its obvious acknowledgment of gender-neutrality borrowed from the Latinx and Chicanx communities in the US, we must resist such adverse essentializing of our identity.

If we use Filipinx here in the Philippines, many people, referring to the 110 million Filipinos (named and recognized by Catriona Gray in representing Miss Universe Philippines 2018), would bat an eyelash. Probably in shock of such a strange word, they would immediately resist such naming. Think of it too when applied to the department where I graduated, Departamento ng Filipinx at Panitikang Filipinx (the millennial child in me might even ask, “Is Filipinx the Pinoy version of Winx?”).

Absurd as it may seem, these Filipino American digital natives have proved once again the naming power of the American establishment to coopt identities in their own sense. Haven’t we learned from history? The Philippine revolutions… the massacres… the campaigns for sovereignty… our fight to wield the Philippine flag, sing the national anthem, and freely express the song “Ako ay Filipino.” To legitimize Filipinx as gender-neutral is to efface and silence Filipino as gender-neutral.

Filipino, despite the letter o in its spelling denoting maleness, is not quite the same as before. Especially in 21st century Philippines, the ethnic identifier denotes a collective identity, a mass of people –

Indigenous peoples, women, peasants, fisherfolk, working class, unemployed, youths, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, non-binary, and many more. Filipinx alienates us who produce and reproduce language on the Philippine shores.

I told Gio that Filipino transcends binaries and should be acknowledged as a gender-neutral word. Even though we have other gendered words such as Filipina, Pilipino, Filipina, Pinoy and Pinay, Filipino is us instills that collective consciousness which ties us to our fellow Filipino by mere ethnicity.

The Filipino is inscribed and involved in the conditions of crisis throughout history (colonization, Martial Law, pandemics, extrajudicial killings, US and Chinese imperialism, and global war on terrorism).

The Filipino endures as our local way of seeing, despite its origin to King Philip II of Spain. Filipinx is Filipino American and should be redefined in the Dictionary.com as Filipino American usage.

The Filipino also sees that she/her or he/him is “niya” and “siya.” The same words are also found in Bisaya and Hiligaynon. In Ilocano, “kunana.” What could be more gender-neutral than the Philippine languages itself spoken by our fellow Filipinos?

American culture invades our linguistic agency. However, I am not dismissing the fact that we need gender-neutral terms however, isn’t it much more empowering if we own the word Filipino than recreate a post-postmodern name that alienates many of us? I lodge this question to fellow Filipinos in the virtual world to be more nuanced in sharing or engaging with something viral as #Filipinx.

I noticed that in America today the term for people of African descent has returned to identifying as “Black.” They used previously African-Americans, as more neutral than the word for color black itself. However, with the rising number of murders and police brutalities in America among members of the black communities, we saw how they owned again the word that used to be oppressive.

Why can’t we own “Filipino” like that? Why can’t we equally use the three together, Filipino, Filipina, and Filipinx, as all simultaneous ethnicities in different realities across the globe? Despite the deeply rooted conflicting debates on national language, the resolution is simple. Acknowledge that language is fluid and that it is lived and constantly shaped by a community of speakers.

As long as we let the specter, called excessive political correctness, haunt social media, we will always fall in the trap of the “woke” whose opinions are immediately validated by hashtags, likes, shares, hearts, and retweets.

After a string of comments on his post, I wasn’t able to talk again to Gio. But this message responds not only to Gio. We, the Filipino virtual community, have to resist this Western hype and empower our languages in the Philippines. We are all Filipinos. Our concerns are more deeply rooted in our social realities than the post-postmodern neutralized revision Filipinx. Isn’t it much more important today to battle the rhetoric that our mother nation is a province of another nation?

Have we really broken the chains that oppress and colonize us even in language, or are we seeing another symptom of what is yet to come? (Bulatlat.com)

John Toledo, 27, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities, University of the Philippines Los Baños.

Source: Choose: Filipino or Filipinx?

