Making Home in Diasporic Communities: Transnational Belonging Amongst Filipina Migrants 1472455207, 9781472455208

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Making Home in Diasporic Communities

This book illuminates the lived experiences of an underrepresented group in Ireland and complicates discussions of globalization, migration, (national) identity and notions of home. It is a significant contribution to the field of Irish Studies and discourses on globalization, migration, and diaspora. Dr. Nititham gives a human face to seemingly abstract global economic and political forces. Dr. Tanya Saroj Bakhru, Associate Professor The first book to examine the lives of Filipina migrants in Ireland, Making Home in Diasporic Communities poignantly captures their day-to-day social practices, as they negotiate the politics of belonging in both Ireland and the Philippines. A must-read for all those interested in globalization and transnational belonging. Professor Yen Le Espiritu, University of California, San Diego, USA As one of the largest diasporas in the world, the Filipino diaspora is especially ripe for exploring questions of racialization, identity formation, transnationalism and belonging. Nititham provides a richly textured portrait of Filipina diasporans’ complex home-making strategies in Ireland. Her work is a unique contribution to Filipino diaspora studies that can serve as the basis for exciting comparative research. Robyn Rodriguez, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis, USA Making Home in Diasporic Communities demonstrates the global scope of the Filipino diaspora, engaging wider scholarship on globalisation and the ways in which the dynamics of nation-state institutions, labour migration and social relationships intersect for transnational communities. Based on original ethnographic work conducted in Ireland and the Philippines, the book examines how Filipina diasporans socially and symbolically create a sense of ‘home’. On one hand, Filipinas can be seen as mobile, as they have crossed geographical borders and are physically located in the destination country. Yet, on the other hand, they are constrained by immigration policies, linguistic and cultural barriers and other social and cultural institutions. Through modalities of language, rituals and religion and food, the author examines the ways in which Filipinas orient their perceptions, expectations, practices and social spaces to ‘the homeland’, thus providing insight into larger questions of inclusion and exclusion for diasporic communities. By focusing on a range of Filipina experiences, including that of nurses, international students, religious workers and personal assistants, Making Home in Diasporic Communities explores the intersectionality of gender, race, class and belonging. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology as well as those with interests in gender, identity, migration, ethnic studies and the construction of home. Diane Sabenacio Nititham is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Murray State University, USA and co-editor of Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture.

Studies in Migration and Diaspora Series Editor Anne J. Kershen Queen Mary University of London, UK

Studies in Migration and Diaspora is a series designed to showcase the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of research in this important field. Volumes in the series cover local, national and global issues and engage with both historical and contemporary events. The books will appeal to scholars, students and all those engaged in the study of migration and diaspora. Amongst the topics covered are minority ethnic relations, transnational movements and the cultural, social and political implications of moving from ‘over there’ to ‘over here’. Accession and Migration Changing policy, society, and culture in an enlarged Europe Edited by John Eade and Yordanka Valkanova Polish Migration to the UK in the ‘New’ European Union After 2004 Edited by Kathy Burrell Gendering Migration Masculinity, femininity and ethnicity in post-war Britain Edited by Louise Ryan and Wendy Webster Contemporary British Identity English language, migrants and public discourse Christina Julios Migration and Domestic Work A European perspective on a global theme Edited by Helma Lutz Negotiating Boundaries in the City Migration, ethnicity, and gender in Britain Joanna Herbert The Cultures of Economic Migration International perspectives Edited by Suman Gupta and Tope Omoniyi

Making Home in Diasporic Communities

Transnational belonging amongst Filipina migrants Diane Sabenacio Nititham

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Diane Sabenacio Nititham The right of Diane Sabenacio Nititham to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-4724-5520-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-59333-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of illustrationsvi Series editor’s prefacevii Acknowledgementsix Permissionsxi

Introduction

1

1 Conceptualising home and diaspora

38

2 Landscapes of dislocation

53

3 ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’: using language as a borderland strategy

74

4 ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’: adapting rituals, religion and routine

90

5 ‘As long as you have your food, you feel at home’: eating, gathering and socializing

105

6 Romanticising the homeland

116

7 Working towards home

138

References Appendix A: Profile of participants Appendix B: Interview questions Appendix C: Notes on terminology Index

145 158 160 164 165

Illustrations

Figures 2.1 Migration status of interviewees  2.2 Occupations of interviewees  A.1 Year of arrival in Ireland 

56 61 159

Tables 2.1 Immigration stamps in Ireland for non-EU/EEA  A.1 Interviewee characteristics 

54 158

Series editor’s preface

The protagonists in this book are emigrants from the Philippines who, in the closing years of the twentieth century, migrated to the Republic of Ireland, another traditional country of emigration. The magnet that initiated this new epoch in Irish migratory patterns, and pulled migrants to Ireland’s shores, was the Celtic Tiger; the period of rapid economic growth which lasted from the mid-1990s through to the global recession of 2007/8. In addition to the search for economic opportunity, a major push factor in the lives of the Filipino migrants we meet in this volume was the Philippine government’s encouragement of its people to become a ‘global Filipino’; the pull factor of the burgeoning Irish economy and its job market. But it is the way in which the Filipino migrants have accommodated the transition from one continent to another when creating their home away from home, or homeplace, rather than their economic activity, that is the essence and focus of this volume – one which the author emphasises is intended to redress the imbalance of male dominated accounts. Diane Sabenacio Nititham removes the cloak of invisibility from the experiences of female migrants from the Philippines and amends the image of these women as ones finding employment solely as domestics or sex workers, by highlighting the broad range of skills the Filipinas manifest. As readers, we are informed of the complexities of a transnational migrant experience by an author who was raised in America and is herself of Filipino heritage. Accordingly, she could appreciate the identity and inclusion/exclusion dilemmas which faced her interviewees in both their public and private space. On a micro level the Filipino experience is unique, on a meso and macro level it is one common to all migrants seeking to create a secure base in a strange and what can be at times an unwelcoming environment. For example, Nititham discovers that newcomer Filipinos are not always made welcome by their compatriots; some are thus subjected to dual exclusion – both by indigenes and by tight knit established Filipino groups. She reports on the strategies of inclusion adopted by newly arrived outsiders, as well as by those who have been resident in the country for some time. Gradually processes for belonging are developed and routes and places of access are opened up in order to facilitate the creation of a home environment. Whilst the specifics of these are peculiar to those from the Philippines, the tools are common to all those making the transition from over there to over here: religion, language and food being the prime mechanisms.

viii  Series editor’s preface In the migrant experience, irrespective of an individual’s religiosity, houses of worship play a significant role in not only providing the comfort of familiar rituals and liturgies, but also as places where fellow diasporans can meet and connect the old homeplace with the new; in the case of the Filipinos, a shared Catholicism reinforces a sense of belonging and group identity in an alien society. For the migrant whose first language is not that of the host society, verbal communication both alienates and comforts. Nititham notes that the use of the language of the Philippines – Tagalog or one of the other Philippine languages – enabled migrant Filipinos to ‘feel at home’ in Ireland. Significantly, though English was desirable, the author suggests that its usage reminded the Filipinos of their country’s colonial background, a discouraging factor in the learning process. The food of home is one of the last identifying characteristics to disappear from a migrant’s life; recipes and ingredients from the homeland reinforcing the link between over there and over here. In common with other migrant groups and other places of migrant settlement around the globe, in Dublin, outlets and restaurants which sell produce from the Philippines and other parts of Asia have opened in order to satisfy Filipino nostalgia for home. As the author explains, either communally or just around the family table, eating familiar dishes, surrounded by a Philippines inspired decor, enables migrants to adjust to life in Ireland. The annual emigration figure of one million from the Philippines, and that country’s tradition as one of emigration, has resulted in a number of studies of that phenomenon. However, few have incorporated, and none have solely focussed on, Filipinos in the Republic of Ireland. In this volume, Diane Sabenacio Nititham has pulled back the curtain on the Filipino in Ireland experience and highlighted the processes of home-making and integration undertaken in order to create a homeplace, whether the stay be long or short term. The creation of a welcoming and stable private space is a vital thread in the lives of those living away from that which is familiar and secure. This book describes the strategies undertaken to achieve that goal, highlighting the pressures and necessities that face those aiming for that end. Though geographically mono-centric, the themes and theories in this volume are repeated globally, justifying the book’s place on the list of general, as well as specific, migration and diaspora studies. It is a lesson in how both migrant and indigene learn what it takes to make a home. Anne J Kershen Queen Mary University of London

Acknowledgements

Working on this research project has been an exciting journey. From the first stages of participant observation through to the submission of the manuscript, I have met many individuals, developed new relationships, and found new friends, many of them incredibly dear and to whom I am indebted. First, I express my gratitude to the research participants in Ireland and in the Philippines and to the Unlad Kabayan Migrant Services Foundation. I am thankful to all who shared their time, their stories, and their homes with me. Their dedication and friendship helped make not only the research possible, but also my own search for home that much more possible. I am thankful to Neil Jordan, Anne J. Kershen, and the team at Ashgate and Routledge for their efforts on this book. This book is based on my doctoral research while I was a graduate student at University College Dublin. I extend my thanks to Alice Feldman, Anne Mulhall, and the Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative (MCRI), who provided institutional support and funding. I am thankful to Avtar Brah and Sara O’Sullivan for their helpful comments. I wish to thank the Humanities Institute of Ireland (HII) at University College Dublin and the many friends and colleagues in both the MCRI and HII who provided continuous cheerleading. To my growing network of friends and colleagues who have been with me at many stages of my personal and academic adventures, I am thankful for your love and encouragement: EG Briones, Albert Chan, Annalizza Chan, Karen Chan-Elarde, Jes Cook, Elizabeth Dawson, Angelica de Guzman, Ranan de Jesus, Theophilus Ejorh, Tziovanis Georgakis, Noreen Giffney, Ali Hendley, Fintan Hoey, Morgan Holmes, Tiffeny Jimenez, Jenny Knell, Funmilola Macaulay, Tina McCauley, Shane McCorristine, Lyndsay Murphree, Niamh Nestor, Niamh Ní Shiadhail, Maria Monastero Orszula, Monica Reyes, Marisa Panganiban, Vera Palaniswamy, Amira Proweller, Wytress Richardson, Robyn Rodriguez, Jared Rosenberger, Emer Sheridan, Josh Shepperd, Angèle Smith, Gale Stam, Jane Usher, Barb Willard, Ross Woods and the Woods family. There are many many more. A very special heartfelt thank you to Kate Antosik-Parsons, Tanya Bakhru, Rebecca Boyd, Lauren Heidbrink, Yvonne Kwan, Juan Martinez, and Malaphone Phommasa. I dedicate this book to my family. To my parents, words can only briefly express my deep appreciation. Their persistence and dedication to the livelihood of my sister Joanne, my brother Chris, and me continually inspire me to be as selfless

x  Acknowledgements and generous in my endeavours as they have been in theirs. Their own stories of migration and the challenges they faced taught me the importance of family and relationships, both locally and globally. I  thank my siblings Joanne and Chris, my brother-in-law Jack, Auntie Enia, and Uncle Ruben, and my extended family Hazel, Simon, Mary, Betty, and Jim for their love and support. I  thank my ninongs, ninangs, aunts, uncles and cousins, especially Auntie Elsa and my cousin Sarah, for taking care of me during my first trip to the Philippines. I love you all. Last, I offer my utmost gratitude to Kevin Tunney, who has provided endless encouragement before, during and after this research project. I am thankful for all he has brought to my life. I look forward to many more adventures ahead.

Permissions

I am grateful to Ashgate, Amsterdam University Press, the Malaysian Journal of Economic studies, and Translocations for granting permission to reprint and use excerpts from the following journal articles and book chapters that appear in places throughout this book: Nititham, D. S. 2014. ‘We Cannot Gather without Eating: Food, Authenticity and Socialisation for Filipinos in Ireland’. In: Nititham, D. S. and Boyd, R., eds. Heritage, Diaspora and the Consumption of Culture: Movements in Irish Landscapes. Farnham: Ashgate. Nititham, D. S. 2014. ‘It’s Still Home Home: Notions of the Homeland for Filipina Dependent Students in Ireland’. In: Baas, M., ed. Transnational Migration and Asia: The Question of Return. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Nititham, D. S. 2011. ‘Filipinos in Ireland: Articulating and Enacting Community’. In: Fanning, B. and Munck, R., eds. Immigration and the Irish Experience of European and Global Transformation. Farnham: Ashgate. Nititham, D. S. 2011. ‘Migration as Cultural Capital: The Ongoing Dependence on Overseas Filipino Workers’, Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies, 48 (2), pp. 185–201. Nititham, D. S. 2008. ‘Locating the Self in Diaspora Space’, Translocations: The Irish Migration, Race and Social Transformation Review, 3 (1), pp. 1–17.

Introduction

During the summer of 2004, I went to Dublin with a work permit on a work abroad programme. For the two months I stayed in Dublin, I worked two jobs. My first job was an unpaid internship at a museum. My supervisor often introduced me as ‘a young colleague with promise to change the world’. She frequently asked me what it meant for me to travel as an Asian American in Ireland, recommended postmodern literature and introduced various exhibitions around Dublin regarding space and identity. On Mondays, she was full of questions about my weekend activities, how my perspective informed me of what I saw, how I interpreted museum sites, historic walks, trips to the countryside, and whether I saw my experiences with a critical eye. She was attentive to my subject position and interested in my opinions with regard to the view as an American and my ‘Asian perspective’. Her curiosity felt empowering. At my paid job across the street, I worked in a dining hall. There, I found myself in a different conversation. The second day of work, three Chinese co-workers approached me and said, ‘You look Chinese, but your skin is dark. Your hair is not silky. It looks like white people’s hair’. When I explained that my father’s parents were Thai but of Chinese heritage and that my mother is from the Philippines, they explained to me that I was not Chinese nor Thai nor Filipina. I was American. For my Chinese co-workers, I could not claim my heritage as part of my identity. I was a foreigner in Ireland, like them. A week later, while serving dinner to my assigned table, the patrons complained about my poor food service skills in front of me, making the assumption that I was an international student from China and did not speak English (even though my Chinese co-workers were fluent in English). In both cases, I felt lumped as an Other, part of a homogenous group. When Filipinos I met on the street spoke in Tagalog, the national dialect of the Philippines, to me, I would explain that my parents are from different countries, from different languages and faiths, and speak English to each other; they did not teach my two siblings or me their languages. I approached this new situation with hesitation, as my experience in the United States had often been one of reprimand from Filipino parents and grandparents when it was clear I did not know Tagalog or my mother’s dialect, Cuyunon, or my dad’s language, Thai. I also found that several Irish people assumed I was Chinese, as did my dining hall dinner table, and upon hearing my American accent while serving my guests their food, they

2  Introduction told me, ‘Well, you’re ok then’, or ‘Oh, I did not mean to insult you’. My American citizenship catapulted me into a more acceptable category. Being seen as Asian and American – and Asian American1 – had new meanings when abroad. Race as a socio-cultural concept was apparent to me, for I was still the same person with the same experiences, but my understanding of my racialised identity had changed. While there are varying definitions of race and racism, critical theorists argue that race has a contingent and contextual meaning, is ‘neither an essence or illusion, but rather an ongoing, contradictory, selfreinforcing, plastic process’ (Haney López, 1995, p. 65). As such, it is a destructive form of social categorisation (Rustin, 2000), more than ‘individual acts of meanness’ (McIntosh, 1997, p.  298), voluntary acts of cruelty (Wildman and Davis, 1997, p. 317) or simply those moments when individuals are picked out for their ‘ethnic’ attire or denigrated for food partialities. I could see the intersections of individual processes and macro-politics: my geographical and language ties to the US remained, but my frame of reference changed. Because of my location, I saw things in new fragments and could articulate my experience in new ways. Tyagi writes, ‘As more and more of us try to make sense of our multiple anchorings, we unearth histories and racial topographies that become increasingly complex within a world of growing global communication, continuing economic dependence, and intensifying cultural hegemonies’ (1996, p. 50). Months after I left Dublin, I could not stop thinking about the interplay of my identities. These thoughts sparked serious questions for me. Recognising my position of privilege, knowing that I was working in Ireland leisurely as a temporary migrant, I wondered what life is like for Filipinos who moved to Ireland to live and work. What are the effects of the dynamics of diaspora for Filipinos in Ireland, in public and private life? What are the circumstances of their migration? In what ways has the economic growth during the Celtic Tiger shaped their experience? What are the intersections of race, class and gender at play? Having some experience of exclusion and displacement from my own adventures in cultural identity, and knowing that Filipino Americans do not have a singular experience, that they, along with other racialised groups, do not feel fully accepted as Americans (see e.g. Espiritu, 1995, 2003; Bonus, 2000; Ignacio, 2005), I wondered whether Filipinos feel fully accepted in Irish society. Given Ireland’s socio-political climate and the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, along with Ireland’s history of emigration, how are ideas of home and homeland interpreted? What does this mean for Filipinos, whose diaspora has a long-standing history of labour migration? My experience of leaping between borders and between definitions during my work programme in Dublin motivated me to pursue these questions further. This book problematises the notion of home and brings visibility to Filipino women (Filipinas) in Ireland, their complexities and multiple subjectivities. Their narratives complicate traditional notions of migration, challenge dichotomies of us/them, native/Other and Irish/non-Irish. Despite being icons of globalisation, Filipinas remain invisible for two main reasons. First, migrant women have been historically underrepresented in migration research, as there is a tendency to focus on male migrants and industries and their relationships to globalisation, free trade,

Introduction  3 economics and policy (Bhattacharjee, 1997; Pyle and Ward, 2003; Piper, 2004; de Jesús, 2005a; Lie and Lund, 2005). Second, previous research on Filipinas tends to focus on prevalent images of Filipinas as domestic workers and sex workers (de Jesús, 2005b). While attention to these areas is incredibly important, it can overshadow the scholarship on other Filipino diasporans and the politics of identity and transnational relationships (Bonus, 2000; Parreñas, 2001b; Ignacio, 2005; Faier, 2009; Gonzalez, 2009; Guevarra, 2006; Pratt, 2012). Furthermore, the underrepresentation of Filipinas in diaspora research obscures the diversity of experiences of Filipinas. The book focuses on a range of experiences of Filipinas, who include nurses, international students, religious workers and personal assistants, revealing from multiple subject positions and circumstances. While there are variations among experiences, many Filipinas work abroad to send remittances to sustain the livelihood of their families. While doing this, they face family separation, encounter bullying and exploitation in their place of work, experience discrimination as well as face feelings of temporariness due to inconsistent and stratified immigration policies. These affect one’s social practices and senses of belonging on a day-to-day level. Because the circumstances and articulations of migration are multidirectional, and Filipinas maintain ongoing relationships in the Philippines, these issues occur simultaneously in the destination countries and in the Philippines. Filipinas, as diasporic subjects, live in fragmented spaces as they physically and psychically navigate between the destination country and home country. On one hand, Filipinas can be seen as mobile, as they have crossed geographical borders and are physically located in the destination country. Yet, on the other hand, they are also constrained by immigration laws, technologies of Othering, linguistic and cultural barriers and institutional structures. Filipinas simultaneously occupy and move between the destination and Philippines in their minds, in their memories and in their imagination. I stress that striving for continuity should not be seen as a binary of fully at home on one end and complete dislocation on the other, but rather as a continuum, where multiple circumstances affect how one feels. Advances in technology, increased transport and affordable travel, gentrification in urban cities and the flow of economic and cultural capital across borders have fundamentally transformed social relations, practices and notions of space and community (Gilroy, 1997; Hochschild, 2000; Laguerre, 2000; Ignacio, 2005). This has led to a growing body of work on the formation of diasporic communities, activities and socialisation patterns in the destination country, revealing the changing dynamics of social networks and ideologies embedded within social practices (Cohen, 2002; Van Hear, 1998; Nayak, 2003; King, Fielding and Warnes, 2006; Jazeel, 2006). This increasing interest, however, deserves more specific attention when it comes to the practices of making home in the host society. Many studies still seem to maintain a sedentarist bias, meaning that ‘home’ becomes rooted in one physical location or another. There has also been an increasing interest in scholarship focused on different facets of migration in Ireland. Scholarship on social cohesion and policy, globalisation and economics, and race and racism in regard to policy and minority groups

4  Introduction with particular attention to Travellers, Africans, Polish and asylum seekers have brought much needed insight to discourses on the construction of national identities in Ireland (McVeigh, 1996; Mac Laughlin, 1997b; Farrell and Watt, 2001; Fagan, 2002; Fanning, 2002; Kirby, 2004; Lentin, 2004; Conway, 2006; Dundon, González-Pérez and McDonough, 2007; Ó Riain, 2014). Many of these studies approach migration with a macro perspective on the fragmentation of the minority group in relation to its social positioning in Ireland. These approaches can underestimate the significance of micro-level, day-to-day exchanges and practices. On the other hand, other studies that examine a minority group’s integration and assimilation into the host society can minimise the affects that dislocations have on a migrant community. The heavy focus on integration and assimilation tends to overlook the power struggles within a migrant community. In this book, I look at the social practices and symbolic enactments of home for Filipina migrants and how their experiences are shaped by the dynamics of diaspora, ethnicity and migration. The book addresses how Filipinas make home through day-to-day social practices, providing a deep understanding of the intersectionality of race, class, gender, institutional barriers, transnationalism and belonging. As Filipinas experience this intersectionality, they orient perceptions, expectations, social practices and social spaces towards the homeland. Amidst contentious debates of borders and immigrations, this ethnography challenges the reputation of Ireland as the ‘Land of a Hundred Thousand Welcomes’. Living with a stratified system and confusing immigration policies in their home and host countries and contradictory reactions in public discourse to immigrants, and often working in positions lower than their qualifications, Filipinas construct their identity and respond to their complicated social positioning in the diaspora. As social relationships in the diaspora reveal issues of identity and uneven power relationships across physical and social borders, I argue that the experience of Filipinas raises larger questions of inclusion and exclusion for diasporic communities as they seek to make home.

Diaspora and diaspora space The nature of dispersal is complex, with various factors and compulsions influencing migration, such as large scale recruitment and individual agency. After the end of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery, many countries actively recruited international migrants to sustain economic development (Braziel, 2008). From this, migration relationships developed. For example, in the case of Ireland, many Irish labourers emigrated to the UK, Australia and North America. Religious missions also created migration relationships between the sending and receiving countries (Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008).2 And anti-colonial struggles and decolonisation in the post–World War II era saw many individuals from former colonies seeking educational and financial opportunities in the former colonial power (Braziel, 2008). Migratory patterns between the ‘motherland’ and the former colony can also differ according to the type of colony it was. Settler, exploration or penal colonies maintain different relationships with the former colonial power and produce numerous postcolonial émigré

Introduction  5 subjectivities (see San Juan, 1995; Mignolo, 2000; Braziel, 2008). While the dynamics of forced dispersion and expulsion are important in migration analyses, diasporans are not without agency. For Van Hear, individual decision making is a key factor in contemporary migration, which can be influenced by sets of social and/or cultural occurrences (1998). In many cases, the decision to migrate is made by families, not just the individuals who migrate (Castles, 2007). Within these decisions, diaspora, borders and location shape one’s sense of self, which in turn affects the way one understands one’s location in the borderlands and how one understands identity, community and place. Diasporas involve a wide variety of circumstances. Shaped by forced exile, collective trauma, labour recruitment or other processes, diasporas are not simple or one-way (Brah, 1996; Van Hear, 1998; Braziel, 2008). They are also about those who are unable to or choose not to move because of global capitalism (Parreñas and Siu, 2007). Whether diasporans decide to stay in the homeland, are abroad by force, are motivated by transformations in political economies and/or growing inequalities in regions, are inspired by adventure or are motivated by a variety of these factors, diasporas are understood through someone or some group’s movement, a consciousness of dispersal. Movement involves choices made within constraints – they are not simply voluntary or involuntary (Van Hear, 1998). Whether an individual moves outward, inward, returns to the country of origin, moves onward or stays put, decisions are better conceptualised along an axis of choice, with ‘choice’ or ‘more options’ on one side and ‘little choice’ or ‘few options’ on the other side (1998, p. 42). With this axis, agency is fully captured with various aspects of diasporic configurations. My aim is not to capture the entire scope of diaspora studies. With any discussion of such a vast topic, there is a risk of generalizing and leaving out important aspects. I discuss these frames of diaspora to situate Ireland and the Philippines using Brah’s framework of diaspora space, ‘the intersectionality of diaspora, border, and dis/ location as a point of confluence of economic, political, cultural and psychic processes’ (1996, p. 182). Diaspora space provides a conceptual vehicle to unpack the meaning-making processes of home and dislocation, and what home represents for Filipinas as they negotiate social, cultural and psychic borders. Brah’s multi-axial framework interrogates notions of migration as a one-way flow of people arriving at a destination as though nothing came before it. Diaspora space acknowledges the complexity of power among relationships between the destination country, the homeland and other diasporans (Parreñas and Siu, 2007). It addresses not only migrants and subsequent generations, but also those who have recently migrated, settled migrants and those who are seen as indigenous (Brah, 1996): Diaspora space is the point at which boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, of belonging and otherness, of ‘us and ‘them’, are contested. My argument is that diaspora space as a conceptual category is ‘inhabited’, not only by those who have migrated and their descendants, but equally by those who are constructed and represented as indigenous. (1996, p. 209)

6  Introduction Including groups traditionally seen outside the umbrella of diaspora challenges fictional dichotomies of us/them, native/Other. Because diaspora space looks at the intersectionality of diaspora, border and dislocation, it provides analytical spaces for multiple voices, contested identities, communities and diverse forms of migration. As migration does not happen uniformly and involves innumerable political, economic, social and cultural variables, the border remains a contested location that is embroidered with raced, classed and gendered articulations. Diasporans are not economic units within a neutral system of movement; they occupy multiple subject positions within structures of power. Diasporans can be and often switch and overlap between being colonial settlers, transnational corporate expatriates, students, postcolonial émigrés, refugees, political asylees, detainees, internally displaced persons,3 global economic migrants and undocumented workers (Van Hear, 1998; Braziel, 2008). The fluidity of these categories reveals that they are socially produced and as such a thorough analysis requires intersectionality to include diverse forms of migration. While the term ‘diaspora’ has been used to describe recent migrants from a particular origin, the term has been increasingly used to refer to established ethnic or minority groups in destination countries, even if the group has been within the country for generations (Braziel, 2008). Despite the wide variety of diasporas, race and place still remain conflated when minorities are seen as ‘forever foreign’, a form of Othering that continues to persist (Parreñas and Siu, 2007). Diaspora space problematises this through acknowledging and interrogating the multiple subject positions which diasporans embody; the social, cultural and psychic processes through which symbolic practices become real; and examining discourses that mark diasporans on the daily level. As such, Filipinos and other minority ethnic communities in Ireland that have long-established ties, some with second and third generations such as the Vietnamese and Chinese (Maguire, 2004; Wang and King-O’Riain, 2006; Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008), can be problematised alongside Ireland’s diasporic history. With the increase in global communications, more affordable travel and constant flows of material goods, relations and activities are easier to maintain across borders. Transnational activities and the maintenance of a collective image of the ‘origin’ country are just as important to diaspora as the conditions of dispersal (Van Hear, 1998; Esser, 2007; Khan, 2007; Vertovec, 2007; Braziel, 2008). Emigrants face many issues in the destination country, such as problems with language, feelings of nostalgia, loss and a search for identity (Sarup, 1996). Being with members who share a common ‘origin’ can make settlement easier, but within this, origin must be problematised. Brah argues that the concept of diaspora should critique the notion of fixed origins, which is of particular importance, since not all diasporans seek to return to the ‘homeland’ (1996, p. 180). This critique not only confronts myths of a desire for the country of origin, but also displaces the position of the ‘native’ as belonging to a specific space. Studies in these areas examine the effects of globalisation with a shift towards the effect of legal policies on everyday experiences of settlement and different

Introduction  7 types of diasporic and transnational experiences. Attention to these experiences with specific consideration of whiteness, race, colonial legacies and other constructs of inequality highlights exclusionary borders of Otherness. These growing transnational connections have also led to work on the changing dynamics of social networks; first, second and subsequent generation interactions; and hybridity and multiple subjectivities in the diaspora. Recent scholarship has sharpened the focus on formations and connections among other diasporans in the host country. The formation of transnational communities, activities and grouping patterns in the host country reveal multiple dimensions of diasporic life. Many of these communities include recent as well as settled populations of migrant origin (Van Hear, 1998). Personal contacts and developed networks of migrants in the destination country lead to an induction process: ‘One migrant inducts another. Whole networks and neighbourhoods leave to work abroad, bringing back stories, money, know-how and contacts’ (Hochschild, 2002, p.  19). Diasporic relationships extend and maintain connections across borders, bringing with this contested notions of community and identity. This book brings these approaches into deeper conversation to examine how Filipinas construct continuity and a sense of home and belonging. Looking at the intersectionality of the ongoing dialectics of diaspora and migration allows us to consider a broad range of the meaning-making processes of diasporans in diaspora space, where ‘where multiple subject positions are juxtaposed, contested, proclaimed, disavowed; where the permitted and the prohibited perpetually interrogate; and where the accepted and the transgressive imperceptibly mingle even while these syncretic forms may be disclaimed in the name of purity and tradition’ (1996, p.  208). In other words, diasporans are situated within multiple axes of power, which shape migration, migrant networks and everyday experiences.