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Filipino Canadians fear end of immigrant dreams for nannies

2014/07/23 1 Comment

Nicholas Keung’s article on the future of the Live-in Caregivers program:

Critics of the government’s approach, including some Conservative loyalists, warn that the growing Filipino Canadian vote could also be at stake in next year’s federal election if the government removes access to immigration from the live-in caregiver program LCP — 90 per cent of those participating are from the Philippines.

Family separation, lost skills the biggest challenges for immigrant nannies“This is a defining issue for the Filipino Canadian community,” said Chris Sorio of Migrante Canada, an international advocacy group for Filipino migrants.

“This is something very close to our hearts. It is worrying us because we feel this could be a smoke-screen for changes that are coming to the LCP program. Our concern is they are going to further restrict family reunification under the program.”

In recent meetings with the media to discuss Ottawa’s planned reforms to the controversial temporary foreign workers program, Employment Minister Jason Kenney criticized the LCP as being “out of control” and having “mutated” into a program of family reunification.

… Findings of the nanny study [by Ethel Tungonan of U of Alberta]

Researchers surveyed 631 Filipina caregivers about their jobs, recruitment, education, use of community supports and health, in the first national study of Canada’s live-in caregivers.

It found:

  • Caregivers’ average age on arrival was 34

  • 86% had university education or above.

  • Nearly 90% arriving in the past five years were recruited by employment agencies or directly hired by unrelated employers.

  • Two-thirds had children; about half experienced continued separation because their children had grown too old to be considered dependants for immigration.

Filipino Canadians fear end of immigrant dreams for nannies | Toronto Star.

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Live-in caregivers may be next target of immigration reform

2014/06/25 Leave a comment

Further to the Douglas Todd overview (Live-in Caregiver Program faces nine questions), a sense that something is brewing. Expect the politics will be such that this will be post-election (in addition to the Filipino community, families that employ live-in caregivers are another constituency that would be affected):

Internal documents show the Canadian embassy in Manila has been alerting colleagues since at least 2007 that fraud was an “ongoing problem” in the program and the absence of mothers was proving disruptive to families left behind in the Philippines, “causing infidelity, etc.” Similar warnings were repeated in a 2011 report by Citizenship and Immigration, which noted that large percentages of nannies are brought in to work for relatives.

Live-in caregivers come to Canada through the temporary foreign worker program, but when Ottawa announced major changes last week, the caregiver component – as well as the rules for agricultural workers – was largely unchanged.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who has obtained extensive internal reports on the program via Access to Information, predicts Ottawa will announce this fall that it is phasing out the program.

“It’ll be sensitive because of October, 2015,” said Mr. Kurland, in reference to the impact it will have on Canada’s Filipino community ahead of next year’s federal election.“It is going to be politically controversial within that particular community,” he said, noting that Canada’s Filipino community tends to live in hotly contested swing ridings. Hong Kong and Manila are the top two Canadian missions in terms of approving live-in caregivers. Mr. Kurland notes that internal documents show many of the workers approved in Hong Kong are originally from the Philippines.

Live-in caregivers may be next target of immigration reform – The Globe and Mail.

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Ottawa approved thousands of foreign worker requests at minimum wage, data reveals, Banff profile

2014/05/28 Leave a comment

More evidence of how the Temporary Foreign Workers program expanded without adequate oversight and analysis:

Using Access to Information legislation, the Alberta Federation of Labour obtained extensive statistics about the program and provided its findings to The Globe and Mail. The union sought and obtained information on the number of Labour Market Opinions approved by Employment and Social Development Canada that were for minimum wage jobs. An LMO is a screening process meant to ensure employers have exhausted efforts to hire Canadians before turning to the program.

According to the documents, at least 15,006 minimum-wage positions were approved between March 31, 2010, and Feb. 10, 2014. (Only the numbers for Ontario go back as far as 2010, which means the actual totals for the period would likely be higher.)