Situating Ireland in diaspora space Previously known as a country of mass emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Ireland, since the late 1990s, has been perceived as a ‘new’ immigration country. The economic growth during the years of the ‘Celtic Tiger’4 saw the unprecedented return of Irish emigrants and a rise in numbers of international students, EU citizens and residents, asylum seekers and migrant labourers, many of whom were recruited from outside the EU. The significant change in the Irish landscape, high economic growth rates and the rising cost of living has resulted in rapid social change (Fanning, 2002; Kirby, 2004; Fanning and Mutwarasibo, 2007; Fanning, 2009). The growth of in-migration during the Celtic Tiger generated many conversations on integration, assimilation and multiculturalism alongside regulations of restriction and control (Mac Laughlin, 1997b; Fanning, 2002, 2009). There was a constellation of contradictory messages in the public sphere, ranging from a welcoming of diverse populations to anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric. Campaigns such as ‘All Different, All Equal’ (Council of Europe, 1995), non-governmental organisations such as the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) and the Migrant

8  Introduction Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) and the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (the NCCRI, a semi-state body, was dissolved in 2008 due to budget cutbacks of the Irish government) worked to raise awareness and provided support for migrant rights. The Office for the Minister for Integration,5 created in June 2007, maintained conflicting notions of inclusion. On one hand, the Office adopted the standpoint of integration being ‘a two-way street’ acknowledging the role of Irish populations and the migrant community. At the same time, regarding a Sikh member of An Garda Síochána who was not permitted to wear his turban, Minister Conor Lenihan said, ‘If we are to take integration seriously, people who come here must understand our way of doing things’ (Fanning, 2009, p. 20). The framing of migrants as half responsible for one’s own integration hides asymmetrical power relations and ignores the differing levels of access, rights and entitlements for people of various immigration statuses and nationalities (Lentin, 2004). During this time, immigration policy in Ireland primarily constructed immigrants as short-term agents filling gaps in the labour market (Garner, 2007). And while most immigration has been from EU member states, with non-EU populations accounting for a small fraction of immigration, the rhetoric around immigration has been more focused on non-white, non-EU populations, with migrants projected as an ‘invasion’ of foreign bodies (McVeigh and Lentin, 2002; Lentin and McVeigh, 2006; Garner, 2007; Smith, 2014). While meanings of Irishness are debatable, ‘foreign nationals’ and ‘non-Irish nationals’ (to use current terminology) are considered those not of white Irish descent, regardless of whether foreign nationals are habitual, permanent residents or have acquired citizenship. Amidst these conversations, negative language portrayed migrants as if they were a contamination or a threat to a homogenous Irish identity. This alleged homogeneity, where ethno-national identity is linked with political boundaries (Conway, 2006), has prompted common characterisations including ‘the exaggeration and sensationalising of numbers of people, through the use of emotive terms such as “floods and tides”, the labelling of people as being “scroungers” and out to abuse the social welfare system and the persistent association of people from minority ethnic groups with crime or illegal activity’ (Farrell and Watt, 2001). Negative media representations reified these perceptions in the public imagination (Garner, 2007), building on an overexaggerated image of a historically monocultural country, albeit comparatively more monocultural than other European countries. The image of a monocultural country can be partly explained from the post– World War II period. The large-scale immigrations that occurred throughout Europe during the post–World War II period were not experienced in Ireland. However, Ireland was aware of the varying reactions to European immigration, such as the denial of the existence of immigration in Germany, and assimilationist views in France (Hickman, 2007). Hickman writes, Ireland experienced this recent history as a country of emigration not as one of immigration, and thus in the contemporary period of further population

Introduction  9 flows into and across Europe, the predominant imaginings of the nation as articulated in the Irish public sphere are of a monocultural nation being subject to transformation. (2007, p. 13) The imagined monocultural identity is in contrast to Ireland’s diasporic history, despite Ireland not being a prime destination for in-migration. The idea of a monocultural Ireland is problematic. Ireland can be seen as a diaspora nation because inward and outward migration has been a defining feature of the nation (Feldman, 2006). From the Vikings, Normans, English, Coptic monks, Phoenician traders and Jewish populations to second and third generations of communities such as the Vietnamese and Chinese, Ireland has long been transnational and is not new to movement. In the medieval period, the island was not seen as having only one ethnic group (Garvin, 2006). The first known reference to Ireland as a ‘nation’ and ‘Irish’ was in Tadhg Ó Cianáin’s diary in the early seventeenth century, referring to Catholic Ireland as náisiún and its people as Éireannach. However, Ó Cianáin, a religious scholar, still recognised Ireland as comprising different ethnic groups (Mac Craith, 2009). Mac Craith argues that O Cianáin’s reference to Ireland as a nation and its people as Irish was for Catholic Ireland to gain prominence and influence in continental Europe. Ó Cianáin and fellow religious scholar Fhlaithrí Ó Maoil Chonaire, who were scribes in the Irish College in Rome, adopted the term Éireannach in order to hide the tensions between Gaelic Irish and Old English. For them, unity was important for a presence in Catholic Europe, and thus hid destructive divisions through the more neutral application of Éireannach and náisiún. Whether through projects of nation-building or through being absorbed into the mainstream through historical amnesia, various ethnic populations such as the Vikings, Gaels and Normans have been incorporated under the collective umbrella of ‘Irish’6 (see e.g. Mac Laughlin, 1997a; Fanning, 2009; Boyd, 2014). ‘Irish’ remains a monolithic signifier, as the term does not hold representations associated with a long history of diaspora within its own borders. However, Ireland’s history reveals that it is a hybrid, ‘a social formation within which different cultures circulate and intersect based on: class, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity/race, politics, region, county, settler/traveller, language and including cultures based on perceived relationship to Britain’ (Hickman, 2007, p.  15). Essentialist constructions of identity become increasingly problematic as minority ethnic communities settle and grow in Ireland, particularly when ‘Irish’ as an ethnonational identity is linked to birth, descent and/or citizenship. Ireland and migration The sheer scale of mass emigration from Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has dominated the focus of research and public expression of the Irish diaspora. Ireland has long been characterised as a nation with millions abroad, with many more millions around the world claiming Irish descent. The significance of

10  Introduction the diaspora, mostly as a result of famine and labour exportation,7 can be seen globally in scholarship, arts and literature, memorials and other forms of popular culture. Conversations about emigrants are personalised and focus on the spirit of Irish migrants and their descendants, on memories associated with family separation, discrimination and adaptation in new landscapes. These memories are also socially articulated through organisations, celebrations and commemorations, as well as expressed and reproduced and manifested through cultural artefacts (Neville, 2000; O’Leary, 2000; Davis, 2006; Mark-FitzGerald, 2013; Nititham and Boyd, 2014). Most prominently, the Irish diaspora is known for exporting labour and for mass emigration during the famine and its aftermath. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Ireland sent millions of skilled and unskilled workers abroad (Yeates, 2004a). Among these numbers, women accounted for around half of the Irish migrant population, including nurses, nannies and domestic workers (Yeates, 2004a). And while famine emigration is iconic, Irish emigration existed for centuries before the famine. Mulligan (2014), writing on the history of the Irish diaspora in the United States, remarks that the diaspora is diverse, despite the image of being heavily Roman Catholic. Although academic literature and popular culture have long supported the Irish Catholic view, pre-1830 arrivals were from the north of Ireland and mostly Protestant, while post-1830 arrivals were from the south and west and predominantly Catholic and poor (Mulligan, 2014, see also McCaffrey, 1976; Kenny, 2000; Miller, 1998; Fitzgerald and Lambkin, 2008). There is a commonly held perception that Irish were able to assimilate better because they spoke English. Mulligan’s approach to history with a diasporic lens accounts for different types of Irish migration, while emerging research shows that many emigrants from the south and west of Ireland were solely Irish speakers (2014). Ignatiev (1995) contends that 1/3 of famine emigrants were Irish speakers. It is well documented that Irish diasporans experienced racism profoundly in Ireland (during English colonial rule), in the UK, the US and other destinations. As colonial workers in England, Irish were constructed as the Other and treated as inferior (Gray, 1997; Greenslade, 1997; Garner, 2004). During Britain’s colonial control, Ireland had been primarily used for exporting food and labour. As a result, Ireland was an extension of the UK economy, and through systematic underdevelopment, was stripped of its own self-sustainability (Greenslade, 1997; Ní Mháille Battel, 2003). With six of the thirty-two counties remaining a part of the UK to form Northern Ireland and most of the industrialised part of the island located in the north, post-independence Ireland had to face ‘the world with little or no natural resources or financial strength’ (Ní Mháille Battel, 2003, p.  95). The colonial legacy and mass emigration had profound consequences on not only the labour market but also the Irish psyche, and thus are crucial to the formation of Irish identity. For the many Irish women nurses and domestic workers who sought work abroad, many experienced multiple layers of discrimination (Gray, 1996, 1997; Diner, 2001; Ryan, 2001, 2003, 2007). Irish women were disparaged for leaving because it threatened a sense of national identity (Gray, 1997). The dynamics of racialisation and colonialism played a role in shaping the collective imagination of Ireland and Irish diasporic identity in Ireland and abroad.

Introduction  11 According to scholars such as Allen (1994) and Ignatiev (1995), the Irish in the US were positioned at the bottom of the social hierarchy, just above Africans and African Americans. In the early nineteenth century, US-born white Protestants openly questioned whether Irish immigrants were part of the white race. Cleaver notes: Vilified, segregated, excluded, and castigated, the ‘paddy’ was believed to be an inferior race. ‘Bestial,’ ‘simian,’ ‘savage,’ and ‘wild’ were descriptions repeatedly applied to the Irish immigrant, who was ridiculed as a ‘nigger’ turned inside out. The connections drawn between blacks and Irish did not always favor the Irish. The imperative driving Irish workers to define themselves as whites, despite their hatred of the British and distaste for their American descendants, was that ‘public and psychological wage’ that whiteness promised to desperate immigrants in an industrializing society that held them in contempt. (1997, pp. 160–1) Taking Mulligan’s work into account, as well as other recent work on the Irish diaspora, white native-born Protestants could very well include Irish Protestants, as significant research on pre-1800 Irish immigrants show that they were part of nation-building in the US (Ignatiev, 1995; Mulligan, 2014). Further, in the racial hierarchy in the US, where colour is very important in social positioning, white skin does not guarantee admission. In How the Irish Became White (1995), Ignatiev calls attention to the differentiation of Scots-Irish from Irish Catholics broadly along class, religious and arguably racial lines. Further, Ignatiev contends that the Irish becoming white is about a quest for citizenship. Citizenship had to be earned, and he argues that the Irish became more powerful by oppressing others to gain status in white society. Mulligan (2014), in an obvious play on Ignatiev’s title, ‘How the Irish Became American,’ reveals that even within the diversity of the Irish in the US, as well as a shared experience of discrimination (racial, religious and cultural, such as through the suppression of the Irish language), social positioning remains a crucial dynamic in being accepted in the destination country. Identity politics is a key marker in the Irish diaspora. The racial politics of Irish identity remain significant in Ireland. As the conceptualisation of the Irish diaspora is outward looking, this minimises the significance of the diasporic communities within the island of Ireland. One resource to explore racism and racialisation in Ireland lies in the Irish diaspora (Mac an Ghaill, 2002). McVeigh argues that Irish people, in Ireland and around the world, not only have been racialised and oppressed in their diasporic communities across the globe, but also participated in the racialisation and oppression of other colonised peoples, but also Irish people: ‘Irish people are well placed to ask what racism is and why it exists’ (McVeigh, 1996, p. 5). Although the relationship between the Irish diaspora and anti-immigrant rhetoric is not always explicit, in more subtle and covert ways, anti-immigrant sentiment and the vilifying of migrants is a reproduction of internalised oppression and persecution, and draws on existing racial discourse in popular culture, sensationalised media representations and the Irish diasporic

12  Introduction experience. Fanning argues that ‘physical attacks on black people, discrimination by landlords on the basis of colour, in alarmist media accounts of refugees and in political discourse, were responses to social changes which drew on a reservoir of existing societal understandings of race’ (2002, p. 23). These negative reactions were not limited to black populations in Ireland, but extended to all migrants of any colour. With anti-immigrant sentiment embedded in public discourse and policy (Conway, 2006), it seems easy to forget that Ireland recruited labour in order to sustain development.8 The increased growth of employment in the 1990s and early 2000s opened up many sectors and absorbed much of the Irish labour force, and continued growth led to labour shortages in many sectors. During this time, Ireland actively recruited labour and encouraged immigration (Yeates, 2004a). This did not happen evenly and affected migrant populations. Recruitment agencies concentrated their efforts in certain sectors such as information technology (IT), construction and healthcare. Heavy recruitment in healthcare and domestic service reflects the growing trend of gendered reproductive labour9 not only in Ireland (Yeates, 2004a, 2006) but also across all EU labour markets (ICI, 2003). In a study on public opinion towards immigration, Lahav (2004) found when the percentage of non-EU foreigners increases by 1 per cent, those who perceive that immigration is a problem increases by roughly 9.9 per cent. Images of migrants in public discourse are contradictory: migrants are highly skilled and needed for Ireland’s workforce while being seen simultaneously as disposable, cheap labour and as a burden on the state. The positioning of migrants as merely economic units, as well as the collapsing of all ‘non-Irish’ as foreign, is a denial of the complexities of migration that contributes to a ‘politics of exclusion’ which rationalises that migrants must be kept out ‘on the grounds that we cannot live on such a small island’ (Mac Laughlin, 1997b, p.  17). Within this politics of exclusion, nation, race and ethnicity remain bounded, and thus diasporic populations, regardless of long established ties in Ireland, continue to be seen as foreigners in Ireland. While some may argue that the quick shift from a country of emigration to immigration is the reason for the emergence of racism, this erases Ireland’s diasporic history and the long established presence of race, racialisation and racism. These exclusionary boundaries were striking during the Citizenship Referendum, which took place in June 2004. As a consequence of this referendum, children born after 1 January 2005 are not entitled to automatic citizenship if at least one of their parents is not an Irish citizen or their foreign national parents have not been resident in Ireland for three years. Citizenship through ‘bloodlines’ becomes privileged over place of birth and naturalisation. Not all children born to foreign national parents who fit the three-year requirement are entitled to citizenship, as asylum seekers and students are not habitually resident (for a more in-depth discussion on the Citizenship Referendum, see Lentin, 2004; School of Law at Trinity College Dublin, 2004; Fanning and Mutwarasibo, 2007; Garner, 2007). Further, the construction of migrant women’s bodies becomes ‘a site of hostility and loathing in which fears of over-reproduction, consumption of resources and infiltration of the Irish nation crystallized’ (Garner, 2007, p. 128; see also Bakhru,

Introduction  13 2014). Media and political discourse was framed so as to present the referendum as necessary to prevent so-called citizenship tourism, where pregnant women come to Ireland for the purpose of ‘absorbing resources under false pretences’, citing overcrowded hospitals as one of the few reasons for having a referendum (Garner, 2007, pp.  125–6). Such discursive constructions disconnect the motivations of this institutional change and the implications of exclusion and racial and gendered discrimination. Colour becomes a racialised signifier through which policies are articulated (Brah, 1996), putting into question the concept of belonging and what it means to be Irish, especially for migrant women and children. Examining Ireland within the framework of diaspora space exposes and problematises the myth of a monocultural Ireland, showing that Ireland is a diaspora nation and that racialised and unequal relationships have had a long established presence. The dynamics of diaspora space shape the scene in which migrants attempt to make home. The experience of displacement, vulnerability and rootlessness of the Irish diaspora abroad remain disconnected from migrant populations within Ireland. With the presence of migrants projected as a threat, exclusion becomes coded in protective terms to preserve the Irish nation, overshadowing the fact that movement, race, and racialisation are not new to Ireland, nor is racism caused by large numbers of migrants. Mac an Ghaill writes: ‘the latter come to carry the anxieties of the social majority, who have experienced rapid changes in what often appears as a longstanding monolithic culture’ (2002, p. 103). The construction of Irishness has been so intricately tied to race that Irishness operates within mainstream politics.

Situating the Philippines in diaspora space The growing body of scholarship on the Filipino diaspora provides evidence that they are prominent members and active players in the global market. Work on the politics of space, transnational relationships and globalisation, the homeland and Philippine postcolonial studies and critical theorising of the Filipino/American experience examine the multiple facets of the Filipino diaspora (see e.g. Espiritu, 1995, 2003; Bonus, 2000; Parreñas, 2001b, Hidalgo and Patajo-Legasto, 2004; Manalansan, 2004; Mendoza, 2006; McKay, 2007; See, 2009; Cruz, 2012; Mabalon, 2013; Cherry, 2014). With an increasing global presence, there is a wide range of diasporic experiences and communities. Many of these movements are tied to contemporary formations of global labour migration, the demand for overseas labour, and also the colonial histories of the Philippines. This movement and settlement across the globe raises questions of home individually and collectively, historically and politically. Spain’s occupation of the Philippines lasted from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, influencing language, religion and gender ideologies (Brewer, 2004).10 The Spanish presence also created migration relationships between the Philippines and other parts of the world through the conquest of other lands. Spanish conquistadors brought Filipinos to the New World (Bonus, 2000) as well as other parts of North America. The first recorded arrival of Filipinos is in 1587 on the west coast of

14  Introduction California, and the earliest settled community on record is in New Orleans in 1764 (Bonus, 2000). Filipinos also have a long established presence in Mexico through their forced labour on the Spanish galleons (San Juan, 1995; Bonus, 2000). The colonisation of the Philippines by Spain and the US has profound implications for understanding Filipino migration both historically and contemporarily (Bonus, 2000; Choy, 2003; Espiritu, 2003; Ignacio, 2005). However, neither immigration nor emigration is new to Filipinos. For well over 30,000 years, the Philippine archipelago has had a variety of settlers, from Austronesian to MalayoPolynesian, to Chinese and Islamic traders and the conquests of Spain and the United States. These interactions have created a wealth of diversity in terms of language and culture. In studying the Philippines within diaspora space, issues of power and colonial imperialism immediately come to the fore. Espiritu in Home Bound (2003), Choy in Empire of Care (2003) argue that migration must be seen in the context of US imperialism, especially with migration flows post-Spanish occupation. Ignacio argues that Philippine history parallels the history of other former and current territories and commonwealths of Spain and the US: ‘In terms of capital, economic and emigration policies, Filipinos have more than a one-hundred-year history of transnational movement’ (Ignacio, 2005: p. 49). While it may be surprising, the range of Filipino diasporic experiences has not been a frequent focus of migration scholarship; the lack of academic focus can be explained by an ideological legacy of colonialism, a ‘lingering colonial arrogance’ that Filipinos lack culture (Siapno, 1995, p. 218, see also Rosaldo, 1989). While overseas employment plays a major role in contributing to the development of the country, the Filipino diaspora begins long before the economic crisis in the last quarter of the twentieth century and subsequent dependence on remittance from Filipino migrant workers around the world.11 Despite the country’s long history of global political and economic movements, Filipinos have largely been written out of ‘socalled world history’ (Ignacio, 2005, p. 49). Prior to Spanish colonial rule, the Philippines was a nation of tribes. With the conquest of Spain, the archipelago fell under Spain’s control, establishing a racialised, classed and gendered hierarchy. Spaniards referred to indigenous Filipinos as ‘Indios’ (Ignacio, 2005), establishing a dynamic of coloniser/colonised, leaving Spaniards at the top and Filipinos at the bottom. Formal education of Filipinos was most often for the elite, if at all, given through Spanish Catholic priests. Aside from racial discrimination, and physical violence, the construction of women as submissive through images of male domination permeated a previously more egalitarian Filipino culture (Brewer, 2004; Samson, 2005). After a bitter end to Spanish colonisation and the American takeover during the Spanish American War, there was a commonly held perception that Americans rescued Filipinos from the atrocities of Spain. Part of this has to do with the American vision to guide and Christianise Filipinos, as stated by President McKinley.12 McKinley said in a statement to clergymen in November 1899: I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for that and guidance more than one night. And one

Introduction  15 night late it came to me this way – I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain – that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany – that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves – they were unfit for self-government – and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and, by God’s grace, do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map maker), and told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large map on the wall of his office); and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President! (Devins, 1905) The US hardly rescued Filipinos from Spain. Although the US arguably provided more opportunities for Filipinos through establishing a widespread educational system and introducing a political structure, it did so by permeating all parts of Philippine society. The educational system, the government and other institutions were modelled after American-based ideals, used English as the medium of communication and were embroidered with assumptions of race, class and gender inferiority. Remnants of this manifest across borders today, where ideas of ‘civilisation’ are constructed as white, where ‘nation-states such as the Philippines continue to be subordinated and defined as racially different and hence inferior without history or culture’ (Espiritu, 2003, p.  6). In other words, even though there may have been more access to education, it still existed within a framework of racial hierarchy and patriarchy, for Filipinos were and are still seen as ‘little brown brothers’, sex workers, carers, or mail-order brides (Espiritu, 2003). Espiritu argues that the reason that Filipinos first went to the US is that the Americans were in the Philippines first (2003). Aside from the Filipinos that were in the US because of Spanish conquistadors, Filipino migration to the US is largely because of American imperialism. Migration to the US occurred primarily in three waves: during colonisation (early 1900s–1940s), post-independence and post–World War II (1947–early 1970s), and post-1970s with developments in immigration law. The first wave to the US began when the first batch of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) went to Hawaii, which became an American territory in 1898. Filipinos were recruited to work in Hawaii on the sugar plantations. Many others followed to Hawaii, Alaska and the mainland, working in agriculture, as seamen, in canneries and particularly the US Navy (Center for Migrant Advocacy, 2006). The US Navy is also of importance because it is layered with institutional racism, classed and gendered discrimination (Hu-DeHart, 1999; Espiritu, 2003; Parreñas, 2008). The US Navy established bases during the Philippine-American War, beginning a ninety-four year presence in the Philippines. During the first

16  Introduction half of the twentieth century, the US Navy actively recruited Filipinos to serve in the navy. But the bases were not just places for recruiting; they were also centres of wealth. Filipinos saw US culture and standards of living, enticing Filipinos to enlist (Espiritu, 2003). In addition, the wage offered by the navy placed Filipinos in a high salary bracket and was seen as a pathway to US citizenship and eventual upward mobility (Espiritu, 2003). However, after World War I, the US Navy restricted Filipinos to work solely as stewards, domestic help, in other service positions and as menial workers, despite many Filipino recruits having a college education (Espiritu, 2003; Parreñas, 2008). Parreñas argues that servitude is a legacy of US colonial imperialism (Parreñas, 2008). Filipino men were racialised and feminised under Western ideals of femininity and masculinity, compounding the belief that service jobs are for women and/or people of colour (Espiritu, 2003; Parreñas, 2008). Thus, Filipinos were doubly inscribed as inferior by Spain (Brewer, 2004; Samson, 2005) and the US. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, anti-Filipino sentiment rose. With growing unemployment in the US, anti-immigrant rhetoric increased. Filipino men were seen as threats to white women, although also contradictorily cast as effeminate on US Navy ships (Espiritu, 2003). In 1934, the US closed its borders and instituted the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which granted the eventual independence of the Philippines, restricted immigration from the Philippines and revoked the status of Filipinos as US nationals. With the exception of the preference given to Filipinos who enlisted in the US Navy (Espiritu, 2003; Parreñas, 2008), Filipinos became aliens in their colonial motherland. Levels of migration changed post-1970, when many advanced nations started recruiting professionals. When the US changed its immigration policy in 1965 to allow immigrants to apply as professionals, Filipinos moved in large numbers (Espiritu, 2003; Center for Migrant Advocacy, 2006). The biggest movement began in 1974, when President Marcos and his administration instituted the Labor Code of the Philippines, institutionalising overseas employment. The Labor Code was an economic strategy that tried to take advantage of the growth and restructuring of petroleum in the Middle East in 1973, leading to the recruitment of skilled workers, including engineers, technicians and medical professionals (Cabato, 2006). Many men were recruited to work as sea men, and several were sent as industrial labour to the Middle East in construction jobs. Women outnumbered men migrating to the US, and many men went to the Middle East, revealing that there is a ‘sex-segregated structure’; women mostly migrate to parts of Asia, Europe and North America for jobs in nursing and domestic care; Filipino men migrate to Africa and the Middle East to engineer and work in construction (Tyner, 1999a, 1999b; Poster, 2002; see also Fajardo, 2011). With the political and economic crisis and the establishment of martial law, the numbers of OFWs increased. In 1975, there were 36,035 migrants deployed (Center for Migrant Advocacy, 2006). The rise of emigration culture is reflected in the establishment of a number of institutions under the Department of Labor, including the Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB), the National Seamen Board (NSB), the Office of Emigrant Affairs (OEA), the Philippine

Introduction  17 Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). With the US having implemented an export-import infrastructure, the Philippines was for the most part an export economy with depleted resources (Espiritu, 2003). With increasing public dissent and the People Power Movement (1983–1968) of Corazon Aquino, Marcos and his wife went into exile in 1986. After the Marcos administration ended, the country was essentially bankrupt, incurred huge debts and had no reliable economic or political institutions. Aquino remained in office until 1992, passing constitutional reform and implementing programmes to re-establish civil liberties and sound economic management, including the ‘Act Establishing the Overseas Workers Investment Fund to Provide Incentives to Overseas Workers, Reduce Foreign Debt Burden and for Other Purposes’ (Gonzalez, 1998). With the large debts and the encouragement of labour emigration to support the Philippine economy, increased labour migration became a firm reality. Through the remittance of their earnings, Filipinas provide the largest source of foreign currency and constitute the biggest flow of migration. However, this is not reflected in the global labour market, and debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank have not decreased (Parreñas, 2001b, 2008). Parreñas argues that the migration of Filipinas as domestic workers is not only ‘a product of globalization; it is patterned under the role of the Philippines as an export-based economy in globalization; and it is embedded in the specific historical phase of global restructuring’ (2001b, p. 11). Filipinas are encouraged to emigrate not only to support their families, but also to help pay the IMF and World Bank debts through taxation on remittances. It has been long debated whether remittances are useful and helpful in the short term or create long-term effects of debt and a culture of migration (Sto. Tomas, 2006; Castles, 2007). The Center for Migrant Advocacy, in its working paper on overseas migration, writes: While we recognize overseas migration as a fact of life, even a necessity, for many Filipinos, we do not endorse it as a development strategy. We are aware that overseas migration is here to stay for years and even decades to come. The systematic export of Filipino labor breeds a culture of dependency on the part of government and of society on the labor remittances and additional employment created by overseas migration. (2006: p. 16) Yet, despite the prominent numbers in the workforce, Filipinos ‘remain contingently visible: as nameless, faceless overseas contract workers, sex workers, and mail-order brides scattered across the globe. We are seen as objects of a sexist, imperial ideology, yet we remain invisible as subjects and agents’ (de Jesús, 2005a, p. 5). Women work in many jobs but still dominate informal sectors and occupy the lower brackets (Parreñas, 2008). Filipina migrant workers continue to be responsible for care in more than one country while remaining out of sight. Even with these processes shaping Filipino migration, not all Filipinos who emigrate are OFWs. There are also other reasons that Filipinos choose to move abroad

18  Introduction besides economic need, and there are others who choose to stay behind. All are involved by exercising their agency in the decisions of diasporic movement. As such, this study is not to ignore or forget those who are without resources in the Philippines or family who live elsewhere, nor disregard the choices of those who stay behind or live elsewhere. Certainly, working abroad can offer more financial opportunities for families, thus raising their standard of living. Challenges associated with migration also present prospects for individual, personal and professional development. These challenges can also be seen through returnees. McKay, in her study of Filipino migrant returnees, found that being away from the homeland offers opportunities for escape (McKay, 2005). For many returnees, migration is a path to a ‘realm of self-actualisation’ (2005, p.  81). But this mobility is complex, for even though families may have been better off, returnees, upon their repatriation, are sometimes pressured by family and friends to redistribute their wealth. Returnees struggle with negotiating several challenges, including the circumstances in which they lived in the destination country, and their return and resettlement (McKay, 2005, p. 85). Other returnees had troubles in both the destination country and the home country (2005). With feelings of shame and the inability to control relations across countries, Filipinas find that migration brings contradictory moments of mobility through self-actualisation and humiliation (2005). For Cabato (2006), migration is a natural phenomenon, and people will continue to migrate to provide for food, education and shelter for their families. Due to the economic crisis in the Philippines, Filipinos will continue to migrate, many in unprotected sectors. Because emigration from the Philippines will continue, the attitude adopted by Philippine labour migration policy is that migration must be protected. When migration is protected, it is productive (Cabato, 2006). What is key to the Philippines in diaspora space is that its colonial history and recruitment of labour largely shape contemporary diasporic settlement.

Intersecting diasporas Moving abroad can be an experience of empowerment and possibility (Brah, 1996; Pillinger, 2007). In addition to compulsions for dispersal outlined above, some migrants move for adventure and new experiences, to enhance or expand their education or gain international work experience. Scholarship on diaspora that acknowledges these aspects involved in migration, along with the economic, social and cultural factors that affect one’s decision, offers more inclusive and deeper approaches than studies rooted in exile models of movement. Opening new avenues for different trajectories of migration is of particular importance, as many diasporic populations come with different choices, histories and political and economic situations and are motivated by a variety of factors. And while the inclusion of notions of choice and empowerment contributes to a view that is more comprehensive than exile diasporas, this inclusion must be problematised. Texts that praise the empowerment of and the possibilities open to diasporic women through the ‘feminisation of migration’, particularly after the gains of

Introduction  19 first- and second-wave feminists, are crucial and are significant contributions to diaspora scholarship. Globalisation and migration are multidirectional processes that must acknowledge the significance of gendered labour migration (Pearson, 2000; Lie and Lund, 2005). Historically, women migrated primarily as dependents or daughters (Parreñas, 2008). Now, many migrant women have become the main economic providers of their families through fields such as healthcare, domestic work and professional industries. However, simply acknowledging gendered relationships is only partial in analysing the depth of gender relations. More specifically, the increased participation of women in the workforce, while seemingly a positive shift, does not provide sufficient structural changes. When an Irish woman who was previously the primary caretaker in the household enters employment outside the home and her role is filled by a migrant woman who has left her own children to work abroad, not much has changed: ‘Two women working for pay is not a bad idea. But two working mothers giving their all to work is a good idea gone haywire’ (Hochschild, 2002, p. 20). Within this, both women may exercise a great deal of agency and feel empowered. Yet, reproductive labour still remains heavily dependent on women. Pearson’s argument supports this: ‘While globalisation has resulted in women’s increasing involvement in production and paid employment, most are retaining their primary responsibility for reproductive activities in an increasing unstable world’ (2000, pp. 13–14). Additionally, if a migrant woman is in domestic work, has been trafficked and/or is in the sex industry, she has few opportunities for advancement. Even though women may have more equal relations with men in recent years, Parreñas maintains, ‘the persistence of the ideology of women’s domesticity stalls the reconstitution of gender in the family, community, and labor market that occurs in women’s migration’ (2008, p. 8). The increases in wealth and immigration are a reflection not only of the growth and development of Ireland as a global actor, but also of what is happening in other parts of the world. These political, economic, social and cultural processes are neither disembodied nor accidental. Diaspora and migration are constitutive of global economies and economic restructuring, which are intricately tied to movements of resistance as capital and labour move across borders (Hu-DeHart, 1999). Diaspora space, in focusing on intersectionality, lays a foundation to understand how political, economic, social and cultural struggles of Irish and Filipino diasporas converge. As these struggles, linked through gendered labour migration, are embroidered with personal experiences of imperialism, colonialism, race, class and gender, it is important to examine the ways in which these intersections shape meaning-making processes through which ‘home’ is constructed. The experience of Filipinas coming into Ireland must be examined through the key markers of colonialism and identity in the Irish diaspora and in the Filipino diaspora. Although these diasporas are shaped by different social and historical conditions, the shared experience of dispersal and migration cannot be overlooked. Gendered labour migration into Ireland cannot be discussed without acknowledging Ireland’s experience as a sender of care migration (Yeates, 2006, p. 11, 14). However, I argue that the links between Ireland and the Philippines are more than

20  Introduction just economic. As briefly mentioned earlier, Irish nurse emigration is a strong part of Ireland’s history. This intersection is often overlooked or mentioned only anecdotally, but the shared experience of gendered labour migration calls attention to how gender constraints continue to leave women in vulnerable positions. In public and institutional discourses, women are vilified for leaving the home and disrupting patriarchal notions of a nuclear family (Gray, 1997; Parreñas, 2001b; Asis, Huang and Yeoh, 2004). In both everyday social interactions and through policy, women still remain the primary carers for reproductive labour. And depending on a Filipina’s immigration status and nature of recruitment, she may be more open to instability, vulnerability and discrimination (Tyner, 1999a; Hochschild, 2000, 2002; Espiritu, 2003; Tung, 2003; Hilsdon, 2008; Parreñas, 2008). In her report on the feminisation of migration into Ireland, Pillinger (2007) finds that women work-permit holders who predominantly work in sectors such as catering, domestic work, care and health are underemployed. Her report covers a broad range of experiences among migrant women and focuses on the interconnections between migration policy and women’s migration patterns and experiences in sending and receiving countries: ‘Immigrant women have higher qualifications than Irish women, with 41.2% of immigrant women holding third level degrees or over, compared to 18.8% of Irish women. It is important to note that many of these women are also overrepresented in lower skilled jobs compared to both Irish women and Irish men.’ Pillinger argues that women migrant workers are disadvantaged and that women migrant workers in Ireland are triply disadvantaged as: they face inequalities in the Irish labour market that is characterised by gender inequality, they experience a second layer of inequality by virtue of their race or ethnic origin, and they are triply disadvantaged as migrant workers, often with limited legal protection or long-term security in the labour market. (2007) This triple disadvantage is even more salient for those who are undocumented. Instability and vulnerability are particular concerns for undocumented individuals not only because of their lack of legal status, but also due to the nature of their everyday interactions. Undocumented individuals are exposed to hostility by being frequently portrayed as criminals (Braziel, 2008). But often, there is little mention that individuals can become undocumented through no fault of their own (Pillinger, 2007). Migrants can become undocumented through being trafficked, their paperwork expiring, complications in switching jobs (especially when a permit is tied to an employer) or escaping exploitation, or in some cases they may not be always aware of their rights. Even when they know their rights, there are times when individuals are at the whim of their employers. One Filipina migrant in Ireland employed in the domestic sector felt coerced by her employers to accompany them on their holidays to France. Even though they knew she was undocumented, they insisted that she join them. Despite her objections, she went along and was almost deported back to the Philippines from France (Migrant

Introduction  21 Rights Centre Ireland, 2004). Others may become undocumented through their employers holding on to their passports and their immigration status expiring, and subsequently they become bound to their employer. With the growing disparity and the increasing cost of living in which few families can rely on one wage, this trend is unlikely to change. Labour markets in recruiting countries have a higher demand for migrant women (Fontes Chammartin, 2002). Furthermore, most migrant women do not always move to advanced industrialised countries; 60% move to non-industrial countries (Parreñas, 2008). While there are many new avenues of migration for women, migrant women workers are more expendable, open to exploitation and at the whim of the host country’s immigration policies. With care work, domestic work or other services in private spaces, migrant women are rendered invisible (Piper, 2003; de Jesús, 2005a). Compounding this situation is the fact that migrant women may be exposed to cultures of sexism (Flynn and Kofman, 2004) and are subject to racial discounting, as Third World women are seen as displaying a sense of care that is part of a ‘more loving Third World culture’ (Hochschild, 2002, p. 23). Within these complexities, race, class and citizenship continue to be key markers through racialised and gendered labour migration. When the responsibility is placed upon the migrant to engage in society, any difficulties that the migrant may encounter in integrating or moving up the social ladder are seen as personal problems rather than institutional or structural barriers. Ireland is implicitly and explicitly involved in migration. The conflicting and ambiguous restrictions and policies for non-EU citizens indicate embedded discrimination in systemic and institutional policies. Migrants are marked as Other, as non-Irish. Policies which impede full access to privileges accorded to citizens reinforce binaries of non-Irish/Irish, non-EU/EU and us/them by defining those who are not of Irish descent as ‘not-us’, the Other. While the usage of some of these terms might not be purposely offensive, they are politically charged. As these binaries do not recognise the intersectionality of diaspora, borders and dislocation and their historical contingencies, it can be difficult to take into account the historical dimensions through which migrants come to Ireland. Social problems are then linked to cultural integrity, work ethic or values (Spears, 1999). Fanning adds: ‘The problem here is that one person’s exclusionary republicanism is another person’s ethnocentric monoculturalism. There is more to the business of integrating immigrants than convincing them to get in touch with their inner Irishman or Irishwoman’ (2009, p. 120). No matter how migration is articulated, Ireland is a diaspora nation. With a sustained attitude that race and migration is new, the legacy of colonialism and racial hierarchies are reproduced and reinforced in diaspora space, and the increasing visibility and equal representation of diasporic subjects will be a difficult challenge.

Filipino populations in Ireland The Filipino population in Ireland is geographically scattered. This can be linked to the circumstances of migrants’ arrival to Ireland; many of them came to Ireland

22  Introduction through heavy recruitment in healthcare during the Celtic Tiger boom in the mid1990s to mid-2000s. Prior to this recruitment drive, an estimated 257 Filipinos lived in Ireland (Honorary Philippine Consul, 2008), mainly considered to be ‘romantic migrants’ who came to Ireland through marrying Irish people (Kennedy, 2009). The majority of the Filipino population arrived during the Celtic Tiger, in a second wave of migration, when Ireland recruited labour and encouraged immigration in order to sustain its economic development and fill gaps in many sectors. Ireland became ‘more dependent on market forces to achieve social outcomes and with a greatly weakened ability to provide quality infrastructure or services, or to counteract with any effectiveness the polarizing impact of market forces’ (Kirby, 2004, p.  33). Heavy recruitment in healthcare and domestic service reflected the growing trend of gendered reproductive labour not only in Ireland, but also across all EU labour markets (Immigrant Council of Ireland, 2003; Yeates, 2004a, 2006). Many healthcare recruits came from the Philippines (Dundon, González-Pérez and McDonough, 2007). The 2002 Census indicates that there were 4,086 Filipinos in Ireland (1,412 males and 2,674 females), and by 2006 there were 9,548 Filipinos in Ireland (3,933 males and 5,615 females) (Central Statistics Office, 2002, 2006). In both 2002 and 2006, Filipinas made up 65 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively. A community of less than 10,000 Filipinos may seem like a small segment of the 420,000 nonIrish nationals (10.1 per cent of the total population of Ireland) living in Ireland on Census Day in April 2006. But in 2008, key Filipino community leaders and the Honorary Philippine Consul estimated there were more likely 16,000 to 18,000 Filipinos in the country (Ancheta, 2008; Honorary Philippine Consul, 2008). There are a few possible reasons for this noticeable discrepancy. One, many interviewees said they did not fill out the census due to time constraints, citing long hours at work and prioritised other responsibilities. Two, a few interviewees believed that Ireland was only interested in their labour and would not provide for them for the indefinite future. And three, other participants stated different conceptions of ‘citizenship’; some understood that citizenship is where one lives and participates, and so checked ‘Irish’ citizenship when filling out the census. A  study by the Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative (MCRI, 2008) not only found that some study participants cited similar understandings of what constitutes citizenship, but found that non-governmental organisations, study participants and the Minister of Integration expressed similar concerns regarding the underreported number of migrants in Ireland. While the numbers may not fully reflect the Filipino community numbers, the census is the only official source of data available on populations in Ireland and does provide some insight into demographics, however limited. Regardless, Filipino leaders agree with the census distribution of employment patterns, which indicate that most Filipinos in Ireland are recruited women. Data during the time of the research show that 62 per cent of the Filipino population work in health and social work (4,008); and the next highest sector is found in hotels and restaurants with 9 per cent (593) (Central Statistics Office, 2006).

Introduction  23 As a majority of the Filipinos in Ireland came to work as healthcare professionals or domestic workers, or dependents of these, most chose to live close to or in their place of work to maximise earnings for remittances. As a result, the Filipino community is scattered across Ireland. Census 2006 revealed that 93 per cent of Filipinos had settled in urban areas, with 60 per cent in the Greater Dublin Area (Central Statistics Office, 2006). Despite this concentration, the rest of the community is geographically dispersed; this dispersal is also reflected in descriptions of the Filipino population. When asked if there is a Filipino community in Ireland, participants’ answers ranged from ‘Yes, there is one’ to ‘There are many’ to ‘No, Filipinos are divided.’ In 2008, I  participated in a working group of different Filipino stakeholders that came together to establish the Filipino Community Network, an umbrella organisation to serve as a central connecting point for Filipinos throughout Ireland. However, even with this network, many efforts to assemble Filipinos in their dispersal and cultivate the recognition of their presence and contribution in Ireland were only partially successful and these efforts remain ongoing. Despite differing views on the existence of a Filipino community, all interviewees recognised concentrations of Filipinos, naming significant populations in the Greater Dublin Area, as well as around Cork, Limerick and Galway. As Filipino populations continue to settle in Ireland, notions of home and community must be critiqued. Filipinos are part of the changing and dynamic story of Irish diaspora. However, with continued hostility towards immigrants, Filipinos continue on their historic path of racial and political exclusion: The marginal inclusion in and affiliation/disidentification with the place of residence and homeland help perpetuate and reproduce the continual displacement of diasporic subjects from home. Migrants negotiate a different set of social structures and experience a distinct racializing process in varying historical-local contexts. (Parreñas and Siu, 2007, p. 15) Whether Filipinos are written into or out of the national narrative, national identity remains an important and defining feature of Ireland. In order to move beyond ‘drawing symbolic and moral boundaries between natives and newcomers by appealing to such things as land, religion, memory, or what is sometimes termed “blood and soil nationalism” ’, (Conway, 2006, p. 78), one must transcend the constraining binaries of us/them to reveal liminal positionality and asymmetrical power relations produced by political institutions and cultural imperialism.

Methodology The framework of diaspora space underpinned my fieldwork. When I  began my project, I  wondered how Filipinas in Ireland, in similar organisations and

24  Introduction activities, and through their relationships with kabayan,13 may develop a hybrid identity, of being Filipino Irish or Irish Filipino. These expectations were rooted in my experience growing up in a Filipino American network and being around other first, 1.5 and second generation Americans. I  had seen how my mother and members of her Filipino association had marked a sense of group belonging through their bi-annual church fundraisers, commitment to teaching younger generations about traditional dances and folklore and summer picnics for adults and youth to foster solidarity. In addition to marking spaces of belonging, I had understood that these activities were ways to respond to dominant hegemonic discourses of whiteness and thus were manifestations of choosing the margins as a site of resistance. Upon beginning my fieldwork, I found that my expectations needed to be refocused. Participants stated that they were both Filipino and Irish, and such a hyphenated identity was not as important as finding stability. The dislocations produced by the dynamics of diaspora and migration, and the inconsistencies of them, created a constant disruption in the lives of Filipinas. In addition, as a daughter of a Filipina migrant my own family’s migration story lent credibility to my position as a researcher, helping me gain trust and access among Filipino communities in Ireland. While this was an important entry point, it was not a foregrounding measure for how I conducted research. In other words, being ‘half Filipina’ gave me access, but it did not dictate my research process. As the researcher, I sought to confront dominant narratives and problematise my social location and experience. I made many friendships and developed a greater understanding of my parents’ struggles as immigrants to the US. I  enjoyed many of the conversations I  had with participants and other Filipino community members. I  often met children of participants who called me Tita or Ate14 and I was readily welcomed into their homes. In adjusting my research lens, I paid attention to new topographies of how Filipinas make home in their communities. The project employed a qualitative approach, bringing the lived experiences of Filipinas to the forefront by allowing them to speak and analyse their own experiences. Using individual, in-depth, semi-structured interviews and participant observation in Ireland, a workshop in the Philippines, and a focus group in Ireland after completing the initial analysis, the project employed a participatory practice with participants. The methodology framed participants’ experiences against the backdrop of globalisation with attention to political and historical specificity (Brah, 1996; Mendoza, 2006; Braziel, 2008). Recognising that diasporans’ lives are multi-layered and have strong pedagogical value, the research was participatory so that participants and the researcher had opportunities to reflect on their experiences among social structures and institutions, transforming experiences into an application of theory. While each of the participants had their own specific circumstances, there were many common themes that emerged from their migration stories. Of the fifty-five individuals in Ireland directly involved in the study, all are Filipino and were born in the Philippines. While many came directly from the Philippines, some came from other countries. Interviewees had a wide range of age,

Introduction  25 profession, immigration statuses and migration stories. I used purposive sampling to choose these participants in order to have as broad and diverse a sample as possible. This purposeful sampling led to ‘information-rich cases’ (Patton, 2002, p. 46) to reflect a more comprehensive picture across a range of experiences and offer multiple and different insights. With the exception of the two interviewees who arrived in 1978 and 1999, one who married an Irish citizen while they were both living in the Philippines, two who came as dependent students and one missionary, thirteen interviewees came as a direct result of active recruitment for labour in the Philippines, which began in 2000. As per the ethical standards of social research, I have withheld information that could possibly identify participants. As there were limited data collected on workshop participants in the Philippines, many of whom refrained from giving their details, I have given only pseudonyms for interviewees.15 Workshop participants are labelled P followed by a number, or G followed by the number if the comment came from one of the workshop groups as a whole. The workshop was organised in partnership with Unlad Kabayan Migrant Services, a non-governmental organisation that is committed to building sustainable communities, has a history of advocacy and research for migrant workers and their families and has an ongoing dialogue with the marginalised, non-governmental organisations and other institutions. The fifteen workshop participants included returned migrants, family members of migrants currently working abroad and a woman planning to emigrate with her family. Participants had prompts in the interviews and exercises in the workshop and were able to contribute their own thoughts and feelings about the topic, allowing them to decide on the topics they wanted to discuss. The combination of exercises and discussion in the workshop allowed participants to speak and analyse their own experiences, as well as place themselves within contemporary political and historical moments. In situating the methodology within the framework of diaspora space, the research looks at the confluence of multiple narratives as politically, socially and historically contingent, ‘that is, an ensemble of investigative technologies that historicise trajectories of different diasporas, and analyse their relationality across fields of social relations, subjectivity and identity’ (Brah, 1996: p. 180). As such, this methodology pays attention to contested spaces, as not all experiences will be the same. In order to enhance the validity of the research, I conducted focus groups to feed back my analysis of the fieldwork in the Philippines and my interviews in Dublin. This allowed member checks, or that which makes sense at face value (Lather, 2003). I aimed to create a space for Filipinas to discuss their experience so as to put their lives at the centre of exchange. Weis and Fine (2004, p. xxi) add: Importantly, our notion of compositional studies invites a rotating position for the writer/researcher; that is, compositional studies afford researchers the opportunity and obligation to be at once grounded and analytically oscillating between engagement and distance, explicitly committed to deep situatedness and yet shifting perspectives as to the full composition. Our theory of

26  Introduction method then extends an invitation to the researcher as multiply positioned: grounded, engaged, reflective, well-versed in scholarly discourse, knowledge as to external circumstances, and able to move between theory and life ‘on the ground’. While the focus group served as a way to look for consistencies, inconsistencies do not necessarily mean that gathering data was done incorrectly. Rather, this approach offers more insights; what is important is to look at the outcome, and if any differences appear, look at the underlying reasons for those differences. It does not mean that findings are invalid but that different types of methods can yield different results (Patton, 2002, p. 560). The combination of methods provided participants multiple ways to speak of how they saw themselves in relation to global economic restructuring and migration. It also allowed me to examine the intersections of struggle and where my participants and I are situated, as the construction of reality comes out of the unequal distribution of power and privilege. In the following sections, I examine my positionality as an Asian American. Locating the self: positionality as an ‘Asian’ American While working on this research project as an international doctoral student, I was aware of my privileged position in an academic institution, surrounded by a bubble of terminology, books and journals. As I took these works and reflected on them to bring depth and understanding to my own everyday lived experience, the gap between theory and practice – feeling like a cliché – became clear. The intersections of my perceived identity and my understanding of my identity affected me so deeply. While growing up in the US, many people said to me how interesting to be a product of an interfaith marriage, how fascinating that my parents are not from the same Asian country, how wonderful to be model minorities. Even though I grew up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, playing freeze tag and baseball on the lawn and speaking only English, I still heard ‘China Doll’, ‘Flat Nose’ and ‘Do you Chink so?’ from peers. By the time I reached secondary school, I often responded in anger toward erroneous assumptions, hoping it would educate people and simultaneously show them that my reaction was valid. Often I  found myself explaining histories of domination, control and colonisation. I regularly challenged notions of Thailand as solely a place of prostitution and young brides by sharing my family’s story. Even though I knew those comments did not help, I was frustrated that there was not one specific reply I could use as there were too many blunders to fix: strangers assumed my parents had/have a struggle with the English language, that my family had escaped ‘The War’, my nose was flat because I fell off my bicycle, that Thailand and the Philippines are the same country. When hearing ‘I thought we killed them all in the war’ from a man at a bookstore in reference to a group of Korean high school students studying in the café, my heart sank. Are we each responsible for explaining our existence every time we hear something incorrect?