Ottawa approved thousands of foreign worker requests at minimum wage, data reveals – The Globe and Mail.

On a more positive note, good profile on how Temporary Foreign Workers have transitioned to permanent residency in Banff, and some of the integration challenges:

Dean Irvine, principal at Banff Elementary, says this can sometimes be a struggle with immigrants from countries like the Philippines, where the culture says you leave education to the educators. “My experience is that is pretty standard in Asian countries for parents to say to teachers: ‘You’re the experts, you take care of things, we don’t necessarily need to communicate.’ That’s been a challenge here, but I think it’s getting better.”

Then there is the adjustment to living alongside moose, elk, deer and sometimes bears. When one elementary-school teacher noticed children from the same Filipino family absent a few days in a row, Ms. Godfrey’s office called to inquire what was going on. It turned out the mother couldn’t walk her children to school and didn’t want them going alone for fear they might encounter some wild creature.

“It’s all about educating them,” Ms. Godfrey says.

Mr. Jalalon says his family has adapted fairly easily to life in Canada, and a decidedly different climate than that of the Philippines. He has been surprised at how welcoming the people here have been, which is much different than the treatment he received in Abu Dubai, where he worked as a paramedic for two years before coming here. There, he says, Filipinos were treated as second-class citizens. Not in Banff.

If anything, he says, he wishes the many Filipinos in Banff worked harder to integrate themselves into the community, to do things like volunteer. Instead, many keep to themselves or stick close to their fellow countrymen. The Filipino community in Banff is too insular for Mr. Jalalon’s liking.

“There was a bad typhoon back home in November of last year – Typhoon Haiyan,” Mr. Jalalon says. “And it was the people of Banff that led the fundraising to help out, not the Filipinos here. I felt quite ashamed by that.”

Many here are concerned about the chill the federal government has put on the temporary foreign worker program. It is a reaction to stories suggesting some businesses are discriminating against non-immigrant Canadians because they don’t believe they have a comparable work ethic to employees they’re bringing in from overseas. But Darren Reeder, executive director of the Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association, says the two resort communities desperately need the TFW to compensate for the loss in workers to higher-paying resource jobs elsewhere in the province.

Mr. Reeder says the fact many of these foreign workers are converting to full-time residents has been a huge benefit to towns like Banff. “It’s been wonderful to see [foreigners] become immersed in the community,” he says. “But we still need assistance in better meeting the needs of our foreign national population.” Despite challenges around housing and other issues, he says, “the fact so many want to become permanent residents speaks to community spirit and the lifestyle we offer. They’re saying: ‘It’s a price worth paying.’”

 Banff’s changing labour landscape 

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Understanding Intergenerational Social Mobility: Filipino Youth in Canada » Institute for Research on Public Policy

2014/02/20 1 Comment

Good study on some of the challenges facing the Filipino Canadian community, and the anomaly that subsequent generations have poorer educational outcomes than their parents.

Given that Filipinos are one of Canada’s largest source of immigrants, the Government’s assiduous courting of the Filipino community in Canada, and that some of the points are applicable to other communities, worth reading. Most of the recommendations are reasonable and may also apply to other groups of new Canadians that are struggling.

Unlikely and unfortunate, however, that the Conservative government will reinstate the long-form census, despite the need for better information for both current and longer-term issues:

Kelly makes a number of recommendations, some of which also apply to other immigrant–background communities: intensify efforts to improve immigrants’ access to professions and credential recognition; recognize the importance of extended families in the success of the next generation; lessen precarity for those in the Live-in Caregiver Program by considering giving workers permanent residence upon arrival; and support role-modelling and mentoring, particularly to improve educational achievement among males. Finally, the author underlines the need to collect large-scale data by, among other things, reinstating the compulsory long-form census to accurately track intergenerational outcomes.

Understanding Intergenerational Social Mobility: Filipino Youth in Canada » Institute for Research on Public Policy.

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