Introduction  27 Tired by this prospect, I wanted to believe I was truly American and not like other immigrants or children of immigrants. Wearing bright red lipstick and flowery form-fitting dresses, I challenged the baggy clothes that many of my Asian American friends wore to fit into the emerging hip hop scene. Hating my skin getting dark, I would scrape my skin with lemon juice until my soul bled, believing my golden tones would lighten. When that was not enough, I cut my skin with sharp edges, emotion leaking through my veins, hoping I could feel something tangible, to give myself a reason for the pain I felt inside. I felt shame when in the company of my Asian American friends. I hated being classifiable. Because I wanted to believe I was only American, I continued to blame my fellow 1.5 and second generation Asian American friends for perpetuating negative stereotypes. I believed that our path to success was through embracing a white American lifestyle. When I would walk past my friends’ lunch tables where they sat together, I would joke, ‘Practice your English!’ Some of them played the part of wannabe gangbangers in dress, music and linguistic choice but flew home under the wing of their luxury cars to their large suburban homes and studied hard, medical and law books sitting on their shelves reflecting future aspirations. From this and other practices, I decided our position in society was their fault. For me, this meant I had to consistently shed myself of any gestures, behaviours or enactments that my friends exhibited; anything that could be read as ‘Asian’. Even though we all embraced the model minority myth, I held them fully responsible for Asian Americans being reflected in a negative light. These friends did not hold this against me, as they blamed me for being ‘white-washed.’ I often drove my white girlfriends to the mall, while we fantasised about pursuing PhDs, sipping frothy gourmet coffee. I felt conflicted by this dual blame, for although I was comfortable in embracing my whiteness, my Asian friends teased me because I liked ‘white things’ and had many white friends. I desperately wished to be as white as I could, through my gestures, my choices and my abhorrence of all things ‘Asian’. And despite my wishing for whiteness, I still wanted to bond with them over our shared experiences of racism, discrimination and intergenerational conflicts we had with our immigrant parents. At this point in my life I felt that my actions had no repercussions and that my friends did. They did not appear to care that any actions could carry weight or even that these actions reflected ideas in the social hierarchy. They complained about ‘hating the man’ and loved the idea of an ‘Asian Invasion’, and they continued to dress alike, feigned their parents’ accents and made no moves to manifest their dissatisfaction in being repressed minorities into social action. While we, as people of colour, underwent a process of racialisation that not only placed white people at the top, but also saw them as the only true Americans (Lee and Vaught, 2003, p. 457), we did not react similarly. Threads of curiosity, domination and superiority were woven through the fabric of my background, the history of colonisation rubbing like alcohol in open wounds. There were realities I  was missing, that looking ‘Asian’ and being a daughter of immigrants were not the only threads with which I had to grapple. I had stitches of time, difference and cultural hegemony ravelled into me. I was

28  Introduction like a poorly constructed dam, composed of fragments and broken pieces. Whiteness held me in such a way that I could not fully understand the dynamics of my identity. I had difficulty reconciling the multiple categories to which I belonged, therefore I tried to attain that which I felt had the best privilege. I felt that embracing whiteness was okay because I still looked Asian, but because I was not fully comfortable with my 1.5 and second generation peers, I felt split. I could not be Asian and exemplify my whiteness simultaneously. With the stigmatisation of people of colour as tainted, as not pure (Haney López, 1995), I could not use or utilise the privileges of whites and experience their resources. I could play the part but was still ‘ethnic’. Even though my friends’ families and my family have lived in the US for several years, have been naturalised as citizens or were born and raised in the US, our experience as racialised people held us in the marginal space of the Other. I was still a foreigner in the country in which I was born and raised, the place I called home. All the while I thought I was ever-crossing boundaries, leaping between sides to not get caught. Within my strategies to try to reconcile my frustration, I did not realise I was classifying myself. To exhale my failures and learn from my mistakes, I looked to the sources of my contradictions. For years I stood on the margins, yelling at others. In college, I began taking courses rooted in social and cultural identity, critical race theory and women’s studies, and developed a consciousness about being a person of colour. I began calling myself a woman of colour, asserting my position as a visible minority, one in solidarity with other minorities, but not calling attention to my specific ascribed racial or ethnic background. I  found new voices that reframed my experiences. Anzaldúa’s new mestiza consciousness shed light onto my contradictions, allowing me insight into how it was possible to feel included and excluded simultaneously: ‘The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility, yet our cultures take away our ability to act – shackle us in the name of protection. Blocked, immobilized, we can’t move forward, can’t move backwards. That writhing serpent movement, the very moment of life, swifter than lightning, frozen’ (2007, pp. 42–3). Borderland discourses gave me a space to embrace my margins. Yet, it did not mean that the process of unlearning was easy or clear. When I  moved to Ireland in 2005, other forms of whiteness took hold. My appearance stirred curiosity for those who tried to identify or name me. What are you? Where are you from? No really, you don’t look American. While these questions were not entirely new to me, in Ireland, there was another dimension to these questions. Once I opened my mouth, when my nasal Chicago accent pushed through, the curiosity of strangers disappears, replaced by Oh! I thought you were a migrant. Or, I did not mean to offend you. These phrases often echoed in my head, furrowing its way deep into my chest. I did not mean to offend you especially remained with me not only because it is laden with assumptions of what it means to be a migrant in Ireland, but also it suggests that migrants are inferior and undesired. These assumptions began to affect the way I interacted with people. I sometimes called myself a Filipina-Thai American international student to call attention to my different histories, my parents’ histories, my connection with their

Introduction  29 home countries as well as my rights and limitations as an international student. Other times, I simply said ‘American’ in an effort to challenge people’s assumptions that my Asian heritage signals my arrival from Asia. Very few of my Irish friends understood the way I talked about my positionality, and I felt awkward explaining myself. I avoided making eye contact with people walking down the street. Or, I over-enunciated each word I spoke so as to not to be mistaken for anything other than American. Many times, this was easier and less exhausting than having to explain my existence. Many times, these efforts did not work. The following excerpt from a piece I wrote for RTÉ Radio 1 programme ‘Spectrum’16 illustrates some of the conflicts I experienced. On our way, we called into a Chinese restaurant to order takeaway. There were a few people ahead of us, so we grabbed a takeaway menu to make our decision. When we ordered our food, I made eye contact with the Chinese woman behind the counter, and she smiled at me. I smiled back, but not before noticing that I was over-enunciating my order, not for her sake, but for other customers around me. We sat down in some chairs while we waited for our food, and I felt increasingly claustrophobic. I told my partner that I wasn’t feeling well and that I had to step outside for a few moments. I took short shallow breaths, my shoulders felt the urge to curl under themselves, and my legs felt weak. I was physically uncomfortable because I was angry with myself. I know that there have been moments where I speak extraclearly because I am conscious of how others perceive me. This isn’t something easy to unpack, or something I wish to explain away easily. I sometimes react this way when I want to be on the offence, when I don’t want to engage in conversation about where I am from. Sometimes, I want people to figure it out for themselves, that other people can realise that Asian people have a long history of migration and that I am a product of that. I want people to hear my American accent and make connections themselves, because I cannot accept the responsibility of providing a narrative of migration, ethnicity and belonging, nor the history of colonialisation and domination every time I engage in conversation and assumptions are made about whom I am and what I represent. This is at odds with how I wish to be. In my research, I am fiercely dedicated to breaking down racial and ethnic discrimination and promoting diversity awareness and understanding. It is a challenging process, particularly because we are all so different, and we have our own understandings of what the world is like. We make sense of our world based on our experiences, our knowledge bases, our cultures, our interactions and our own ideas. It is often difficult to talk about these issues because we are all stakeholders in our identities, and we come to the table with different levels of authority and power. In the Chinese restaurant, I became painfully aware that I never step away from my work. Even when I  am not actively thinking about race, ethnicity and integration, it doesn’t leave. In Ireland, I do not always think I am a foreigner. Even when my friends laugh at the way I say ‘banana,’ or how

30  Introduction I fill up my car with gas, on the day-to-day, I do not usually think about my immigration status and its limitations. But, I remember that I am a foreigner when I am the only person of colour in a room of white faces. I remember that I am a foreigner when I express solidarity with other foreigners. And I remember that I am a foreigner when with increasing frequency I am asked whether I speak English with a sour face, or when I am given a directive by a customer, only to their surprise, that I don’t actually work there. This story is not merely a side note or simply food for thought. How people perceive me affects the way that I interact, how and what I say, and how I choose to align myself, thus affecting my research. Some have said to me to toughen up, that it does not matter what people say. Maybe I could put on a tougher skin, but in many ways, it does matter what people think. Stereotypes, assumptions and opinions are not free floating – they are linked to public discourse, they are embedded in institutional structures and hierarchies, and they are connected to action as well as how one can understand a sense of belonging. Through my own stories of my social location, I have come to interrogate my own story of dislocation and its importance in the research. Reflections on cultural insider/outsider I share my personal stories not only because it affects the research process, but also because they have broader meaning beyond the self. Because our own stories are often flawed and difficult, we become ‘human and believable’ (Ellis and Bochner, 2000; see also Maydell, 2010). Narrating one’s story, to make sense and give name to one’s experience, is to realise one’s consciousness. Narrating one’s life allows opportunities to critically analyse oneself, as it has for me, as one traces the path of meanings in one’s life, revealing what Nora calls ‘the illumination of discontinuity’ (1989, p. 16). I sought to confront dominant narratives and problematise my social location and experience, as this affects the research process. I embraced the position that there is no neutral research: ‘we no longer need apologize for unabashedly ideological research and its open commitment to using research to criticize and change the status quo’ (Lather, 2003, p. 190). One’s positionality sits at the intersections of categories and incongruities of power. In turn, categories that are assigned and those that people choose themselves are influenced by discourses of identity and their own histories. My role as a researcher of Filipino descent affects the way I am perceived, and thus, how I conduct research. My familiarity with cultural practices growing up in a Filipino community in Chicago and my extended family’s stories of migration were important entry points to gaining access. Simultaneously, it was also a source of personal struggle. My frustrations from my past, combined with my inability to speak Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, made me feel distant from my participants. Many participants in the research told me not to worry about my hesitations, as they welcomed me openly, even when I was not always able to fully participate in events or understand when they spoke in Tagalog or

Introduction  31 other Filipino dialects. In other words, my heritage and my family connections with migration, as well as my own migration story to Ireland, uncovered the multiple global processes in which we were situated. Aware that my personal experience and personal history contribute to my understandings and the analytical research process (Delgado Bernal, 2001), I constantly assessed progress towards my research question and exercised self-reflexivity. I recognise that my interactions with the Filipino community were situated within global economic processes and Irish immigration policies and that my research is connected to the cultural landscape of integration in Ireland, a diaspora nation where the intricacies of civic and political participation are shaped by legal rights and entitlements (MCRI, 2008). In my field notes on 30 July 2008, I wrote: This is an emotional trip that I’m not really sure how to handle. I find myself easily breaking out into tears. On one level, I’m extremely happy to be getting access at the same time as being part of a community – of being part of a Filipino community – but at the same time, the chords hit me so hard. Looking at the photo of a few Filipinos eating at Supermacs sent me into a whirlwind of memories – my mother taking us to McDonald’s when we were young, how she’d always order Filet O’Fish, how she never said she didn’t like McDonald’s, but here she was raising her children as American; my dad trying different cuisines upon arrival in the US with Uncle Chiati, how they didn’t like Italian food and my dad calling lasagne ‘monkey vomit’, how we didn’t really understand why he was upset when we’d bring home Italian food or want to go to the Italian restaurant; running into Uncle Ruben at Ponderosa with Kevin and Keith when they were so young – the loneliness of trying to get by. Trying to create a community around food, to feel at home, to be comfortable in a new space. I saw the picture of a family eating at Supermacs, somewhere affordable, something people do to get by. These are things that people do. But I must work through this. I will continue to offer my insights and observations as a way into the community. Today, I realised that speaking about the weather, and learning new words to describe the weather, is one way I can communicate with other outsiders. We are outsiders to Ireland, living and making lives here – we can bond over these things. As superficial as it may feel on one level, it is also something deep and meaningful. We are all struggling to adapt, we are all working hard at feeling ‘at home.’ For me, this excerpt demonstrates some of the difficulties in approaching fieldwork in which I was personally and emotionally invested. What kept me motivated was that the insights gained from the research are vital to understanding belonging for migrants in Ireland. Yet, there were many times where I left my fieldwork crying. Upon hearing Tagalog, and trying to participate with community members, I would begin feeling uneasy, resurrecting frustrations from when I was young. Old deep-rooted feelings of being left out, not understanding what

32  Introduction was happening, and years of internalising these and other moments of discrimination or of hating my Asian-ness would jumble, resulting in a ball of anxiety in my stomach. My breathing would shorten and I would feel nauseated. Below are a few excerpts from my fieldwork journals: This research is so important to me, but even two days in, it is really hard. Today, I  think it is guilt and difficulty [for] not speaking Tagalog. It is so awkward for me to say, ‘I don’t speak Tagalog.’ (3 February 2008) Just arrived at [meeting]. Really want access into the community, but I feel like my language is a really big problem. Sometimes, I wish it was just me and a text or archive. Then I don’t have to go around and do all this. But this is the stuff that drives me, this is the stuff that moves me, this is my life. This is part of my story. There are so many Filipinos here . . . I hear Tagalog and it hurts me inside. It’s not about guilt, or is it? It’s like 20-some years of identity crisis crammed into a single question: Pilipino ka ba?17 (26 July 2008) I had been so used to tuning out Tagalog and any other [Filipino] language that I can sit in a room and ignore it. But now, in having to tune it, it hurts inside. Feels like heartache. But it’s something I have to deal with – something with which I must work out . . . But how much can I used my heritage as an access point? (27 July 2008) I know that my own issues made the line of insider/outsider more convoluted. I purposely did not ask participants to switch back to English for my own sake, as I did not want to interrupt them if they wanted to speak in Tagalog. Instead, I kept these feelings to myself and wrote them in my journal and in analytical memos. I often reread the following passage from Patton (2002, p. 510): ‘the investigator’s commitment is to understand the world as it unfolds, be true to complexities and multiple perspectives as they emerge, and be balanced in reporting both confirmatory and disconfirming evidence with regard to any conclusions offered’. For the importance of participants’ visibility, I knew I had to continue. And included in this was my own longing to fit in among other Filipinos. Being close but unable to fully participate made it difficult for me to reconcile my frustrations. Not everything was challenging. I made many friendships and developed a greater understanding of my parents’ struggles as immigrants to the US. When I went to the Philippines to conduct the workshop, and in meeting family members my mother had left behind when she emigrated to the US, I realised that my frustrations were well beyond my own life. They were part of my own understanding of my parent’s struggles, their own frustrations in being migrants in the US, how this shaped my own life growing up as a ‘foreigner’ in the US, and within the transnational context of globalised Ireland.

Introduction  33 While on the terrace at my uncle’s house in Palawan, sitting under the shade and fragrance of his mango trees, I thought about how for years, the Philippines had been a mythical place in my mind, an idyllic tropical paradise that was connected to one of many sources of frustrations growing up. As I sat there, I had the recognition of my mother’s struggles, the separation from her family and her own frustrations in being a migrant in the US where she remains a foreigner, despite having lived over half of her life there. How incongruent portions of my life have been, I thought, and how apt it was for it to come together in my mother’s home country. Maybe I had not seen all of these interconnections in relation to my research because these things are what have made my life – these things that have motivated me to learn – nationalism, colonialism, nostalgia, migration stories, globalisation, OFWs, all of this is my family’s story, my story, and many others’ stories. When I returned to Dublin to continue fieldwork, I re-examined the way that I saw Filipinos effortlessly switching between Tagalog and English. I was able to better recognise how they were adept with fluidity. In these cases, my weaknesses were also strengths; I was able to better navigate their experiences after having my moments of being an outsider. My personal challenges positioned me to push for a rich body of research. And, using personal experience and insights to enter conversations proved fruitful. After my tenth interview, I wrote: Insider/outsider relationship very poignant when discussing racism. Sharing incidents that we’ve experienced and how Irish people don’t understand when we tell them about our experiences of racism and therefore is difficult helped form a frame of reference for speaking with the participants. Bonding over food is particularly important. Almost everyone wants to talk about food. (10 August 2008) There have been many wonderful moments since I began working on this research. As I made sense of new formations of myself, I learned more about the importance of learning from my frustrations. Knowles writes that ‘antagonistic research relationships reveal just as much as consensual ones; they also encourage a more open and reflexive account of the social circumstances in which researchers and informants encounter each other which enhances the research’ (2006, p. 393). While the antagonistic relationship was more with myself than with my research participants, what I learned through the research process is that hidden within these frustrations is the capacity for radical transformation. My personal experience, detailed in these sections on self-reflexivity, shows the personal and emotional impact and investment I have had in the research. I used these moments as pivot points to anchor me through the research process. Mendoza writes, ‘Finally the days of the unencumbered, detached, objective, autonomous observer are over; enter the politics of the personal, the grounded, the contingent – heralded unapologetically by that big, bold, capital letter ‘I’ (2006, p. xiii).

34  Introduction It is crucial to remain in a position where researchers can confront their intellectual and social spaces and engage with participants in an ever-constant dialogue and critique of the social world. To work this way is to put ourselves in a place where we are open, working from and within multiple contexts, representations and webs of power. This reflects what Haraway calls ‘situated knowledge’, which ‘requires that the object of knowledge be pictured as an actor and agent, not as a screen or a ground or a resource, never finally as slave to the master that closes off the dialectic in his unique agency and his authorship of “objective” knowledge’ (2003, p. 38). As a social researcher, it is my responsibility to make sure my research is grounded, especially when my stake in the research process is unavoidably connected. I realise that I have not completely discovered the ins-andouts of cultural insider/outsider (nor may I ever), and that my own experiences of being an outsider, or mistaken for a different type of outsider, have provoked frustration in me. I continue to find strength to navigate this terrain, to not be upset when I switch off or do not want to bother. I must be responsible to challenge myself and the assumptions embedded within the research. And so, I persevere.

Outline of the book The first chapter provides an overview of home and dislocation as it intersects with diaspora. I discuss Brah’s notion of the homing desire and its role in shaping a diasporic consciousness and articulations of belonging. Next, the chapter examines home in the Filipino diaspora, including identity construction and colonial mentality. This mentality is a remnant of US imperialism whereby the colonised populations emulate the coloniser, is an ideology of whiteness and privilege that is linked to notions of agency and mobility. I close the chapter offering the analytical concept of ‘connecting sites’ to examine social practices among individual, community and global level dynamics. Chapter 2 analyses how participants’ lives are framed by three main sources of dislocation and how they play out in the contexts of their migration. They faced a number of personal and structural challenges to fully engage in the destination country, shaping their relationship to the state. The chapter first details participants’ migration status and how laws and regulations consign people to different social locations, and in some cases, determine life trajectories. Second, the chapter explores conditions of family separation and the different coping mechanisms participants employed to deal with feelings of isolation. The chapter concludes by discussing how even though participants had more opportunities for social mobility in Ireland, they still remain marginal. Their experiences of devaluating of skill sets, perpetuation of wage disparities and experience of racism left them in vulnerable positions. Chapter 3 pays specific attention to language as a primary connecting site. The Tagalog language is strongly tied to culture and social location, and for participants, it played a powerful role in creating, maintaining and negotiating relationships. The chapter examines how speaking English in the Philippines is connected to American imperialism, and speaking English in Ireland exposes another layer

Introduction  35 of the colonial dominance of the English language over Tagalog. The use of language provides a significant variable through which Filipinas’ subject-positions emerge, whether intentional or unintentional. Filipinas responded to their dislocations, demonstrated acculturation and resistance to parts of the destination country and used language as a space of opportunity as well as denial. This chapter serves as groundwork for discussing how rituals, religion and routines are also important connecting sites, promoting a sense of continuity as well as safety in both symbolic and material forms. Chapter 4 discusses rituals, religion and routine as sources of strength, guidance and faith. The chapter explores how these factors engender a complex sense of dislocation, which in turn has implications for home, gender and mobility. The Catholic Church, in particular, was used as a space to articulate practices and teach values; a place to meet and socialise with other Filipinos; and reform previous networks from the Philippines. Many Filipinos say that they could count on finding other Filipinos in the church. Most importantly, rituals, religion and routine provided the feeling that they had a safe space against discrimination, difficulties of family separation and other hardships. In these sites, social bonds formed and became further entrenched through norms of kinship, reliance and exchange. It allowed opportunities to feel simultaneously connected to the Philippines and to Ireland. Connecting sites served as a space for the continuation of ideologies of being ‘Filipino’, as well as provided opportunities to interact with the local Irish community. In Chapter 5, I examine how participants use food as a path to familiarity, as a way to feel a nearness to home. The chapter first discusses how practices of sharing and obtaining food helped to maintain relations over distances, especially since Filipinos are geographically spread. The chapter discusses Oriental food shops and restaurants, where interviewees sought access to food and products available only in these spaces. Participants also used these spaces to send remittances and to check the bulletin board for current events in Ireland and in the Philippines. Following on from this, the chapter argues that finding the same or similar food, as well as the sharing of that food, is not a simple replication of home. Rather, food becomes a way to create and sustain relationships. Enactments of belonging are not universal, and as such should be looked at for markers of how Filipinos fashion their identities and orientations towards the Philippines. Chapter 6 brings to light the symbolism that Filipinas attach to home. It first begins with the narratives of three Filipinas, drawing on their reflections on their migration history, which show how they interpret the social, economic, ideological and political dynamics of the world around them. Despite being the main economic providers of their families, enhancing educational and/or professional skills and active leaders in church activities, their stories show how they still remain in vulnerable positions. Their reflections reveal how they see themselves in relation to the dynamics of diaspora space and the social relations in which they are embedded. Participants worked to cultivate the familiarity of the homeland, while still on their minds are the possibilities of moving to other countries to maximise their earnings, send more remittances and save for possible retirement

36  Introduction in the Philippines. As they reflect on the state formations that shape their sense of home, the tensions they face highlight the contradictions between continuity and dislocation. The chapter also looks to the stories of Filipinas who have returned to the Philippines, and their stories of return migration. Return was not always easy, and although for some participants it was extremely positive, repatriation came with its own challenges. Most often, many of the choices of returnees were not perceived within the constraints of the destination country. Participants said that sometimes they or their friends were not fully accepted by those that stayed behind. Finally, the chapter draws on these women’s reflections of their lives in order to provide deeper insight into how they inhabit their spaces and imagine the homeland. Whether they encountered a lack of recognition of qualifications, or experienced institutional or interpersonal racism or other dislocations, interviewees in Ireland and in the Philippines did not feel fully accepted by their host countries around the world. The concluding chapter summarises the research. This chapter challenges discourses that reproduce and maintain inequality, adding to the scholarship on the visibility of Filipinas in the diaspora and the meanings and symbolism that ‘home’ holds for dislocated subjects. The chapter argues that migration should be re-conceptualised as a mechanism that produces dislocations rather than a problem to be solved or dynamic to be controlled. With a sustained attitude that migration is a problem to be solved, or controlled, the implication is that migrants are not seen as equal and should remain marginal. This ethnography on Filipino diasporans working towards a sense of home in Ireland provides the opportunity to open up these damaging discourses. Finally, this chapter delineates suggestions for further areas of research, the implications of the politics of belonging in Ireland and the Philippines. Narratives of home should not be viewed in isolation. Instead, we should examine these narratives, as they offer insight into the transformations, configurations and articulations of globalisation and transnational belonging.

Notes 1 I use the term Asian American without a hyphen, reflecting that the two terms, Asian and American, are not mutually exclusive. 2 Christian missions, which date back as far as the first century ce, have resonance in Ireland. For example, a Nigerian living in Ireland mentioned that the presence of Irish mission workers in Nigeria established not only a relationship with the Irish, but also an image of what Ireland was like (Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008). 3 Braziel (2008) refers to internally displaced persons as those who have been uprooted through violence or civil warfare, migrating within parts of their own countries. 4 The phrase ‘Celtic Tiger’ is a play on the Asian Tiger economies and their tremendous growth during the 1980s and early 1990s. Fagan and O’Hearn attribute this phrase to the US investment bank Morgan Stanley, which in 1994, asked if the Celtic Tiger would be joining the Asian Tiger economies. 5 In 2010, it office became The Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration, focusing only on legal resident migrants.

Introduction  37 6 Regarding Irish nation-building from a range of perspectives including literary, social policy and political geography, see e.g. see Kiberd, 1995; Mac Laughlin, 1997; Garvin, 2004; Fanning, 2009. 7 Ireland has sent missionaries and soldiers, and from the Flight of the Earls and the experiences of the Scots Irish (see Rolston, 2003), to the Irish in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. 8 In the late 1980s, Intel chose Ireland as the site of its new chip processing plant. Other US based information technologies followed, including Microsoft and Dell. This became the key to holding sustained growth rates (Fagan, 2002). Along with various investment incentives, including a corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent, the lowest tax in the European Union (Industrial Development Authority), Ireland paved the way for the Celtic Tiger boom. By 1997, over 1000 companies had established plants, factories, offices, or European headquarters in Ireland, including Northern Ireland, 455 of them being from the United States (Ní Mháille Battel, 2003). Through these processes, Ireland has become dependent on foreign companies for its continued growth. Ní Mháille Battel likens the high-tech industries that have driven the Irish economy to a graft: ‘As good gardeners know, grafts can be very successful, but the original plant has to be healthy for the graft to flourish. The danger is that if the imported sectors cease to flourish, there might not be enough strength and diversity in the Irish economy to withstand their demise’ (2003, p. 103). 9 Reproductive labour is any work that sustains a productive workforce, including basic necessities, food, clothing, teaching and other types of service, dry cleaning or relaxations (Parreñas, 2008). 10 Brewer, in Shamanism, Catholicism and Gender Relations in Colonial Philippines, 1521–1685 (2004), discusses the clash that occurred when Spain brought Catholicism to the Philippines. Previous to Spanish occupation, Filipinos believed in animism, or the attribution of souls to non-human entities including animals, nature and other natural-occurring phenomena such as lightning and thunder. Brewer explores the use of religion and power in shaping ideologies, investigating the role of women, the enforcing of a good/bad woman dichotomy through Spanish priests and friars. 11 The term OFW, shorthand for Overseas Filipino Worker, is used to describe a person from the Philippines who emigrates to send remittances to family members. OFW is a term used by Filipinos, publicly and institutionally. 12 McKinley was unaware that Filipinos were predominantly Catholic, due to Spanish rule. 13 The term kabayan translates to ‘townmate’ or ‘countryman’ and comes from the root word bayan, meaning ‘town’ or ‘homeland’. See Chapter 1 for more discussion on this term. 14 Tita and ate mean auntie and older sister, respectively. They are terms of respect that are not limited to relation. 15 See Appendix A for characteristics of interviewees. 16 ‘Spectrum’, a radio programme on RTÉ Radio One that specifically dealt with Ireland’s immigrant issues was cancelled in December 2008. 17 ‘Are you Filipino?’

1 Conceptualising home and diaspora

The ethnographic moments discussed throughout this book draw on years of interaction, observation and conversations with the participants in this study. The Filipinas’ stories reveal that personal biographies, personality, intentions and goals intertwine with their dislocations. Dislocation is a state of feeling out of place, misplaced or disrupted, due to micro, meso or macro processes of migration and diaspora. Dislocations ‘are the stumbling blocks and sources of pain engendered within social processes of migration’ (Parreñas, 2001b, p. 31). They can be physical, psychic, cultural and emotional. They can be immediate, delayed and residual. Dislocations sit within multiple sites of social relations, within the destination country, the home country, the spaces in between, historical specificity and power struggles and across axes of differentiation. This calls attention to borderland identities, ‘a state of psychic unrest’ (Anzaldúa, 2007, p. 95), whereby one negotiates uneven and contradictory processes that shape the day-to-day. In this chapter, I first discuss how home in a migration context is a dynamic journey amidst dislocations. I consider the role of the homing desire and diasporic consciousness in shaping enactments of belonging. Second, I provide an overview of home and identity in the Filipino diaspora. Third, I offer the analytical concept of ‘connecting sites’ as a term to examine their social practices among individual, community and global level dynamics.

Migration, home and diaspora Migration is fundamentally about movement. It entails various factors and circumstances that sit within social and institutional dynamics. The physical dislocation from one’s country of origin raises questions about home, which connotes a sense of rootedness, stability and belonging in a place. Home, as a construct, carries with it many meanings, making the terms home, home country and homeland problematic. Often essentialised, romanticised and uninterrogated, the construct of home is often used unproblematically, generating an array of terminology, subjectivities and positionalities, lending to the complexities in trying to articulate conceptual specificity. Part of the difficulty in articulating a single definition of home is that it is a multi-sited process and intersects with technologies of power and ideologies.

Conceptualising home and diaspora  39 While disciplines employ various approaches to analysing home, a persistent problematic is that of dislocation. Previous writings on home often look at processes of settlement and integration in the lives of migrants in the host country, with belonging measured by levels of assimilation and acculturation into the dominant mainstream society. The feeling of being rooted and belonging in the host country is important, it does not fully capture the complexities of raced, classed and gendered dynamics across borders. Also, studies on diasporic settlement have not paid enough attention to how the homeland plays a considerable part in constructing diaspora (Chu, 2006; Siu, 2007). The romanticised image of the homeland and the myth of return have garnered more consideration in academic and popular literature, yet there remains a dominant binary between the idealised homeland and the claiming of the destination country as one’s new home as an assertion of belonging (Parreñas and Siu, 2007; Baas, 2015). The scholarship on the intersectionality of transnational identity, travel, remittances, flows of goods, behaviours, values and ideologies provides useful analyses in the complexities of home (see e.g. Espiritu, 2003; Kelly and Lusis, 2006; Parreñas and Siu, 2007; Parreñas, 2008; Gonzalez, 2009; Baas, 2015). Moving away from a focus on home as solely a physical space to a more active and fluid space recognises that feeling at home is not exclusively about settlement and integration, but also about familiarity and belonging made possible by social relationships. There is a growing interest in factors that shape attachments to home, or what hooks (1990) calls ‘homeplace’, a private space where people can renew themselves and their spirits. While writing about the political consciousness and movements of resistance of black women in the home, hooks does not limit homeplace to black women, for the value of renewal lies in the choice of margins as sites of resistance, a ‘location of radical openness and possibility’ (1990, p. 153). For those who move across borders, experiences of homeplace profoundly change (Espiritu, 2003). The political, economic, social and cultural processes, along with the factors that engender them, affect migrants’ orientations toward the home and destination countries. Migration creates dislocations, and in turn, home becomes ‘a site of familiarity’ that becomes distanced through migration (Williams, 2005, p. 405). Because of a physical departure from the home country to the destination country, feeling at home is found through familiarity (2005). The ways in which the destination country defines its home and regulates its borders also affects how diasporans inhabit spaces. Influenced by increasing racialisation of controlling state borders, migration and refugee policies and public discourse have become more restrictive and selective in advanced countries. With the conflation of nation, race and legal status, established diasporic communities are affected on an everyday basis, especially in the large immigrant receiving countries such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia and other parts of Europe: racial profiling, increased detention sites, the PATRIOT act, refugee acts, the ‘War on Terror’, anti-terrorism laws and increased surveillance (see e.g. Braziel, 2008; Fanning, 2009; Gonzalez, 2009; Heidbrink, 2014; Smith, 2014). Hegemony is performed on the migrant body through the erosion of civil rights and the creation

40  Conceptualising home and diaspora of more liminal spaces for diasporic communities. Race not only operates in policy as an identifier, but also as a barrier to movement (Braziel, 2008). Thus, the impact of interpersonal discrimination and policies of exclusion in the host and home countries may affect one’s perception of ‘home’ while living abroad, creating ‘neither here nor there’ feelings and a sense of liminality. Even though some diasporans may feel ‘at home’ away from the homeland, or have a long-established presence in the destination country, they may still refer to the homeland as ‘home’ and say things like ‘I’m going home’ when visiting. They may also refer to the destination country as their home. Some diasporans may choose to adopt a single national identity or claim multiple affiliations and identifications (Gilroy, 1997; Parreñas and Siu, 2007). Therefore, notions of home are not always consistent, objective or rational and may exist simultaneously in different places and in various emotional and material forms. Ideas of home are open to change in response to the needs, circumstances and socio-historical conditions for diasporans. Recognising the complexity of home, particularly in a diasporic context, disrupts the tendency to think of home as linked to one location – either the home country or the destination country. Feminist theorists, social geographers, sociologists and anthropologists writing on the construction of home acknowledge that home can be a private space where social relationships cut across social and cultural categories, intersecting with macro political and economic processes. This is important because home can be a place of both comfort and conflict, as well as raced, classed and gendered (see e.g. hooks, 1990; Bhattacharjee, 1997; Laguerre, 2000; Parreñas, 2001b; de Jesús, 2005a). At the same time, recognising the specificity of time and location, these writings on home crucially illuminate the complexities between private and public spaces, politics of difference, and the multiple axes that affect the negotiation of identities, social spaces and practices. From analysing home as socio-spatial to psychological and emotive locales (Hall, 1996; Sarup, 1996; Anzaldúa and Keating, 2002; Easthope, 2004; Massey, 2005), social practices become connected to senses of place with multiple identifications ‘that hold considerable social, psychological and emotive meaning for individuals and for groups’ (Easthope, 2004, p. 135). And, while there is a growing literature on gendered labour migration and the dislocation of migrants from families (Parreñas, 2001b, 2008; Hochschild, 2002; Aguilar, 2004; Yeates, 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Fajardo, 2011; Pratt, 2012), further exploration is needed on how experiences of settlement and gendered labour migration affect the everyday, and, in turn, shape orientations to the homeland. The ethnographic moments discussed in this book reveal how the intersections of these processes are where diaspora space is enacted, where the embodiment of diaspora space shapes new understandings of identity and community. Home is more than what a term or a phrase can hold. Consequently, I focus the research on the ways in which Filipinas make home in their communities. As research participants refer to the Philippines as home, home country and homeland, but also call destination countries their home, I examine how they articulate meanings, understandings and experiences of space and dislocation. Although I occasionally use host country as many participants referred to Ireland as such,

Conceptualising home and diaspora  41 I also use destination country, as it reflects a ‘politics of destination’ (Chu, 2006). That is, a politics of destination accounts more for the choices behind migration and that migration does not end when one arrives in the host country. Home, then, is a translocational position that is intertwined with border and diaspora: ‘Indeed, it is the contradictions of and between location and dislocation that are a regular feature of diasporic positioning’ (Brah, 1996, p. 204). Within this, location can shift, move out of focus, gain or lose importance with the diasporan. The contradiction and ambiguity of home and dislocation reveals that home is more than material standards of living, income, health and food. Home is in part how these material standards take shape in the everyday, amidst globalisation, power relations and constructs of inequality. The continued and sustained relationship with the country of origin, whether real or imagined, with the destination country and with fellow diasporic members reveals that diaspora is ‘a condition of living in displacement’ (Parreñas and Siu, 2007, p. 13). This displacement shows that diasporic experiences are strongly connected to place, and thus also explains diasporans’ ‘continued involvement with development in their “home countries” ’ (Bose, 2008, p. 114). Among the various approaches to home, belonging and dislocation remain constant themes. The homing desire Not all diasporans wish to return home (Brah, 1996), and others find that home is a complicated political and cultural terrain where they cannot physically return. Some become dislocated in their own homelands, whether their homes have been destroyed, taken over or have become impossible to travel to (Jansen, 1998). There are others scattered within the diaspora who maintain connections to the homeland, but still do not go back or are not able to return regularly. In many of these situations, there is an idealisation of home where it remains a romantic refuge. Even if home is unreachable, diasporans may retain a collective memory of the original home after being scattered to the peripheries as well as an aspiration to return (Safran, 1991). This collective memory remains a strong factor affecting how one participates and engages in the host society and understands a sense of belonging. Whether diasporans seek to return home or not, they orient their motivations, practices and cultural products towards the homeland. Diasporans do not arrive in the host country with nothing, nor do they leave their lives behind in their home country. They bring and make use of a toolkit of cultural capital: their language, values, beliefs and culture; food, products and materials; their gestures, activities and their ideologies. They come with their migration stories, a background which ‘explains the conditions of emergence or an arrival of something as the thing that it appears to be in the present’ (Ahmed, 2006, p. 38). The relationship between cultural capital and migration is illustrated by Anzaldúa’s analysis of her borderlands: I was totally immersed en lo mexicano, a rural, peasant, isolated, mexicanismo. To separate from my culture (as from my family) I had to feel

42  Conceptualising home and diaspora competent enough on the outside and secure enough on the inside to live life on my own. Yet in leaving home I did not lose touch with my origins because lo mexicano is in my system. I am a turtle, where I go I carry ‘home’ on my back. (2007, p. 43, author’s emphasis) A borderland is ‘a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary’ (2007, p. 25). In the above passage, Anzaldúa sheds light on the ways in which one’s cultural capital is oriented toward home. Brah refers to this orientation as the ‘homing desire’, which she differentiates from the desire for one’s homeland (1996). In other words, the attachment to the homeland is not always about the physical return to the homeland, but rather orientations toward it. These orientations embody a diasporic consciousness. Memories, motivations, practices and everyday routines reveal the ways in which diasporans make home through their cultural capital. Oriented toward the homeland, their cultural capital nurtures and shapes how diasporans appropriate value, organise themselves and create a sense of stability and affinity. The homing desire is about existing between different worlds. It is the link that embodies the space of ‘here’ and ‘there’ and all that falls in between. This homing desire can differ among siblings, parents, generations and fellow diasporans. The ways in which migrants and subsequent generations feel like or become stakeholders in the destination country show that the homing desire is contingent upon the destination country. Depending on the political and economic circumstances surrounding migration, diasporans may have divergent orientations. As well, information communication technologies allow contemporary migrants to continue and establish contact in different ways than previous generations, thus resulting in different attachments to the home and destination countries across a range of people (Ignacio, 2005; Castro and Gonzalez, 2008). The homing desire becomes manifested and negotiated through enactments of belonging. In one sense, enactments are ritual events or festivals, and more informally through expressions of language, speech and non-verbal actions. Formally and informally, these enactments are ways of moving through the world. They are not always explicit, and can be intentional or unintentional. Whether real or imagined, home occupies a critical space in the everyday lives of diasporans. The dynamics of the homing desire illuminate the multiple forms of home, impacts of Othering and the factors that shape them, which in turn affect a sense of belonging. Parreñas and Siu argue that ‘the diasporic condition is produced by the partial belonging of subjects to both their place of residence and the homeland, and more specifically by the displacement caused by their placement outside the logic of the racially and culturally homogenous and territorially bounded nation-state’ (2007, p. 13). This raises a crucial point because nationhood, often used to engender a sense of belonging and a point of identification, becomes problematic because of the changes associated with globalisation (Manalansan, 2004; Parreñas and Siu, 2007). Identity, location and a sense of belonging no longer easily fit together. Culture, as a basis of identification and

Conceptualising home and diaspora  43 familiarity, becomes more relevant as a basis of affinity (Massey, 1994; Manalansan, 2004).

Home in the Filipino diaspora For many Filipinos in the diaspora, there is a strong awareness of income disparities between the Philippines and advanced nations (see e.g. Parreñas, 2001b, 2008; Hochschild, 2002; Espiritu, 2003). With disparities being part of the Filipino experience, Filipinos recognise the conditions of dispersal and inequality across the globe. This is enhanced by the construction of the Philippines as home, both by the Philippine government and in public discourse, which ‘guarantees the smooth flow of foreign currency into the economy’ (Parreñas, 2001b, p. 54). What strikes resonance with Filipinos in the diaspora, in my own life and for my fellow first generation Filipino Americans, are the transnational activities that shape our lives, despite (or perhaps because of) dislocation. For instance, even though physically dislocated, many Filipino diasporans play an active role in the Philippines by remitting portions of their earnings to give opportunities for food, basic necessities, education, accommodation, health and savings (Bagasao, 2007). Aside from monetary sacrifices, these remittances come with ‘social costs’, or the concerns or anxieties that may have an effect on the migrant and the larger Philippine society (Asis, 2004). These costs include an eroding sense of nationalism; influence on family and cultural values, such as conspicuous consumption; creating a dependence on remittances; the toll on family members’ well-being because of absent family members, especially children; and problems with repatriation (2004). While contending with these issues, Filipinos are also aware of their status as ‘partial citizens’, whereby they do not have full access to rights and entitlements (Parreñas, 2001c). Neither fully integrated in a destination country nor a full part of the Philippines, Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) are split, occupying a liminal and paradoxical space. Instead of being seen as multi-citizens and belonging to more than one location, with the complications of political, economic, social and cultural circumstances that contribute to one’s sense of belonging, OFWs remain dislocated as partial citizens. Transnational households are also significant for diasporic Filipinos. Due to changes in global recruiting, more Filipino women (or Filipinas) leave the Philippines to work, meaning that mothering occurs transnationally. Filipino transnational households, reproductive labour and mothering, the division of labour in the home and links with economic development, as well as representations of gender while abroad have highlighted layers of power struggles (Parreñas, 2001b, 2008; Hochschild, 2002; Asis, Huang and Yeoh, 2004; Yeates, 2004b; Faier, 2009; Pratt, 2012). Women’s struggles may have led to more production and opportunities outside the home, but gender structures have not changed. As well, migrant Filipinas do not return to the Philippines as often as men do; women maximise financial gains because of the expense of flights and challenges of border crossing (Parreñas, 2001b). Not all OFWs are mothers, but as caring for children and maintenance of the household does not generally transfer to Filipino men but instead extends through other

44  Conceptualising home and diaspora networks of women (aunts, grandmothers and other non-kin), the role of women as reproductive labourers continues. Thus, transnational households in diaspora space reveal an entanglement of gendered spaces within global labour migration. A transnational household can experience multiple dislocations. One complicating factor is that home is often seen as a private space and that any problems in the home are up to individuals to solve, despite some of these problems being caused by global systems. In addition, with the domestic sphere often cast as a woman’s ‘natural’ place, work done in the home such as domestic work or hospice care is not subject to labour standards or union protection, nor considered as productive and additive to the labour force (see e.g. Tung, 2003; Hochschild, 2002; Aguilar, 2004; Parreñas, 2001b, 2008). And because care work is relational, it involves emotional investments, not just an exchange of goods. Multiple investments across borders produce transnational challenges. Asis, Huang and Yeoh (2004) explore how migrant women and their families deal with the social costs of migration, given the transnational households they have. One participant in their study said that her sense of dislocation was so strong that she wrote to her family as well as her neighbours almost daily. As far as children, Asis, Huang and Yeoh (2004) and Parreñas (2001b) find that the experiences of children are not universal, but that those with extended familial support or with a good amount of emotional and material resources fare better than those without such supports. When asked if they would be migrant workers, almost all of Parreñas’ respondents said ‘never’. While migrant parents’ efforts are understood to be sacrifices, and children know that these sacrifices are not without meaning, their emotions towards absent parents were not handled openly, and some children remained resentful and bitter into adulthood (Parreñas, 2001b). The return of migrant mothers, as well as fathers, does not solve the problem, and implicitly calls for a return to the nuclear family. There are many different types of family, extended support networks and access to resources, which allow for healthy development. It is important not to forget that most migrant workers do not want to leave their family and in many cases migration is a last resort that is chosen at the expense of being without their family. According to Parreñas, the moral disciplining of migrant mothers hurts those who most need help and protection (2001b). It ignores the struggles faced by migrant mothers and downplays their experience and the sacrifices they make in order to contribute to their family’s well-being. Additionally, such disciplining does not address the circumstances that have caused this to happen in the first place, the growing inequity and the widening gap between industrialised and developing nations. Instead of calling for the return of migrant women, Parreñas recommends that gender egalitarian views of child rearing are essential, and that gender be redefined so that women are not seen as the sole providers of care. She argues that motherhood should include providing for one’s family, and that: Gender should be recognized as a fluid social category, and masculinity should be redefined, as the larger society questions the biologically based assumption that only women have an aptitude to provide care. Government

Conceptualising home and diaspora  45 officials and the media could then stop vilifying migrant women, redirecting their attention, instead, to men. They could question the lack of male accountability for care work, and they could demand that men, including migrant fathers, take more responsibility for the emotional welfare of their children. (2001b, p. 54) Asis, Huang and Yeoh’s arguments further support this, writing that when the mother is absent, caregiving and domestic tasks tended to be redistributed to other females in the family (2004). Migration changes the ways in which reproductive labour is distributed, but such labour remains gender determined. What this reveals is that gender ideologies in the Philippines continue to support traditional gender roles. While studies illustrate that even though OFWs show a great deal of individualism and empowerment, their work and their positionalities still remain within a framework where women are the primary carers (Asis et al, 2004). Upon return to the Philippines, former OFWs continue in their traditional roles of housework (Asis et al, 2004, p. 201), despite having been breadwinners before. Because care labour is needed around the globe and many families remain poor in the Philippines and depend on remittances, the migration of Filipina mothers could be read as a win-win. Given the central role of women in the Filipino family and the invisibility of Filipinos in society, not only are gender roles not transformed, but their experiences are further marginalised. Although one may have more autonomy and independence with migration, the struggles of Filipinas in the diaspora remain largely unseen. The impact of migration on home and belonging is multidirectional. Global economic patterns not only affect migrants’ own lives, but also their family, those with whom they interact, with whom they work and for whom they work. There are painful consequences for families, resulting in many emotions including regret, instability and security for both migrant parents and children separated by labour migration (Parreñas, 2001a, 2001b). Home, in regard to transnational households, takes on multiple dimensions of dislocation. While working abroad can offer more financial opportunities for families, thus raising their standard of living, it is undeniable the amount of emotional energy that takes its toll on those who have moved abroad and those who have stayed behind. Shifting identities and colonial mentality Filipino identity formation is intricately tied to the Philippines’ colonial history, where Filipinos experienced intense racial, class and gender discrimination. This is not to say that the Philippines were peaceful and utopian prior to Spain’s or the US’s conquests. Rather, the legacies of colonial conquests still retain a hold on the structure of contemporary societies (Spencer, 2006), particularly in regard to racial, gender and class identity in the Philippines. Influenced by what they can be in their situations, Filipinos’ sense of identity is politically and culturally contingent.

46  Conceptualising home and diaspora For example, Ignacio’s study on community formation shows that Filipino/ American relations are steeped in ambiguous, divisive politics of identity. Ignacio argues that the formation of Filipino racial identity is through Spanish and American colonialism, the latter leaving a strong bearing on what is oft-referenced as ‘colonial mentality’ (2005). David and Okazaki define colonial mentality as Filipino Americans experiencing ‘a form of internalized oppression, characterized by a perception of ethnic or cultural inferiority that is believed to be a specific consequence of centuries of colonization under Spain and the United States’ (David and Okazaki, 2006, p. 241). This mentality was referenced by many of the participants I interviewed as part of their understanding of Filipino identity. Colonial mentality is a remnant of US imperialism whereby the colonised population emulates the coloniser (Espiritu, 2003; Ignacio, 2005). It is an ideology of whiteness, where white identity is the absence of colour, the source of privilege and the base against which all other races are measured. Even though colonial mentality is referenced by Filipinos in casual everyday parlance, its damaging effects are normalised and thus remain unchallenged. In internalising inferiority, one internalises the memories and ideologies of the colonisers: ‘The memory which is assigned him is certainly not that of his people. The history which is taught him is not his own’ (Memmi, 1965, p.  105). Thus, in addition to the embracing of the privileges that whiteness offers, Filipinos are unable to fully utilise all the privileges and resources available to whites because their social positioning is lower on the racial hierarchy than that of whites. In her study, Ignacio focuses on how language is used as a way to draw distinctions, to draw lines between more or less Americanised Filipinos. For example, the pronunciation of the letter P as an F is part of an ‘imposition of English letters on the Tagalog alphabet’ (Ignacio, 2005, p. 119). The purposeful pronouncing of f’s as p’s is in one way a pronunciation of resistance, but when pronounced unintentionally, it is simultaneously read as a source of shame (Ignacio, 2005). In the popular Filipino American independent film The Debut (2001), one of the characters is accused of being a FOB (fresh off the boat), for he not only says f’s as p’s, but also has continued to speak with this Filipino accent, despite having been in the US for several years. The implication of this shaming of the Filipino accent is that it is inferior to American pronunciation and that Filipinos must assimilate to be accepted. This indicates that whiteness exercises its hold in the collective imagination and identity formation. Drawing on the work of Fanon, the concept of colonial mentality can be seen as a reactional phenomenon of the collective unconscious. Fanon argues: ‘the collective unconscious, without our having to fall back on the genes, is purely and simply the sum of our prejudices, myths, collective attitudes of a given group’ (1986, p. 188). Anzaldúa describes a similar form of colonial mentality, which she calls la facultad, which comes from living within and among social, cultural, historical and political borders. She describes la facultad as a way of seeing beneath the surface. Looking at this in the context of diaspora space, this is a form of diasporic consciousness produced from multiple border crossings, wherein the faculty of thought ‘is an acute awareness mediated by the part of the psyche that

Conceptualising home and diaspora  47 does not speak, that communicates in images and symbols which are the faces of feelings, that is, behind which feelings reside/hide’ (2007, p. 60). A diasporic consciousness, not always a consciousness with purposeful reasoning, manifests itself in the different usages of language, expressions of the self, and multiple attachments, identifications and affiliations which often are contradictory, complex and contentious. For Filipinos, then, colonial mentality manifests the double inscription of inferiority by Spain and particularly the US and can be seen through ideologies, beliefs and conceptions of the world around them. The speaking of a blend of Tagalog and English languages, for example, and the understandings of Filipino identity, national pride and the social location of Filipinos in the diaspora are expressions of cultural imposition, where Filipinos draw on values, language and social roles defined by colonial powers. While colonial mentality can be articulated in different forms, David and Okazaki characterise it as the defamation of the Filipino self, culture and/or body and the disparagement of those ‘less-Americanized Filipinos’ (2006, pp. 241–2). And, although subject to discrimination and colonial mentality, Filipinos were not without resistance, nor were they helpless (Rosaldo, 1989; San Juan, 1995). We see examples of colonial mentality in Ignacio’s study on Filipino community formation on the internet (2005), essays in Pinay Power (2005b), Colonize This (2002), Asian/Pacific Islander American Women (2003), Hagedorn’s widely cited novel Dogeaters (1990) and American Son (2010). In addition to colonial mentality, scholars also address generational borders among Filipinos and the various perspectives and feelings about identification, with a particular focus on shifting ethnic identities. As de Leon writes, ‘Like many 1.5 and second-generation youth, Filipino Americans are often caught in a cultural limbo where they feel disconnected’ (2004, p.  91). These generations are exposed to mainstream culture but also the cultures of their immigrant parents, creating what Ahmed calls a ‘mixed orientation’: ‘an orientation that unfolds from the gap between reception and possession’ (2006, p. 154, author’s emphasis). This space between is a result of dislocation, of feeling of place. In writing about identity construction for Filipino Americans and participation in social enclaves, de Leon remarks how Filipinos in Southern California join the DJ scene as an ‘avenue to establish, express, and affirm a collective identity’ (2004, p. 196). Being within predominantly white suburbs, especially for Filipinos who migrated in the 1970s directly to suburban areas (Bonus, 2000; Espiritu, 2003; de Leon, 2004), the sense of diasporic consciousness and shifting identities is more salient: ‘as young people grapple with the ambiguity of their experiences, the new strategies of adaptation, negotiation, and resistance play themselves out through their affiliations practices, and cultural productions’ (de Leon, 2004, p. 194). De Leon’s study shows how Filipino Americans pass beliefs, ideologies and understandings of marginality through social networks. The intersections of identity and belonging within the dynamics of diaspora space work together with the homing desire to produce what Brah calls locationality in contradiction, ‘a positionality of dispersal; of simultaneous situatedness within gendered spaces of class, racism, ethnicity, sexuality, age; of movement

48  Conceptualising home and diaspora across shifting cultural, religious and linguistic boundaries; of journeys across geographical and psychological borders’ (1996, p.  204). Marginality, as a legacy of colonialism, is embedded within locationality in contradiction: ‘Perhaps one of colonialism’s most disabling, traumatizing effects has been its ability to undermine the subjugated culture’s views of its homeland as a sacrosanct site by subjugating traditional notions of national and ethnic character, often replacing those with the colonizer’s own’ (Francia, 1999, p. 192). Because people respond to these dynamics in different ways, enactments of everyday life illuminate the contexts of identity and belonging not only within one particular group, but also in wider society.

A community of communities Home, feeling at home and making home occur within space. For Laguerre, social space ‘is the niche where racial ideologies become embodied as racial practices as a result of the encounter between the guest-immigrants and the host-community’ (2000, p. 154). Space is contingent with not only racial ideologies, but also class and gender (Massey, 2005). Space is geographical (the location where diasporans dwell, whether outside or in the margins of dominant spaces), social (the position of diasporans within space) and ethnicised (the position of an ethnic group or enclave within a racial hierarchy) (Laguerre, 2000). Laguerre’s reading of social space is useful, as it considers space as a node to see the interrelations between “home”, belonging and identity. It identifies space as a location where social practices and symbolic and material attachments can be analysed against the ideological and institutional structures in which they take place. Regarding mobility and space, Ahmed argues: The politics of mobility, of who gets to move with ease across the lines that divide spaces, can be described as the politics of who gets to be at home and who gets to extend their bodies into inhabitable spaces, as spaces that are inhabitable as they extend the surface of such bodies. (2006, p. 142) In other words, institutional dynamics – immigration status and profession – operate as a form of exclusion, affecting the ways people take up space, make space, situate themselves, communicate and identify. Seeking a sense of home, therefore, should not be addressed simply as a physical space, but rather the focus should be on how people occupy and are oriented within spaces, as Ahmed argues. Because a majority of the Filipinos in Ireland came to work as healthcare professionals or domestic workers, or dependents of these, many live close to or in their place of work to maximise earnings for remittances. Interviewees recognised that there are several Filipinos grouped near hospitals and nursing homes around Dublin, naming significant populations in Ballyfermot, Drimnagh, Crumlin, Tallaght, Kilmainham, Bray, as well as around Limerick and Galway. In this way, both immigration status (as argued in Chapter 2) and profession shape the places

Conceptualising home and diaspora  49 in which Filipinos enact social practices. At best, Filipinos constitute an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 2006) or a ‘community of communities’ (Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008). Despite the variations and circumstances of their migration, Filipinos’ imagined sense of community and identification with each other in the diaspora are part of a ‘field of identifications’ that ‘are forged within and out of a confluence of narratives from annals of collective memory and re-memory’ (Brah, 1996, p. 196). Research participants actively sought a sense of community, relying heavily on social networks and social practices to provide important support, relieving the homesickness associated with family separation. While many migrants experience pain and loss associated with migration, research participants felt a particularly strong sense of family separation. Filipinos have an extended notion of immediate family, which includes grandparents, in-laws, spiritual kin (godparents and god-siblings) and cousins through the multilineal and bilateral descent system (Parreñas, 2001b). This notion of family places firm emphasis on a sense of reliance, allegiance and solidarity with members of the immediate family and also extended family. Thus, participants felt strongly detached from many people and expanded family separation to include cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and spiritual kin. This, in addition to the geographic scattering, led to the prominence of gathering in social activities. Because there is no specific enclave where Filipinos reside, nor do Filipinos perceive themselves as one community, I introduce the concept of ‘connecting sites’ to analyse their social practices.

Connecting sites Connecting sites are physical and conceptual. They are both formal and informal. While there is some overlap between them, I differentiate formal spaces as principal spaces for public displays, any gathering within a recognised public building or establishments that have a specific “ethnic” element. For Filipinos in the Dublin Area, these include but are not limited to “Oriental” shops and restaurants. Some places I frequented during the research included prominent Filipino restaurants and a variety of Oriental stores in the Greater Dublin Area. I also often visited one of a few Filipino sari-sari stores (a convenient store, sari-sari meaning ‘variety’ in Tagalog) which primarily stocked products from the Philippines, although these had a smaller selection of products. These formal sites, more importantly, maintain transnational elements, as they continue relationships with businesses overseas through importation of products. For Laguerre, public spaces are ‘hybrid spaces’ where the ‘global shows its localized face or simply where the global becomes visible and situated in space’ (Laguerre, 2000, 24). Hybrid spaces are crucial sites for investigating how intersections of diaspora, migration and social practices take shape. These hybrid spaces also occur in informal connecting sites, which I designate as those spaces where Filipinos gather but which do not primarily operate as ‘Filipino’ spaces: churches, public parks, sports centres (used for tournaments and leagues) and people’s homes or offices. In Dublin, as there are no shared public spaces specifically

50  Conceptualising home and diaspora designated for cultural gatherings (although at the time of the research, two migrant organisations operated in business offices), most socialisation among Filipinos occurs in informal spaces. In these connecting sites, enactments of home, identity and belonging become visible and identifiable. They are underpinned by the relations of Irish society and institutions. These spaces are also open to people who do not actively participate in Filipino social organisations or activities. Connecting sites illuminate expressions of individuals and different groups, hierarchies within groups and differing values among Filipinos within ‘communities’. Highlighting connecting sites recognises people’s affinity to multiple locations and networks across physical and social boundaries. Moreover, it problematises the objectification of diasporic workers as anonymous subjects. Feeling limited in their social spaces, many participants placed a special importance on gathering with other Filipinos. While the memory of a common homeland is one level of identification, it is not enough for people to sustain lasting social relationships in the destination country. And, because people react and respond in a myriad of ways to the dynamics of diaspora, looking at the ways in which people enact a sense of home in Ireland is much more useful than presuming that Filipinos developed relationships with other Filipinos simply because they shared a common origin. Without recognising the depth of enactments in connecting sites, it can be difficult to take into account the different reasons Filipinas develop social networks and articulate practices amongst their dislocations. However, I do caution that it would be too superficial of a reading to say that being from the same country of origin or living in a cluster automatically fostered a sense of togetherness and community. It is too simplistic to assume that people emplaced in similar conditions have similar interests and practices (Bourdieu, 1989). While the memory of a common homeland, the Philippines, is one level of identification, it is not enough for people to sustain lasting social relationships in the host country. Some participants were able to rebuild similar networks to those they had in the Philippines (sometimes with kabayan they knew in their province), others formed new cultural groups and social groups or in some cases stuck to their own. But, because people react differently and respond in a myriad of ways to the dynamics of diaspora space, looking at the ways in which their shared affinities shaped their motivations, the ways in which people perform borderland strategies and enact the homing desire in Ireland is much more useful than presuming that Filipinos developed relationships with kabayan simply because they shared a common origin. The term kabayan translates to ‘townmate’ or ‘countryman’ and comes from the root word bayan, meaning ‘town’ or ‘homeland’. The term and the attitude towards fellow Filipinos is an extension of reliance and support on fictive kin and co-ethnics and is embedded in social relations. It is based on the notion of kapwa, a value or concept that translates to ‘fellow human being’ or ‘shared being’ and is embodied in how people relate to fellow human beings (Pasco et al, 2004). Kapwa is part of the structure of hindi ibang tao, or ‘one of us’. The understanding of the self is seen together with the people around them, where hindi ibang

Conceptualising home and diaspora  51 tao ‘assumes a sense of being next to kin or being a part of kin’ (Pasco, Morse and Olson, 2004, p. 240). The sense of kapwa with kabayan is heightened when abroad, and can be seen through the visible sharing of information, exchange of goods and activities in Filipino communities abroad in cities such as Hong Kong, Rome, Los Angeles and San Francisco (see e.g. Bonus, 2000; Gibson, Law and McKay, 2001; Parreñas, 2001b). I use the term kabayan, as well as fellow Filipinos, throughout this book, as this is how participants referred to each other and regarded one another.

Conclusion Although home can have many locations, this does not mean that the diasporic subject is without roots. One can plant roots in many locations, for home is located “not only spatially, but also temporally and ideologically because the notion of ‘return’ is itself complicated” (Jazeel, 2006, p. 23). Ahmed writes that one learns more about home when one leaves it (2006, p. 9), opening up the possibility to interpret things in new ways (Anzaldúa, 2007). The consciousness that comes out of these new interpretations and dislocations is a diasporic consciousness, which becomes stronger through local articulations of racialisation, no matter if it takes the form of exclusion, inclusion or somewhere in between (Parreñas and Siu, 2007). In inhabiting more than one space or no space at all, making home in the diasporic context is connected to dislocation. The spaces that one occupies within this dislocation sit within the multiple sites of social relations, within the destination country, the home country, the spaces in between, and historical specificity, power struggles and across axes of differentiation. To do so would reveal the complexities of constantly shifting power relations (Massey, 1994), being ‘like you’ and ‘not like you’, and thus grounding home as a paradoxical space. Home is in more than one place because of dislocations. Identity, community and place are located in this paradox. As diaspora space sees beyond the sedentarist bias and beyond dichotomies of us/them, the framework uncovers the contradictions involved in Filipino diasporic settlement. Moving away from the conceptions of migration as a flow of people, one is able to see how Filipinas embody diaspora space and make home in their destination countries and simultaneously cultivate home in the Philippines. In various connecting sites, we see the homing desire, identity and colonial mentality performed, remade, rearticulated in relation to the local. This tells us much about how diasporans’ multiple identifications and sense of dislocation are shaped by various dynamics of diaspora. Whether people are conscious of their homing desire or not, social practices and the wide-ranging dynamics of diaspora space are in constant dialogue. Knowles contends: The intricate connections between movement, displacement and dwelling . . . produce new belongings, which are usefully conceptualised as threads connecting people with the social and physical environments into which their lives intersect. This may, but need not, produce connections to place,

52  Conceptualising home and diaspora although all lives are spatially configured. These connecting threads are conceived as forms of belonging and are, popularly and intellectually, referred to as home. (2003: 164) Diasporans do not have a one-sided relationship with the homeland; diaspora space as a framework also illuminates the ways in which ‘shifting configurations of power and resistance in the local impel and enable alternative imaginaries and practices of belonging in displacement’ (Parreñas and Siu, 2007, p.  14). How Filipinas negotiate being away from the homeland, being seen as natural carers in Ireland and simultaneously being vilified for abandoning ‘home’ while portrayed as the ‘light of the family home’ to sustain economic development (Asis et al, 2004) illustrates the ways in which ‘home’ is a paradoxical, contradictory and multiplicitous phenomenon. In the next few chapters, I examine the articulations of the homing desire as they were important for participants. Group identity becomes real through cultural practices linked to the homeland (Fortier, 1999). For even if people perform or present a false self (Goffman, 1997, p. 96), what is important to look at are the ways in which people orient themselves and how they make sense of their transnational identity and interactions. As these articulations happen simultaneously and not chronologically, I explore connecting sites thematically. I first address the use of language as a borderland strategy. Second, I examine the maintenance and adaptation of rituals, religion and routine. Following that, I discuss eating, gathering and socialising as a way to create and sustain relationships.

2 Landscapes of dislocation

Home is a conceptual and lived space stretching over physical and constructed borders. Feeling at home is shaped by dislocation, a state of feeling out of place due to multiple layers of migration and diasporic processes. In this chapter, I discuss the three main sources of dislocation that emerged from participants’ stories: circumstances of migration, family separation and vulnerability. In response to these dislocations, Filipinas orient themselves, make meaning and identify themselves within their environments. In discussing such migration circumstances, I examine how relevant laws and regulations consign people to different social locations, and in some cases, determine life trajectories. This chapter examines migration as a form of cultural capital underpinning the narrative of migration, as well as the implications of the needs for Filipinas to constantly adapt to the fragility of their migration and settlement status. Citizenship is a major factor in mediating one’s experience and levels of engagement in civil society. Citizenship is a status that means full recognition, rights and entitlements and thus the ability to engage in society (Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative, 2008). For non-EU migrants in Ireland, the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) designated four stamps that confer different rights and entitlements.1 The GNIB gives stamps on a one- to two-year basis for non-EU migrants without long-term residency. These rights and entitlements include the following: access to social welfare, education and services; fair treatment in the workplace; and the right to vote and for family reunification. Table 2.1 lists the GNIB immigration stamps during the years of data collection. Having to renew one’s immigration status on a one- to two-year basis, with no guarantee of security, non-EU nationals in Ireland are unable to make long-term plans. While one might not think about this status on a day-to-day basis, it directly shapes one’s experience in Ireland. And because of the precarity of status, one can be stuck in a waiting game that produces a constant state of instability and vulnerability.

Migration circumstances Innumerable factors and processes affect understandings of identity, belonging and home. In this section, I discuss three key circumstances of migration that have shaped

54  Landscapes of dislocation Table 2.1  Immigration stamps in Ireland for non-EU/EEA2 Immigration Stamp

Categories of Persons Permitted to Be in the State

Stamp 1

A person who is entitled to work with a valid work permit, Green Card, working holiday authorisation holder; employer-led. A person in full time training with a named body for a specific period of time (such as accountancy). A student that can work up to 20 hours during term time and 40 hours during holidays. Stamp 2 is primarily given to third-level students. Primarily given to dependent students under 18 years of age, does not allow the student to enter employment. Person cannot work or study full time. Given to visitors, tourists, a member of a religious order and spouses and dependents of a work authorisation holder. Person can work without a permit. Issued to those with work visas/ authorisation, spouses of Irish/EU citizens, refugees, those who were granted permission to remain by having an Irish citizen child (Irish Born Child residency) and long term residency.

Stamp 1a Stamp 2 Stamp 2a Stamp 3 Stamp 4

Source: Derived from Garda National Immigration Bureau explanation of Main Immigration Stamps, 2009.

the lenses through which Filipinas interpret their experiences: the culture of emigration from the Philippines, migration status and recruitment. These circumstances have affected enactments of home. It is also important to note that circumstances overlap, and in some cases, one does not always necessarily precede the other. Culture of emigration With millions of Filipinos either unemployed or underemployed, the diaspora is oriented towards a continued culture of emigration and remittances (CMA, 2006). As of 2013, the Commission on Overseas Filipinos reports that the stock estimate of overseas Filipinos is 10,238,614 (COF, 2013), over 10 per cent of the population. This stock estimate accounts for permanent, temporary and irregular migrants. The POEA states that over 2 million overseas contracts were processed in 2014 (POEA, 2014). According to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (2016), from January to November 2015, personal remittances cumulatively amounted to over 25 billion US dollars, and 22.8 billion US dollars in cash remittances (coursed through banks). In 2005, remittances amounted to over 10  billion US dollars (Bagasao, 2007).3 The usefulness of remittances has been long debated, particularly whether they are helpful in the short term or perpetuate debt and a migration culture (Sto. Tomas, 2006; Castles, 2007). The economic dependence on remittances has generated great interest not only in the complex ties of gendered labour migration, development and economics but also in the relationship between remittances and the social costs of perpetual migration (Parreñas, 2001b, 2008; Asis, Huang and Yeoh, 2004; Piper, 2004; Yeates, 2004b).

Landscapes of dislocation  55 Given this larger context, Ireland was a relatively new destination for interviewees, but emigration was definitely a familiar experience. Many of the research participants had family, friends and extended networks that either lived or had returned from North America, western Europe and Australia. Some had worked in one or more of the following labour markets: Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Thailand. Only two of the eighteen interviewees did not have any of these experiences or networks. But nonetheless, all research participants stated that they were aware of the Philippines’ structural dependence on overseas labour and remittances and the culture of emigration – largely because of the Philippine government’s active encouragement of skilled labour export. With over a half of participants having completed nursing programs with the intention to export their labour for higher wages, this research shows how the ability to send remittances constitutes the basis of, and the driving reason for, the majority of the diaspora. For research participants, the main goal was not only to ‘support a growing family as the family stands’ (G1), but also to provide education for children, to support immediate and extended family in the Philippines and other countries, to build a house in the Philippines or to repay existing debts or other loans. Remittances also paid for everyday expenses, like jeepney4 fares, medicine, vitamins and other miscellaneous expenses. Such practices became normalised and often perceived of as ‘a stepping stone’ to moving to another destination. Eleanor, one of the interviewees, mentioned that an uncle in the US, another one in Australia, and cousins in the UK had all left the Philippines to improve the quality of their lives. When reflecting on her decisions and comparing them with her cousins’, Eleanor said, ‘If you take up nursing, it will connote something. You’re going abroad, really, for greener pastures’. As such, the selection of a particular profession not only signified upward mobility but also the intention of seeking a job outside the country. Therefore, migration is deeply woven into the fabric of socialisation and has become an integral way for Filipinas’ to increase cultural capital. The cultural significance of migration is also tied to participants’ sense of agency, which often manifests as a sense of adventure – being young and spirited, just as others before them had been when they moved out of the country for work. Agency, in this context, can best be explained using van Hear’s axis of choice (1998, p. 42), with ‘choice’ or ‘more options’ on one side and ‘little choice’ or ‘few options’ on the other. Although such agency is limited in that it continues to reify gendered structures in the workforce, participants understood their ability to move abroad as a sign of mobility and agency. Although aware that they were in a position of exploitation and instability, they knew that their labour gave them the opportunity to simultaneously seek adventure and provide for families. Thus, the dialectic between agency and adventure was intertwined with labour emigration. Migration is so deeply woven into their social fabric that some research participants readily accepted employment knowing little or nothing about their host countries. Some selected Ireland because of their connections through family or friends, but most had little or no knowledge about the island beyond Irish

56  Landscapes of dislocation missionaries in the Philippines, music figures such as Enya and U2 and images of war from the Troubles (1963–1985). In many cases, a ‘sense of adventure’ simply provided enough justification for migration. For example, after confirming her job with her employer, Josie said, ‘I look at the globe and I can’t find where is Ireland [laughs]. Where is this place? So they said it’s just near UK. Ok. So I don’t have any idea where Ireland is’. Despite this blind acceptance, however, many did experience fears about alienation and language barriers. Those like Teresa knew that moving to Ireland might be tough given her family members’ experience in other countries: ‘Like my aunt in Germany, she didn’t even have a clue how to speak German . . . So I feel like I was also kind of motivated by [family abroad]. And being encouraged by their hard . . . you know, typical Filipino, ‘hard worker’. But with the quest to look for ‘greener pastures’, she had to do the same. Regardless of life circumstances, upward mobility and improved quality of life remained constant factors that drove emigration. Migration status Upon entering destination countries, and well after arrival, migration status becomes a core part of Filipina diasporans’ migration circumstances and social positioning (see Fig. 2.1). This was particularly acute for those who entered Ireland not as professionals but as domestic workers. Josie, a direct-hire domestic worker, entered on a work permit after being recruited from Hong Kong: ‘If I’m comparing my wages to Hong Kong, my wages for one month is just for one week in [Ireland]. So, ok. There’s no doubt I agreed’. Josie became the breadwinner in her family after her father passed away, leaving her to provide financially for her

1

1

Working Visa Work Permit 6

3

Green Card International Student

2

Citizen 1

4

EU Resident Religious

Figure 2.1  Migration status of interviewees. Source: Diane Nititham.

Landscapes of dislocation  57 mother and five siblings. She left college to work in Hong Kong, and then moved to Ireland. Eleanor’s and Josie’s experiences point to two important issues for Filipinas in Ireland. First, immigration status is linked to profession. Since the GNIB has designated stamps defined by purpose of stay (or occupation), different rights and entitlements exist for non-EU/EEA immigrants. Eleanor, who is on Stamp 4 and has EU residency, has flexibility in terms of her job choice, is able to stay in Ireland, can travel freely through the EU and is entitled to social services. Josie, however, is restricted through Stamp 1: she is tied to her employer, must apply for visas to travel within the EU and has limitations with family reunification, leaving her with limited economic and social mobility. As a result, Josie has less future security than Eleanor does. Furthermore, spouses and dependents do not have the automatic right to work. Because of this restriction, they are excluded from full access to the Irish labour market. Because family members have separate rights and entitlements, immigration status fragments family units even when the family is in Ireland together. This leads to confusion among many participants about whose rights are whose and who is entitled to what. Alma is on Stamp 4 (working visa), her husband on Stamp 3 (work permit) and her children on Stamp 2A (dependent students). One of her children will soon be eighteen and will have to either attend college or obtain a green card or permit in order to remain in Ireland. In addition to the cost and stress of constant renewals, travel abroad also carries an additional cost for each family member for re-entry visas. Regarding the complications of multiple visa applications and conflicting immigration stamps, Alma believes: ‘It’s really money, money, money’. Because members of Alma’s family are on different stamps, she feels that her family is unable to plan long-term, as she is uncertain whether her husband or her children will be allowed to stay. This obstacle is not just a personal concern; participants and other Filipinos in Ireland are equally concerned for their fellow kabayan. Manuela commented on how some children of the Filipina workers do not even know that they do not have the same status and how that jeopardises their ability to stay united with their families and other social networks: When they arrive, the children are not considered as part of the family. [When they turned eighteen] suddenly, they found that number 1, they have no status, they are neither . . . ok, they are Filipinos, but they are not Irish. They don’t even have residence. (Manuela) Even if the students have been living in Ireland for most of their youth, or their family remains in Ireland, they are not permitted to stay because they are not recognised as ‘habitual residents’. This practice is completely at odds with Ireland’s constitution, which (calling it ‘the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society’) recognises the family as the cornerstone of Irish life.5 The separation of migrant families, however, sends a message that Ireland’s protection of the family

58  Landscapes of dislocation unit is accorded to Irish citizens only. While there have been requests and attempts to change the student/dependent stamp, this has not been a priority for GNIB. The barriers and complexities experienced by the families of migrant women make clear that the migrant woman worker becomes the tether to Ireland, reflecting a new system of labour migration. Immigration status not only bears on political rights and work entitlements, but also extends to class and cultural capital. Echoing the experiences of other immigrants in Ireland working below their qualifications (MRCI, 2004; Pillinger, 2007; MCRI, 2008), some Filipina domestic workers have university bachelor degrees, years of work experience in fields such as finance, government administration, research and midwifery but are unable to have their degrees or experience recognised. Some nurses, despite being able to take professional development courses, felt the valuable skills they already had were devalued when they were not allowed to perform as many tasks as they did in the Philippines or other countries. This is an example of ‘contradictory class mobility’, in which migrants leave jobs that correspond with their qualifications to work abroad in lower class jobs (Parreñas, 2001b). They experience a ‘decline in social status and increase in financial status’ (2001b, p. 150). Such limited mobility and the lack of universal recognition of educational qualifications are part of hidden strategies of exclusion, with some but not all cultural capital deemed legitimate. The second important issue is that Eleanor and Josie reflect a growing trend of women becoming the main economic providers. Heavy recruitment of healthcare and domestic work is implicated in this rapid flow of Filipina labour into Ireland (ICI, 2003; Yeates, 2004a, 2006). Global labour migration for women is a relatively new but increasingly popular phenomenon (Aguilar, 2004; Padilla, 2007). Workshop participants stressed that it is easier for women to get a job abroad, and they referenced statistics from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) regarding job openings for female workers in fields such as nursing, teaching and domestic caregiving. What was not recognised among the participants is that even though they have more mobility in becoming the main economic providers in the family, they remain confined within gendered professions of care. The difficulties and challenges they faced abroad led to a rationalisation of their social positions and their home country’s dependence on remittances. The demand for nursing and domestic work, compounded by ideologies, institutional legislation and the vilification of transnational mothers are entangled in the ‘empire of care’ (Choy, 2003). Care work is often seen as a woman’s natural role and thus interpreted as a private matter. For this reason, the empire of care may remain hidden as well as reinforce the racialised image of the sexualised and lesser Other, despite many women being highly educated (Hochschild, 2002; Choy, 2003; Espiritu, 2003). The fact that participants did not find the reification of women as carers does not mean that their gendered positionalities are unimportant. Rather, difference, as it was experienced by participants, was primarily seen through the lens of race. Gender cannot be discussed separate from race, nor race from gender, because these discourses are highly interconnected. Yet, because the

Landscapes of dislocation  59 intersections of care and nurturing are interpreted as private, this prevents Filipinas from being able to achieve economic equality, with few challenges in public or private discourse. This calls attention to hooks’s concern, that there is a need to discuss the intersections of race and gender with class (hooks, 2000a). Class differences, which are intertwined with race, often are interpreted or categorised as simply a racial issue. For example, concerns that affect the Filipino community in Ireland may simply be regarded as a Filipino concern at the national-political level. In other words, this homogenises Filipinos as a single group and obscures any concerns that Filipinos may have amongst themselves. This is particularly important as immigration status stratifies Filipinos and their access to opportunities and mobility. Even if interviewees were the main economic providers of their family, held the more stable stamp (such as Stamp 4) and were responsible for caring in and outside the home, participants did not see this as a triple burden. Rather, many participants argued that Filipinas are strong by nature and rationalised their need to work abroad. This led to the reinscription of a patriarchal and gendered selfidentity across gender-based recruitment in nursing and domestic work. hooks elucidates this, saying that many people are not aware of their oppression and their position in relationship to it. She argues: Many women do not join organized resistance against sexism precisely because sexism has not meant an absolute lack of choices. They may know they are discriminated against on the basis of sex, but they do not equate this with oppression. Under capitalism, patriarchy is structured so that sexism restricts women’s behavior in some realms even as freedom from limitations is allowed in other spheres. The absence of extreme restrictions leads many women to ignore the areas in which they are exploited or discriminated against; it may even lead them to imagine that no women are oppressed. (2000a, p. 5) Similarly, their physical mobility may have led them to overlook their contradictory class mobility. While Filipinas might not acknowledge the pervasive nature of gendered relations, this does not mean that they were completely unaware of structural inequality. However, gender issues were seen only in regard to vulnerability, exploitation and safety. For example, one workshop participant group noted, ‘Relatives are often afraid that [a woman] might be vulnerable, abused or exposed to hard labour and she’s not supposed to be working too hard’ (G2). In constructing their migrant identities as strong women and heroines, they reify their positions in the racial and social hierarchy. The variety of concerns across a broad range of experiences of Filipinas in Ireland, and the class divisions and conflicts that are engendered by these processes, are again interpreted as private, thereby raising levels of instability and vulnerability. Without recognising the depth of intersectional relations, the complexities of Filipina experience cannot be sufficiently challenged.

60  Landscapes of dislocation Many of the hardships participants experienced intermingle, affecting their efforts to adapt. Eileen has worked as a carer in the Dublin area since 2003. In her province in the Philippines, she was a teacher for seventeen years and her husband worked as a civil servant, which, according to Eileen, afforded them a ‘reasonable lifestyle’. However, things began to worsen during the economic crisis. Eileen said, ‘I was really determined to come here, for me it was really a great chance with my four kids . . . But, the money is not really good. So anyway, I’m here and . . . but the . . . we were thinking it would really be the greatest thing that we have done, bringing all the kids here.’ Her husband moved to Ireland in 2001 for work, and Eileen followed in 2003. A few months after her arrival, she successfully petitioned their four children to join them. Eileen had the ideal migrant success story: she maintains her nuclear family while successfully garnering a full-time job, thus improving her family’s economic circumstance. According to most research participants, this is the bestcase scenario because accessibility and economic well-being equate to feelings of being ‘at home’. But, after a few months, Eileen recognised that her marriage was not working. Eileen asked her husband to move out, but then he was involved in a serious accident and was hospitalised for three months. During this time, she reassessed their relationship and gave up her job to be with him. Their eldest daughter started working part-time to support the family, but because of her Stamp 2A, the GNIB notified her to stop working. After Eileen’s husband was discharged, Eileen went back to her job, but her salary was not enough to support the whole family. And when the last disability payment of €8000 came in, he unexpectedly sent the entire amount to a woman in the Philippines with whom he was having an extramarital relationship. Eileen then asked him to move out, and he now lives with his sister, who is also in Ireland. Eileen’s story sits within a false dichotomy of ‘successful/failed migration’ stories. While transnational family reunions are of ‘momentous importance in the life of transmigrants,’ migration combines new and existing dimensions and challenges (Skrbiš, 2008). Participants strongly felt that being together was key to feeling at home away from the Philippines: ‘Home is where you have access to everything, I mean, to everything without any difficulty, without any hesitation, without help easily, and then, home is where you get advice and support’ (Melinda). This romanticisation of home often leads one to forget that home can also be a place of conflict. The contradictions of class mobility, as seen with Eileen’s daughter’s inability to supplement income, however, are overshadowed by ‘togetherness’. Even though Eileen’s children may have opportunities that may be otherwise unavailable to them if they had stayed in the Philippines, the family still experiences restrictions from full access to Irish society as a result of institutional barriers. They are accepted at some levels, excluded at others. Dismantling this dichotomy of success/failure is important because while positive narratives encourage migration, it is important to know about the difficulties of settlement and immigration procedures and the ins-and-outs of everyday life. The common notion of the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) ‘is one who is awash with dollars, euros or pounds, after having ‘made it’ overseas’ (Gutierrez, 2007,

Landscapes of dislocation  61 p. 387). Participants wanted a more balanced representation so that future OFWs were not disillusioned. The returned migrants feared that many are not ready to handle the social costs involved and that they will be ill-prepared for the impending challenges. As workshop participants emphasised, what is missing from public discourse is that OFWs often keep challenges and difficulties to themselves. Recruitment to Ireland Many of the recruited nurses, domestic workers and religious workers with whom I met understood their recruitment as a welcome invitation to Ireland rather than a need to fill a labour shortage. Some nurses were recruited directly by Irish directors of nursing who had travelled to the Philippines in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Some domestic workers were recruited by Irish agencies that had set up offices in the Philippines. Others applied to agencies and were subsequently placed in Ireland. Some nurses, such as Grace and Alma, were even directly recruited by Irish nursing agencies in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where they were previously working. The strong presence of Irish recruiters left interviewees with a feeling of pride and a strong belief that ‘Ireland needs us.’ It seemed to them that Filipinos from all over the world were more welcomed in Ireland than were other immigrants (Fig. 2.2). OFWs, especially migrant workers who sent remittances, were proud that they would be contributing to both the Philippines and their destination countries. Through indirect participation in the Philippine economy and direct participation in Ireland, participants saw themselves as strong independent women and heroines. The construction of OFWs as heroines also carries its own emotional ties, for it suggests that the role of a Filipina migrant worker is to first contribute to her home country (Choi, 2010). Interviewees saw their recruitment as positive, for they felt they were bringing positive contributions. Sister Maria Lourdes, a religious contemplative who was

Professions of Interviewees Religious

2

Architecture

1

Student

1

Carer

1

Nanny/Domestic Worker/Assistant Retired Nurse

Figure 2.2  Occupations of interviewees. Source: Diane Nititham.

3 1 9

62  Landscapes of dislocation recruited by a monastery, believes that religious workers are often recruited from the Philippines because of workers’ familiarity with the English language. But although religious workers may have different goals and economic circumstances than nurses and domestic workers, they are not excluded from difficulties with immigration status. Sister Maria Lourdes presents an interesting case. She went to Ireland in 2005 and stayed for three years on Stamp 3 (under religious order worker), then returned to the Philippines in early 2008 after her stamp had expired. She went back to Ireland in late 2008 when the monastery requested she stay for another three years. But, upon re-registering at the GNIB, she was informed that she had to apply for a work permit because Stamp 3 for religious workers could only be issued once. However, as a sequestered nun, she cannot secure a work permit because the monastery is not eligible to request work permits. She returned to GNIB after a few days and received different information from another worker, who told her she had one year to find a way to secure a work permit. This left the onus on her to deal with the irregularity of her status. Sister Maria Lourdes said, ‘If they do not have a category for me, the issue, it’s very confusing. It’s very uncertain’. Sister Maria Lourdes’ story exemplifies how religious relationships also affected migration patterns between sending and receiving countries (MCRI, 2008). She hoped that if the Irish government were to recognise the work and historical relations of Irish missionaries abroad, they might treat immigrants better. Also, she felt that having a clear and consistent application of policy would allow her and other immigrants to make do with choices given to them, rather than leaving them in limbo about their status. In the end, although frustrated with her immigration status, Sister Maria Lourdes said that the reason she came to Ireland was to pray, so if she is unable to stay in Ireland, then she will accept it. While almost all participants noted that moving up the economic ladder, reuniting family and creating opportunities for their futures were primary factors in leaving the Philippines, they were not the only factors. Remnants of the Philippines’ colonial legacy, including mass poverty, economic hardship, an unstable government, recruitment of labour, family reunion and visions of ‘greener pastures’, intertwined with recognition of the diaspora, contributed to the decisionmaking processes. Ultimately, the particular challenges and successes of other OFWs, one’s migration history, and immigration circumstances affect how one orients oneself in diasporic space. Larsen et al. refer to these migration circumstances as a ‘life change strategy’, which looks at migration ‘as a means to create the possibility of a new, and better, way of living’ (2005, p. 357). Looking at migration as a life change strategy presents viable ways of incorporating the ranges of personal experiences and individual experiences along with institutional dynamics of diaspora. It also recognises choice, agency and the diversity of people’s circumstances and goals. Simultaneously, this challenges the notions that poverty ‘causes’ migration (Smith and Mutwarasibo, 2000; Black et al, 2006), but instead shows that migration arises from a whole range of factors. These stories, all driven by complex stimuli, sit within a larger framework of global politics and economics. Not recognising these connections and the ways in which cultural

Landscapes of dislocation  63 capital are arbitrarily accepted renders a reading of the Filipino migration experience into Ireland ahistorical and, as such, exotic.

Conditions of family separation For you to be able to feel at home, there should always be acceptance in the realisation that you’re already there in that particular country, and you just have to accept it that it’s now you’re . . . for probably, temporarily . . . that will be your home for a while. So it’s also important that there’s a support system, probably that will be Filipinos also, friends who you can count on, when you just need someone to talk to, probably for support, or whatever support they can give you. And you have to treat them, since they’re there already, that they’re also your family. (G1) The hardest part of migration is family separation. One group of workshop participants said that ‘the home is not complete if there’s a family member who’s a migrant,’ and that ‘for most of us, we agree that home is where you belong, so it will always be where our family is, and you can be yourself, where you feel safe, and secure’ (G1). The second group and individual participants concurred: G2: Same! Same! Basically the group felt that home is where the family is. It’s the place where the family lives, shares, loves, supports and belongs. It’s also the place where you feel and comfortable and secure. Comfortable and secure. But one of us, me, said that home is also home country. Because I always felt that my home is my home country. G2:  [Home is] always where the family is, basically. P5:  Feel at ease and at peace. P4:  You feel accepted. There was one theme that cut across all their remarks: the agreement that home means family and togetherness. Even though home is not as simplistic as ‘any group of persons who commit themselves to establishing a shared life’ (Noddings, 2006, p. 27), amidst family separation, the idealisation of togetherness becomes an imagined space of comfort. G2: The worst thing about migration for our group is the physical separation from the family, the emotional alienation. And in some instances, discrimination, because you are an alien in a foreign country. P1:  And discrimination. P6:  Social costs! [laughter among group] In this workshop discussions and in many interviews, Filipinas made light of their difficult situations with humour. Ignacio (2005), on her study on the construction of community and identity on the Internet, found that Filipinos also used humour as a way to negotiate difficult situations, self-identifying as people who are able laugh at themselves. The ability to laugh at oneself as a perceived Filipino trait is a

64  Landscapes of dislocation coping mechanism to centuries of colonisation. Research participants concurred. With workshop participants being familiar with migration terminology such as ‘social costs of migration’, this further establishes that migration is deeply embedded in their everyday lives. Given that transnational households are a result of ‘the successful implementation of border control, which makes families unable to reunite’ (Parreñas, 2001b, p.  108), the separations discussed by the focus groups are directly related to Ireland’s immigration policies. As stated earlier, family reunification in Ireland applies only to immediate family. Filipinos, however, have an extended notion of family, which includes grandparents, in-laws, spiritual kin (godparents and even god-siblings) and cousins through the multilineal and bilateral descent system (Parreñas, 2001b). This notion of family comes with a strong sense of reliance, allegiance and solidarity and obligation to members of this extended family. As notions of family include fictive kin, the extension of helping family in need extends beyond the nuclear family. In addition to economic support (i.e., the sending of remittances to people outside the nuclear family), the continuous stream of emotional labour across borders makes transnational households possible (Parreñas, 2001b; Skrbiš, 2008). These relationships compound the difficulties of separation. Participants considered their families as ‘broken’ even though they may have their spouse and children with them. For Parreñas, the extension of responsibility is something on which transnational families rely (2001b). Only a few of the participants did not regularly send remittances. For those who did remit, not all were willing to discuss the amount of remittances sent back to the Philippines. For those who did disclose, some sent 10%–15% of their monthly earnings. Because of the high cost of living in Ireland, many participants keep a tight control of their budgets, spending very little on non-essentials in order to maximise the remittance amount: ‘My salary will be €2300 a month. I am sending €600 to €800 a month, I am still saving here, and I’m saving the remaining, or around €1000 each month. I don’t spend much. I just spend for my mobile phone, for petrol, that’s it. I don’t spend much. I don’t go out much; I don’t really go to pub or anything’ (Marisol). While sending remittances and raising the standard of living underpins the reason many Filipinas leave to migrate, participants were wary to reveal their class positions. While I guaranteed participants that I would remove all identifying details, some participants remained extra cautious so as to prevent competition amongst each other in the event that they might be identified. When remittances were small in amount or below expectations, this brought about unwanted anger from remittance recipients. As Hochschild writes, ‘the people of the poor south now know a great deal about the rich north. But what they learn about the north is what people have, in what often seems like a material striptease’ (2002, p. 18). Annalisa, who sent remittances home just a few times a year, said that she wanted her family to know ‘that it’s not milk and honey’. Josie, too, had a similar experience. She budgets tightly, but because she is underpaid, she sends approximately €150 a month. Her mom complains, ‘Why are you only sending us a little?’

Landscapes of dislocation  65 When compared with others, Josie has to explain that maybe ‘they have a good employer . . . that’s why they send the money more than me’. Many wished that they could send more, but the high cost of living in Ireland was the main deterrent. Remittances also bring competition among transnational families and communities, carrying emotional, cultural and colonial baggage. As the political underpinning of Filipino migrant culture, participants illustrated that remittances are not simply transferred and dispersed, but used for multiple purposes, and in some cases, are abused, leading to transnational instability. One workshop participant noted that her mother’s remittances were sent to different family members on a rotating basis, that money would be transferred to the bank account of her brother, the following month her sister, and the month after that, to her, keeping money as ‘a shared decision’ (P2). In some cases, other family members would be jealous of remittances sent, altering family dynamics. As well, when money was sent to an elderly person, it created opportunities for mismanagement: ‘My mother would also send money to . . . her mom, our lola.6 And our lola was living with her brother and his family, and so there were issues like what she would send was mismanaged, because she is very old, she can’t account for all that was being sent to her’ (P2). With remittances, the sudden increase of money causes many recipients to spend more, as though they have moved up a social class. Buying power, income and resources increase, but so does the rate of spending. Workshop participant P1 noted that there is ‘not enough education on saving and use for everyday use’, leaving the recipients with even less money than before, trading in necessities for luxuries. Despite these demands and contradictions, romanticising family was a coping strategy for participants. While living in Saudi Arabia, Grace was separated from her children, so she kept a daily diary on an audiotape so that she could share her daily activities with her children. From mundane tasks to emotional hardships as well as simply ‘I miss you’ or ‘Good night’, she sent packages every other day so as to create an imagined presence in their lives. Skrbiš writes: ‘While much emotional investment goes into the maintenance of transnational contact with the left-behind family and significant others, the embodied co-presence is considered a penultimate goal. Longing to be embraced, the touch and the handshake remain a hope and aspiration for transmigrants’ (2008, p. 238). This type of romanticisation also helped others when encountering unfamiliar surroundings, where ‘there [were] more sheep than people’ (Melinda) – especially during holiday seasons. Marisol adds: I can still remember the pain, the pain I have here in my chest, leaving my family, seeing them crying. I was saying to myself, ‘Oh my God, I have to do this for you guys, because I am going to work for you. I am going to forget about myself for you.’ . . . I still have the aches in my heart, I can still feel it, seven years now. Constant and diligent communication provided one way to cope with family separation. Advances in technology have transformed the ways families are able

66  Landscapes of dislocation to connect across borders, helping with the flow of emotional labour. Transnational families can keep in touch more easily through email, post photos on social networking sites. Participants discussed Friendster or Multiply, and that instant communication happened regularly through their personal computers using applications such as Skype (web cameras) or MSN Messenger. This differs greatly from earlier waves of migrants who did not have access to such technologies. Many interviewees and workshop participants noted the technological changes they experienced over the years, particularly audible clarity for land-line phone calls, accessibility with mobile phones as well as visual images made possible with web-based applications. One workshop participant stressed the importance of transnational communication and changes in technology: I had to talk to my children at least once a week. I had to. Otherwise, I would feel incomplete. And, I would have to talk to my mother at last once a week. . .. When they were smaller, they didn’t have a phone at home. So they would go to their grandparents’ house. That’s where I would call them. With technology, God bless technology, because I could call them wherever they were, with their cell phones. . .. It was important. I could not exist. I could not live with not being able to talk to each one of them on a weekly basis. (P1) Even if it was a quick call, the communication meant a lot. Luz said, ‘I am always thrilled every day, every moment, now that I can communicate with them through chat, Internet . . . anytime I want to see them, to talk to them, see what’s the news, what’s the good and the bad’. Bella, as well, calls her husband and daughter every day, even if for one or two minutes, because the call is really expensive: ‘I have to, because I want to hear their voice’. The ability to keep in touch transcended, if momentarily, boundaries produced by physical dislocations. Not all research participants, however, were able to keep in touch as easily. Those who came from the poor and remote areas said that there are no facilities for Internet in those areas. One participant had to purchase a Skype number in the Philippines through which family and friends can contact her at a cheaper rate. Regardless of how often or in what ways, participants suggest that it is crucial to keep in touch with their families from across the world. Communication made distance and separation easier to navigate and thus made the pain and loss often associated with migration more manageable (Skrbiš, 2008). Because of the pain of family separation, co-ethnic networks become important resources, a surrogate family so to speak. For example, for Fe, the extended notion of family is about social sustenance and connection. If she showed up at a neighbour’s house in the Philippines, they would give her food. Relying on extended family and neighbours is part of a cultural expectation that is intensified when abroad. It draws on the notion of hindi ibang tao, which translates to ‘one of us’ (Pasco et al, 2004). Hindi ibang tao reflects ‘values of fostering intimacy, warmth and security in kinship and friendship in their social interactions’ (2004, p. 241). When Filipinos are abroad, they tend to include those outside their ‘one

Landscapes of dislocation  67 of us’ circle more readily, enabling non-kin networks to gain prominence (Pasco et al, 2004). Common ancestry and culture and shared history help create new connections with and to the homeland (Bastos et al, 2006). These networks eased their bouts of homesickness, particularly when faced with additional challenges, such as adapting to different cultural practices. Gatherings offered a space of resistance wherein ‘the sharing of a common culture is not the cause but the first consequence of persistent dichotomisation’ (Bastos et al, 2006, p. 207). Manalansan, writing on Filipino gay men in the US, argues, ‘Immigration . . . does not always end in an assimilative process but rather in contestation and reformation of identities’ (2003, p. 14). As Filipinos in this study made sense of their migration circumstances, their multiple spaces – and their practices in these spaces – informed their identities. This in turn affected how they saw themselves and others, and thus how they engaged in the day-to-day. From these issues, in response to separation and financial strain, Filipinos turned to fictive kin for support.

Sites of vulnerability The dynamics of diaspora that underpin Filipinas’ situations and circumstances shape their agency and vulnerability. For Parreñas, agency is subject positioning, where one is both ‘enabled and limited by the structures that constitute subjects’ (2001b, p.  24). Although participants may have more opportunities to achieve economic and social mobility in Ireland, their experiences of contradictory class mobility leave them in vulnerable positions. Participants experienced vulnerability via the devaluing of skill sets, perpetuation of wage disparities and racism. Skill sets and wage disparities Deskilling is an issue that is of critical concern for Filipina migrant nurses (Ball, 2004; Salami and Nelson, 2014). Immigrant nurses come with specific expertise in medical fields that they are not always allowed to utilise. While a few participants mentioned this as an explicit concern, most interpreted deskilling as a cultural difference rather than hidden discrimination. Grace commented that the main difference is the approach towards procedures: Working [in Saudi Arabia], per se, because in that hospital, we are given the freedom of doing what we had to do with the patient to revive them in cases of emergency without the doctors. . .. Unlike here, we have to wait for the doctor. More often, participants were worried that they would be seen as unskilled more than being deskilled, particularly in regard to terminology (Daniel et al, 2001). Marisol, for instance, had used the word bedpan instead of commode, and retrieved several different items, asking, ‘Is this a commode?’ Despite these awkward moments, the nursing profession has many opportunities for career and

68  Landscapes of dislocation professional development, allowing mobility and skills training (Daniel et al, 2001). Three of the nine nurses took professional development courses in Ireland. For Teresa, achieving management level positions for Filipinas in the nursing sector is highly racialised because they have few opportunities to move up the ladder. Upon receiving a promotion, she was surprised, having seen many of her Irish nurse colleagues just out of college receive promotions over immigrant colleagues with years of work experience. She said: ‘In the position I have, yes. I am the only Filipino. [laughs] And I’m so proud. Clinical Placement Coordinator’. In addition to the devaluing of OFWs’ nursing skill sets, the domestic workers in particular struggled with unfair wage cuts and underpayment. Lynetta signed a contract in the Philippines for a higher salary than what she ended up receiving when she started work in her hospital in Dublin but did not say anything out of fear of losing her green card. Other participants attested to their kabayan experiencing exploitation but fear they will lose their job if they speak up. Bella, despite her fears, eventually left her employer because she was being paid under the minimum wage and given a plethora of household chores, on top of her original duties of looking after a boy with special needs. A domestic workers’ support group informed her of her rights, encouraging her to leave her employers and find a new work situation. Josie’s experience of unfair treatment overlaps the challenges of sending remittances. Josie bears the brunt of struggles that many migrant domestic workers face, where they not only have few opportunities for advancement, but they feel that if they address concerns with their employers, they might lose their job. Along with losing their job, they would lose their work permit and become undocumented. When a builder and engineer for the house she was working at asked her about her wages, they were shocked: ‘Josephine, you can’t live here in Ireland, you can’t live here in Dublin with that kind of amount with that kind of wages’. They gave her the number to the Migrant Rights Centre to see if she could find some relief. However, she was worried about complaining because she said, ‘It’s very hard if you don’t have the papers, because I don’t have any security, because if I’m going to move to another employer, I don’t like to become illegal in here.’ Unemployment would have been a catastrophe not only for her immigration status but also for her family. Josie revealed that her mom was ‘always complaining . . . that the money [she was] sending [was] not enough’ for her five siblings, two of whom were in college. Josie was caught in a bind: she wanted to send more money home, but feared that her employers will not keep her if she asks to increase her salary to match her workload. While remittances provide real mobility for the receivers, (i.e., providing for day-to-day living and the development of towns, local infrastructure and small business entrepreneurships), the circumstances in which remittances are made possible are subject to their own set of power relations. Experiences of racism Not all research participants felt that racism was a serious problem. But those who did said that racism ranged from casual comments to outright attacks. This

Landscapes of dislocation  69 came in the form of personal attacks in government offices, the workplace and the street, as well as institutional policies and regulations. Studies have shown that Chinese, Indian, Lithuanian and Nigerian populations have experienced gaps between qualifications and wages, blocked promotions, bullying and harassment (MCRI, 2008). This negative treatment marks a spatial demarcation of identity between the Irish and immigrants, or rather, the Other (Bonus, 2000). This is especially true for domestic workers, who do not always have opportunities for public recourse because their work is isolated in the home (Bhattacharjee, 1997). While essentialist notions of identity are challenged, they still widely pervade public discourse and can be seen in regard to race and ethnicity. According to an Irish Times/Behaviour Attitudes opinion poll in October 2009, 72 per cent of people surveyed would like to see the number of non-Irish immigrants living in Ireland reduced (O’Brien, 2009). However, the poll notes that of those sampled, 43 per cent ‘would like to see some, but not all, immigrants leave the State’ (O’Brien, 2009), suggesting that some immigrants are more acceptable than others. For Filipinas in Ireland, who are easily racialised, colour remains a strong signifier, as it is the first point of identification. Eleanor stresses that racism is more than personal behaviour, and that skin colour is deeply ingrained in people’s minds and in legislation: ‘You can still feel the inferiority. Because especially, of course, they’re all whites and we can see the colour and everything, you know’. Aside from the Othering of immigrants reinforced in immigration policy and negative media characterisations (Farrell and Watt, 2001; Garner, 2007), participants were upset about the conflation of race and nationality. Many participants were called Chinese, whether mistakenly or purposely with animosity, and were hurt by the erasure of the Philippines and their experiences as Filipinos. They say bad words, like. And, they call us ‘Chinese. Chinese’ . . . I had a bad experience in Islandbridge. [On the last day of work] they had a little party for us, and they gave us bouquets of flowers and I was walking and suddenly a few lads there, teenagers, just grabbed my flowers and just throw it.  .  .. I was feeling really inferior already at the time. Because you feel this racism here. And there are some, everywhere, really. (Eleanor) Other participants echoed this feeling, reporting that teenagers were the most direct, sometimes shouting ‘Nihau’ or ‘Nihau ma’7 in a derogatory manner or ‘Filipinos go home. You don’t belong here’ (Teresa). The conflation of race, class and nationality is a remnant of colonial legacies (Baldwin, 1984; McVeigh, 1996; Rattansi, 2007; Spencer, 2006). In discourses of whiteness, the identities of Others remain essentialised and uninterrogated, regardless of the Other’s prominence in the host society (Spencer, 2006). The conflation further complicates the damaging effects of colonial mentality. Also, not recognising Filipinos as separate from Chinese reflects their invisibility in the

70  Landscapes of dislocation diaspora. With the perception of immigrants as inferior to the dominant hegemonic power, the colonial Other remains less than human (Baldwin, 1984). Because one is not always thinking about one’s racialised positionality, or moments of anti-immigrant sentiment, one can be left voiceless, feeling without agency and without ‘a spectrum of possibilities’ (Knowles, 2003, p. 38). Annalisa said she often thought to herself, ‘What if I had said this’, or ‘If only I said . . .’, hoping that she could speak for herself while educating the person, but instead she keeps silent. Josie remained haunted by an incident shortly after she arrived in Ireland: I was walking on the road, and there were two teenage girls, and one of them asked me what was the time, then I have to get my phone, and I have to tell them the time. And then after that, they just spanked me on my face and I have to cry, because I was shocked . . . Filipinas did not just experience overt racism but also unfair treatment. Although some instances of bullying may have been racially motivated, the links between racism and bullying were not explicitly made. Some participants felt they were being harassed just to be harassed. The way that racism manifests itself in more ways than just ‘individual acts of meanness’, however, becomes more apparent when talking to white friends and co-workers (McIntosh, 1997). Take for example a time when Annalisa felt disrespected by a co-worker: ‘Look, Annalisa, you came to this country with a husband, not everything is as easy as you have.’ Many of these exchanges were unprovoked. Coupled with pay disparities, in which Annalisa’s salary was less than half of that of a second-year college student whom she trained, Annalisa said that these experiences were unfortunate and not overtly connected to her being Filipina, but she could not help but wonder if race was the motivating factor. Few people recognise the depth of race and racism and its structural hold (Haney López, 1995; Tyagi, 1996; Spears, 1999). This further marginalises the depth of migrants’ experiences as embedded within social institutions. Annalisa said: You might think, for somebody else, they might think it’s fine. But it’s not. It’s eating you. It’s going to eat you, you’re not going to be able to sleep. [. . .] Some of my co-workers, when I told them about it, they were really, really sorry, they said ‘Please just ignore them, they’re so ignorant’, or something like that. Aside from the experiences of personal or systemic racism, most interview participants perceived Irish people as warm and friendly and that they see Filipinos as hard workers. However positive it may sound, this reflects an emerging discourse on the model minority in Ireland. Notions of Asians as passive, submissive, keeping to themselves are rooted in Orientalist and patriarchal discourses (see e.g. Ong and Peletz, 1995; Lee and Zhou, 2004; Rattansi, 2007). The embracing of Filipinos as hard workers and ‘naturally good carers’, which appears as positive attributes, reinforces and perpetuates the model minority myth, further leaving Filipino identity uninterrogated.

Landscapes of dislocation  71 Racialised barriers are not limited to policy or individual encounters. In some cases, they are more intimately felt through media and popular culture and everyday interactions. These processes are embedded, codified, print-sensationalised and are so ubiquitous that they appear legitimised and normalised. In a white society such as Ireland, people of colour, despite long established ties, remain foreigners. Parreñas and Siu write: Being diasporic involves the simultaneous affiliation and disidentification with both the place one occupies and ‘back home.’ These seemingly contradictory forms of relating to home, in fact, emerge from and are constituted by the marginal inclusion of diasporic subjects to both places. (2007: 15, authors’ emphasis) Such marginal inclusion refers to various outside factors that affect engagement in society and shape dislocation. The embodiment of race and racism affect the way people act and react, their gestures and their ability to move – where to go and where they are accepted, thus influencing how they take up space (Massey, 1994; Ahmed, 2006). From communities that have been negatively racialised or expelled from their home countries and those that have been racialised in destination countries, Braziel contends that race and racialisation are interwoven and interlocked with historical movements. Braziel upholds the stance that racism is part of the diasporic experience: ‘issues of citizenship, immigration, migration and “foreignness” are often imbued with the sociocultural constructions of “good” and “evil” by a particular society’ (2008, p. 144). Furthermore, especially when settlement is seen in terms of acculturation and assimilation, culturally determined terms such as terror and terrorist have taken new dimensions culturally, legally and politically, underscoring assumptions of diasporic nationalism and identification (Kurien, 2005, p. 439). Migrants negotiate these affiliations and disidentifications within the social relations of their everyday experience. For Olwig, everyday interactions create home: ‘Whereas home may become a fairly abstract space of self-knowledge in narratives, it is a very concrete place of mutual relations of exchange, usually involving concrete rights and obligations, in the social life of the narrators’ (1998, p. 235). Feeling like a constant foreigner in one’s own country makes feeling at home a challenge, even when it is where one was born, is permanently settled or where one lives, participates and feels allegiance to despite temporary settlement. Borders shape diasporic subjects’ involvement in and attachment to the homeland and hostland.

Conclusion Landscapes of dislocation sit within multiple sites of power. Embedded within circuits of postcolonial capitalism, Filipinas negotiate uneven, conflicting dynamics of migration and diaspora in the home country, the destination country, and the spaces in between. They face a number of personal and structural challenges to

72  Landscapes of dislocation fully engage in the destination country, shaping their relationship to the state. In Ireland, the process of renewing one’s immigration status on a one- to two-year basis, with no guarantee of renewal, meant that many Filipinas (and other non-EU nationals) felt they only plan for the short-term futures. Because family members sometimes had different statuses, and thus varying rights and entitlements, settling in became a continuous and challenging process. Participants often felt confused, stuck and vulnerable in their situations. However, this did not mean that they felt hopeless. Within the limitations of their immigration status, OFWs developed strategies to interrogate their limitations. They established methods to stay connected with family despite physical and emotional distances. They coped with a variety of migration circumstances, such as sacrificing to send remittances, experiencing contradictory class mobility and sometimes staying in abusive or exploitative situations. They employed different strategies to manage within a system of global labour migration that wants the labour, but not necessarily the workers. Even though some of these coping mechanisms contradicted their own sense of well-being, they continued to do so in order to provide for their immediate and extended families. Filipinas’ dislocations also add to the larger structural issues of the Philippines postcolonial relationships with labour emigration and economic reliance on remittances. But, on the meso-level of families and communities, these labour migration and remittances improve impoverished communities. On the micro-level, participants experienced agency and freedom that they lack in the Philippines, but the trade-off was pressure, discrimination and isolation. Sitting within the complicated web of neo-colonial global labour structures and demands, Filipinas showed they are not powerless, investing in individual relationships and forming communities within and outside national borders. These connections served as extended family to serve their social and psychic needs.

Notes 1 Since 2009, there have been a few changes to immigration stamps and renewals, including the increase in certificate registration fees to 300 euros as of November 2012. Registration fees in 2008 were 150 euros. See the GNIB website (www.garda.ie/controller. aspx?page=31) for more information. 2 Before the introduction of the Green Card, OFWs primarily entered under two different work authorisation schemes: working visa and work permit. As of February 2007, under the Employment Permits Act 2003 and Employment Permits Acts 2006, there are four types of employment: Green Card permit, work permit, spousal/dependent permit and intra-company transfer permit. Green Card permits are available for occupations earning €60,000 annually, and restricted occupations between €30,000 and €59,999 in information and communications technology, healthcare, industry, financial services and research. Those who were issued work visas before the introduction of the Green Card are able to renew their work visas without switching authorisations. 3 These are recorded remittances through formal channels. The amount through informal channels could be an additional $7 million USD (Bagasao, 2007). As well, remittances also include in-kind, non-calculable items that are largely unrecorded (Black et al, 2006).

Landscapes of dislocation  73 4 A popular form of public transport in the Philippines, jeepneys are repurposed World War II US military jeeps that can accommodate many passengers. 5 ’1° The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law. 2° The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State’. Constitution of Ireland, Article 41. 6 Lola means grandmother in Tagalog. 7 Nihau translates to “hello” and Nihau ma as “how are you” in Mandarin Chinese.

3 ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ Using language as a borderland strategy

Diasporans live in fragmented spaces as they physically and psychically live between the destination and home countries. On one hand, Filipina diasporans can be seen as mobile, as they have crossed geographical borders and are physically located in the destination country. Yet, on the other hand, they are also constrained by immigration policies, linguistic and cultural barriers, and other social and cultural institutions. Filipinas simultaneously occupy and move between the destination country and the Philippines in their minds, in their memories, and in their imagination. This simultaneity is a strategy that embodies an understanding of displacement. Where there is a strategy, there is a location to construct spaces of belonging. These spaces of belonging point to their enactments, where one can see how identity is ‘organised in the context of definite social relationships and spatial practices in which identities are simultaneously the product and the producer of the social circumstances in which they are set’ (Knowles, 1999, p. 115; author’s emphasis). Cultural capital such as education, language (fluency and adaptability), local knowledge, social norms, ideologies and behaviours all have different social value within Ireland and in the Philippines. Filipinas’ social relationships in the diaspora reveal issues of identity and uneven power relationships across physical and social borders. The following three chapters focus on the symbolic enactments of home. Across modalities of language, rituals and food, Filipina diasporans make home through day-to-day social practices while navigating interpersonal relationships and institutional barriers. Among a range of shifting subjectivities and various social locations, Filipinas orient their perceptions, expectations, practices and social spaces to ‘the homeland’, thus providing insight into larger questions of inclusion and exclusion for diasporic communities.

Language as a connecting site This chapter examines how participants used language as a strategy in creating and negotiating relationships. Language, as a modality of home-making, highlights the complex interactions at the nexus of social relations and institutional dynamics. For research participants, the use of language was important for a sense of wellbeing found within familiarity, the opportunity to teach ‘Filipino values’

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  75 and to maintain a link to the Philippines. This is what hooks (1990) calls homeplace, a space where people can renew themselves. Although participants sought this homeplace, they acknowledged that speaking a common language was not a guarantee for belonging, but it was still an important factor in seeking other Filipino community members. Bourdieu (1989) warns that social space can be misread, that it is too simplistic to assume that people emplaced in similar conditions therefore have similar interests and practices. Social space must be understood through people’s cultural capital and habitus as they shape how individuals perceive each other. Cultural capital and habitus, whose properties are related amongst themselves, are linked to identity and belonging. Bourdieu writes: ‘Habitus is both a system of schemes of production of practices and a system of perception and appreciation of practices’ (1989, p. 19). Habitus engenders practices and symbols that have the power to classify, thus forming the basis of identification, affinity and belonging. This classification, however, is legitimised by those who ‘possess the code, the classification schemes necessary to understand their social meaning’ (p. 19). In other words, local knowledge, judgment, taste, language, as well as educational level and immigration status, have currency in everyday life. Emotions, social and cultural interpretations and interactions are mediated by discursive and institutional processes (McKay, 2007). Cultural capital and habitus can determine people’s access to political and social opportunity, thus their ability to function within space. For Ahmed, ‘The politics of mobility, of who gets to move with ease across the lines that divide spaces, can be described as the politics of who gets to be at home and who gets to extend their bodies into inhabitable spaces, as spaces that are inhabitable as they extend the surface of such bodies (2006, p.  142). Technologies of Othering, operating through social and institutional dynamics, therefore, affect the ways people use space and make space. Home, therefore, should not be viewed simply as a physical space, but rather the focus should be on how people occupy and are oriented within spaces, as Ahmed argues. Whether through the continuation of rituals or searching for food and products from the home country, diasporans’ practices are not exactly the same, nor are they entirely different because they are in the destination country. Rather, what is important is how cultural capital is mediated and given meaning, how activities are repeated and oriented. Brah writes: ‘The question of home, therefore, is intrinsically linked with the way in which processes of inclusion or exclusion operate and are subjectively experienced under given circumstances. It is centrally about our political and personal struggles over the social regulation of “belonging” ’ (1996, p. 192). Even if there is no physical return, the act of not returning is still oriented toward the homeland, for diasporans return in the minds, actively engaging notions of home (Ahmed, 2006). What is important, then, is the politics of destination (Chu, 2006) and how people use their orientations in order to make home in their diasporic communities (Kelly and Lusis, 2006). hooks writes: At times, home is nowhere. At times, one knows only extreme estrangement and alienation. Then home is no longer just one place. It is locations. Home

76  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ is that place which enables and promotes varied and everchanging perspectives, a place where one discovers new ways of seeing, reality, frontiers of difference. One confronts and accepts dispersal and fragmentation as part of the construction of a new world order that reveals more fully where we are, who we can become, an order that does not demand forgetting. (1990, p. 148) In this regard, the use of language offers multiple spaces of home-making. Language, as a connecting site, does not guarantee happiness or comfort, but instead, it becomes a social space that provides multiple sites for possibility (Weis and Fine, 2004). Language offers the chance to feel at home, whether that home is filled with happy memories, fraught with conflict, or a combination of both or somewhere in between. Regardless of whether Filipina diasporans had been away from the Philippines for a few months, several years, or have been in the destination country for generations, language positions their thoughts and actions towards the common homeland. Filipinas are stakeholders in both their home and destination countries. They are situated within multiple interactions and power differentials. While labour migration might appear as a win-win situation (i.e. the ability to send remittances and opportunities for mobility for the OFW and remittance recipients), it is actually a complicated terrain of making home. As they seek each other out to speak a common language, orienting themselves towards the Philippines through practices and performances of belonging, Filipinas work through contradictions of gendered ideologies, colonial mentality and being both ‘here’ and ‘there’. Being ‘there’ need not be a physical return, for return can happen within orientation itself. In their movements and orientations, they face a range of social relationships that are mediated by social, cultural, economic and political processes, rife with contradictions, mixed with personal and community motivations. Through the challenges of the social costs of migration, transnational households and experiences of discrimination, Filipinas in the diaspora experience dislocations, which manifest through their social practices and in their social spaces.

Mixing Tagalog, Taglish and Irish English As a medium, language is central to identity, it positions social location and can stall and transgress the border (Ignacio, 2005; Anzaldúa, 2007). The words that one uses locate one in not only gender and class (Sarup, 1996), but also culture. Language is the means through which one constitutes the self as a subject (Benveniste, 2000). Therefore, voice and language are essential to analysing performativity, for ‘[m]ovement among cultures, languages, and complex configurations of meaning and power have always been the territory of the colonized’ (Mohanty, 2003, p. 122). Language is a significant variable through which subject-positions emerge, where subjectivity is constituted through language (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). While interviews and observations were conducted in English, participants occasionally used Tagalog words or Taglish sentence structure.

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  77 Taglish, a combination of English and Tagalog, is a spoken dialect with its own rules and is situated within the multiple colonial experiences of Filipinos (Bonus, 2000). My familiarity with Taglish, combined with my experiences of growing up in a Filipino American community, also helped further establish kinship and trust with participants. Although Tagalog is the official language of the Philippines, it was not the most widely spoken language among interviewees and focus group members in Ireland and workshop participants in the Philippines. Despite this, Tagalog, and occasionally Taglish, were the common languages that research participants preferred to use when speaking with other Filipinos who did not speak their own dialect. For many participants, language was a motivating factor to seek and maintain social relationships with other Filipinos. Participants purposely sought each other out to speak the language, noting that speaking it helps them to feel at home. Some participants organised events, frequented restaurants and attended mass at various churches in order to find fellow diasporans. It is very important to speak the language, even if you’re in another country. You meet other Filipinos and you talk in Tagalog. When I was in the US, my boss there was Fil-Am,1 he’s been there for thirty years, but you wouldn’t guess when you talk to him it because he kept his Filipino accent. It was also a show of solidarity, I guess. So it was such a relief to . . . even if you’re in another country, that you speak the language. So it’s not the same, we have a saying in Tagalog, like, if we speak too much English, our noses bleed [laughter from group]. It gets tiring at times. We can do it, but only up to a certain point. There is a joke that if we speak too much English, our noses will bleed and then we die [laughter from group]. So it’s important to speak the language. (P2) Interviewees and the focus group members affirmed the phrase ‘our noses will bleed and then we die’ as a common expression in the Philippines about the danger of losing touch with not only the Tagalog language, but also one’s sense of Filipino-ness while abroad. While there was no specific consensus about what constituted ‘Filipino-ness’, and although speaking English was accepted, maintaining Tagalog was perceived as necessary to negotiate adaptation and to stake a space of resistance, ease and homeplace amidst dislocations: ‘Yes, Tagalog. That makes us very comfortable’ (Sister Maria Lourdes). Languages are strongly tied to culture and social location, history and resistance. In addition to Spanish influences on Filipino languages, the implementation of English during the American colonial period did not happen evenly or democratically and ‘was fraught with contradiction’ (Rafael, 2015, p. 284). Rafael argues that although ‘English was meant to speed up pacification, drawing natives closer to American interests and thereby putting an end to their resistance [. . .] its teaching coincided with the designation of Filipinos as colonial subjects with limited rights’ (p. 284). In addition to inconsistent funding, lack of universal access

78  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ and retention beyond primary school, English exacerbated inequalities and created new layers of stratification: However, for the majority who had some years of education, familiarity with English did not necessarily mean fluency, while many others with little or no schooling at all could neither speak nor write in the new language. Barely literate in English, the majority lived in largely vernacular worlds where English (and Spanish) circulated intermittently, emanating as the language of colonial institutions and elites. In other words, the colonial legacy of English, like that of Spanish, included the creation of a linguistic hierarchy that roughly corresponded to a social hierarchy. (Rafael, 2015, p. 285) The histories of Tagalog, Taglish and American English are intertwined with understandings of Filipino-ness, identity and social positionings. Pierce writes, ‘Being born into a colonized family, you inherit the ideals and learn the narrative of colonization; as you come into consciousness, you are immersed in the promises of each colonizer, from the benefits of Spanish patriarchy, aristocracy, and religious authority to the promises of U.S. education, opportunity, and meritocracy’ (2005, p. 32). While writing about Filipino American positionality, where one is in constant negotiation of colonial and postcolonial ideologies, Pierce’s discussion extends to the diasporic Filipino experience. And, in speaking other dialects of English, other positionalities and layers of colonialism emerge. Throughout Ireland, there are variations of Irish English spoken. 2 Irish English not only ‘retains the cadence and often the syntax of Irish’ (O’Byrne, 2007, p. 13), but there are also regional varieties throughout Ireland (see also Shimada, 2006; Pietsch, 2009; Corrigan, 2011; O’Keeffe, 2011; Conde-Parrilla, 2013). The Irish English developed from hundreds of years of colonisation across different geographies, each with their own socio-linguistic backgrounds. According to Cambria: The English that the Irish people shifted to, however, was not a standard one but already Irish English, a variety born out of the contact between several input varieties spoken by people who lived in Ireland, and Irish. It was a language that already had the features of the contact between the two identities, those of the colonizers and those of the colonized. Scholars agree that the linguistic context where the shift took place, the prestige and the possibility that English seemed to offer in a period when Ireland was devastated by the Famine may have played a decisive role in accelerating the passage from one language to the other. [. . .] The difference in the use of English depended on geographical distribution and on sociolinguistic factors. At a certain moment in time, Irish people decided to use a language which offered better possibilities for work. The prestige of the second language may well have been also responsible for the shift. (2014, p. 27)

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  79 In this context, Irish people understood how language was linked to social and institutional dynamics, particularly for paths of mobility. According to O’Byrne, in choosing to leave Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge) behind for English, albeit different than British English, Irish people ‘would discover that, as speakers of a rich, colourful, weird English, they remained alienated from the language of their colonial masters’ (2007, p. 318). As with many colonial relationships, these processes are met with levels of resistance, struggle and challenges that are multiply situated along race, class and gendered lines (see Walter, 2000). Thus, language marks spatial and cultural borders and reveals multiple layers. The use of language can serve as an affirmation of identity against the effects of Othering – and precisely because of the effects of Othering. Speaking Tagalog or Taglish allowed participants to remain closely attuned to Filipino-ness. As such, the act of speaking Tagalog and Taglish serves as a form of resistance, displacing the centrality of English as a colonial language. For Strobel: Colonization has overdetermined Filipinos from without. We are not only born split, but we are also born on the border. But perhaps the resiliency, the will to survive, the ability to sing and make merry comes from this indigeneity. In the Western context, where responses to the colonizer have been judged inadequate, ineffective, marginal, or born of obsequiousness, resistance and defiance undergird it. (2005, p. 27) In other words, speaking and switching between Filipino languages and American and Irish English allows Filipinas to transgress geographical and political borders, simultaneously deepening and complicating forms of oppression. While Irish English has a different linguistic history and its own layers of subjugation, Cambria argues: ‘Irish English shows how, especially in colonial and postcolonial contexts, we can see language as a battlefield of identity’ (2014, p. 30). In choosing Tagalog or Taglish over Irish English or the dominant language of their destination countries, research participants leapt between borders and colonial histories, although this did not always happen seamlessly. Upon arrival in their destination countries, whether in Ireland or another country prior to Ireland, interview participants were worried about their conversational proficiency in English, although they had advanced English skills or had felt they had technical fluency in English. Even though English is the language of instruction and business in the Philippines, participants had difficulties understanding unfamiliar accents, Irish English phrasing, as well as expressing themselves under pressure. As mentioned in Chapter 2, Marisol had years of experience as a nurse, but felt distress learning new terms for medical supplies and equipment. The hospital in which she began her employment in Ireland did not provide information or an orientation about different vocabulary or hospital procedures. Marisol felt even more pressure after her manager said, ‘Oh my God, you don’t know what you’re doing’, believing that her manager and colleagues might think poorly of

80  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ all Filipinos based on her inability to properly identify medical supplies and other items. In the Philippines, we use English as our training, but we don’t use that as our means of communication. So, shocking truth, for example, for eight hours? English? Oh my God, Lord, could I express myself at that time? I was actually, it was really hard for me at the time. And you know, you are facing with somebody who you know someone who is not accepting you. Feeling so little at that time, feeling that you are always wrong, feeling that they are looking for something wrong that you are going to do. It’s so difficult at that time. So that’s it. Communication, always, all affected. All the different facets at that time. (Marisol) The pressure to speak English and difficulties with the Irish accent and usage of Irish English were common among interviewees. Language difficulties were also common among other immigrants in Ireland who spoke other forms of English or English as a second or third language (see e.g. Molde, 1995; MacFarlane, Singleton and Green, 2009; Johns, 2013). The difficulties in communication in the workplace left many participants feeling a sense of inferiority. Marisol and other participants working in the healthcare sector intimately felt this inferiority on both interpersonal and institutional levels, with some suggesting that the lack of orientation to new terminology and procedures meant that high-level staff or their supervisors saw them as not important enough to receive proper training. At the same time, other participants working in hospitals perceived the lack of a formal hospital orientation as a sign that Filipinos were highly regarded as nursing practitioners and did not need more instruction. Regardless of how this was perceived, many of them continued to face difficulties with English. Marisol said: They talk so fast. And I am used to hear a different English, a different accent. But here, it’s so hard that time, it’s as if I’m listening to a bird chirping. I couldn’t understand. But after a few months, I can comprehend a lot better. Fe, who had been in Ireland for ten years at the time of the interview, said that even though learning a different type of English is a particular challenge, she encouraged others to keep practicing: ‘I think you don’t need to be afraid to speak in English, whether it’s right or wrong. By speaking English every now and then, you become more familiar with it. So it’s a good learning’. Drawing on Van Hear’s axis of choice, with ‘choice’ or ‘more options’ on one end and ‘little choice’ or ‘few options’ on the other end (1998, p. 42), the ways in which Filipinas in Ireland switched between Tagalog, Taglish or Irish English phrasing reveal strategic choices within their circumstances. Some of the workshop participants in the Philippines spoke similarly of their own challenges with different accents and phrasing in their respective destination countries, illustrating that difficulties of language, identity and location are intricately woven. Mingling

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  81 phrases is not simply about expression, or simply about acceptance or denial of identity. It is also about making choices within constraints, leaping between borders and navigating liminality.

Borderland strategies Using language as a way to be understood, to belong and to feel acceptance uncovers how diasporans strategically respond to pressures to integrate and/or assimilate, whether those pressures are real or perceived. Anzaldúa’s concept of la facultad provides insight into how unnatural borders, shaped by white hegemonic structures, colonialism and global marginalisation, affect Filipinas’ strategies of language. Anzaldúa’s focus, while on the US/Mexico border, has applicability beyond the American southwest, as she says la facultad is more developed by those who are on the margins: ‘Those who are pounced on the most have it the strongest – the females, the homosexuals of all races, the darkskinned, the outcast, the persecuted, the marginalized, the foreign’ (2007, p. 60). As a ‘survival tactic that people, caught between the worlds, unknowingly cultivate’ (p. 61), la facultad recognises the role of Spain and the United States in the double inscription of inferiority and how Filipinos negotiate this double inscription. La facultad also encompasses the impact that processes of global migration have on subjectivities. In their day-to-day interactions in their destination countries, Filipinas employed borderland strategies of adaptation. The following are excerpts from individual interviews and the workshop: I hated repeating myself. Because I know I can speak English. It’s just that they can’t understand the accent. You know, among non-European migrants in the United States, Filipinos are the only ones you can really speak English. However, even Americans can’t understand me. So you have to learn to speak American English for them to understand you. Mexicans don’t speak English. Thai and Chinese don’t speak English. I have a friend who has been in the United States for about fifteen years, she’s married to an American, she still can’t speak English the way he speaks. (P1) When I was in the US, I would find myself doing things I wouldn’t normally do here. Like when I would speak to other Filipino Americans, I would use a fake accent. A Valley Girl accent. [with accent] San Jose, San Francisco, Santa Clara, I’d drop the T’s. Back here, I would laugh at things like that. Since the people there were talking that way, I would do that to fit in, also. (P2) But, anyhow, at the end of the day, you will still say to yourself, there’s no really . . . place like home. Even if you feel that you are accepted in the group. Outside the Filipino group, that’s where the difficulty is, because they, even if we speak in English as well, they speak differently, you know, their accent,

82  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ there are some words that are different from the words that we are using because our English is after, it is based off American English. So at first, I didn’t know what is the “lift” or the “nappy” because I’m used to Pampers and diapers. Lift is elevator, so I don’t know that. At the beginning, so it was kind of hard to understand what they were saying, and I have to really think and I really have to ask them, “Pardon me?” Because initially, I feel ashamed, I felt ashamed of asking, but I won’t be able to understand them if I don’t ask. So, even if they will think that, “What kind of girl is this? She doesn’t understand what I’m saying or what.” But, I have to ask to get used to it and to really know what they were saying and what they meant. So, after, of course, after a few months, you get used to some words. You get used to what they are doing, you get used to what they want you to do, because they have their own sets of standards. They have their own sets of policies and procedures, even if you are dealing with the same patients. There are also different hospitals with different policies. (Grace) So, in the Philippines, as you know, we have our own language. We don’t use English in our everyday conversation, and the language of business and medium of instruction is in English, that’s why we are very familiar with the spelling and we can write properly. We can understand the conversations, we can find it kind of something difficult to adjust, especially their accent is different, you can hardly understand it. And we have accent as Filipinos, so sometimes they find it hard to understand us, so, at first, I think, the Irish people have no patience, but now, because they can see that Ireland is becoming more diverse, they have more patience to understand and to listen. And sometimes, if I come across Filipinos that struggle with English, I’m not very good in English, but I don’t have patience as well, so I can relate with the Irish people when we first came here, but it’s hard to adjust. That is something new for them, but you know bit by bit, you learn their language, you learn to understand their accent. (Fe) On one level, these presentations of the self could be read as a way to seek control of the way people see Filipinos. As Goffman (1997) argues, this could be a ‘misrepresentation’, where people control the impressions they give off. Using what he labels a ‘front’, he says that a ‘front’ is ‘that part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance’ (1997, p. 97). Here, this means that participants use a front to portray a specific image. Filipinos in the US, for example, experience language discrimination, despite having one of the highest rates of English fluency among immigrant groups (Ancheta, 2006). Many participants were knowledgeable about these experiences and how they are linked to foreigner discrimination. In being aware that Filipinos throughout the diaspora are

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  83 stigmatised, some participants were worried that some of their everyday efforts and difficulties in understanding local accents may inadvertently increase antiimmigrant sentiments towards Filipinos or other immigrants. In order to make sure not to further anti-immigrant sentiment or to help deal with experiences of unfair treatment, some participants changed their accents and their phrasing in order to be understood or to fit in with the local populations (as mentioned above by P2). Over-enunciating English provided a space through which participants could make known some of the influence the American presence in the Philippines had on language and culture without having to give a minihistory lesson. On one hand, this ‘misrepresentation’, along with the motivations behind changing accents or adopting phrasing, can be read as manipulative so that ‘audiences’ can see a less stigmatised version of Filipinos. Goffman later argues: ‘As members of an audience it is natural for us to feel that the impression the performer seeks to give may be true or false, genuine or spurious, valid or ‘phony” ’ (1997, p. 103). However, it is too simplistic to leave the discussion that Filipinos pronounce words differently or adopt slang simply to make things easier. It is more useful to read these adaptations as engaging a strategy of survival. One aspect to consider is that the Filipino accent in the United States is contentious among Filipino diasporans. As discussed in Chapter  1, pronunciation can be simultaneously read as resistance and a source of shame (Ignacio, 2005). The adopting of a more American-sounding accent is often seen as ‘selling out’ or that a Filipino has assimilated too much (Ignacio, 2005). Americanising one’s accent is seen as a loss of degrees of Filipino-ness (2005). This is in contradiction with the practice of adopting a more American lifestyle when in the Philippines, which carries higher social positioning. However, this too is problematic, for this higher social positioning is only while living in the Philippines and/or prior to emigration. Upon return from living or working abroad, being ‘too American’ is regarded as pretentiousness and looked down upon. This contradiction was noted by workshop participants and in Ignacio’s study (2005). Further, ‘the disruption of Filipino values by American socialization often causes tension at home’ (Gonzalez, 2009, p. 124). Because of the continuous transnational links of OFWs around the globe, this shaming of the Filipino accent is not limited to the United States. Research participants sought out fellow Filipinos not only to speak their language(s), but also to teach their children how to speak these language(s). Those participants with family or Filipino friends living in the US made particular effort to teach children Tagalog or their local dialects. Participants remarked that first and second generation Filipino Americans do not always speak the language of the homeland. While few participants thought that it was shameful to not know the home country language, all agreed that the purposeful teaching of Tagalog was done to stay connected to the homeland and the wider diasporic community. Manuela, who arrived in Ireland in the late 1970s, did not teach her two children how to speak Tagalog for practical reasons, saying that there were few Filipinos in Ireland in the 1980s when her children were growing up. She said, ‘Language

84  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ has to be enriched by constant conversation and reading in [Tagalog]. I said [to myself] my children will never do that. But if I only knew the Filipinos will arrive here, I would have taught them. Because then, they would have been able to speak the language.’ The teaching and cultivation of the language was viewed as a continuation – a direct line to the homeland. If this continuation were cut off – then the direct line to the homeland – through language, would be cut off. It was also perceived as a form of mobility to fully access the homeland. Thus, teaching children the language was also seen as a preventative measure to keep one from being cut off from the Philippines if one wanted to return, in addition to an acknowledgement of the country of origin, to not ‘forget who you are’ (Gladys). Another contributing factor to the complexities of adjusting to English in Ireland is that the actual speaking of English in Ireland exposes another level of the colonial dominance of language. As Macedo writes, ‘The fracturing of cultural identity usually leaves an indelible psychological scar experienced even by those subordinated people who seemingly have “made it” in spite of all forms of oppression,’ (2000, p. 20). While Ireland did not colonise the Philippines, as an English speaking country with its own colonial history and suppression of its native language, the use of English continues to function as a tool of the coloniser. O’Byrne argues: ‘For those natives who have a first language distinct from the language of their colonial masters, to be colonised means to live in a situation dominated by and through and in a language which will never be their own, and in which they cannot imagine achieving mastery’ (2007, p. 318). In other words, alienation is very much a part of the ‘colonized native’s experience’ (2007, p. 318). Adding to this argument, Memmi writes: If he wants to obtain a job, make a place for himself, exist in the community and the world, he must first bow to the language of his masters. In the linguistic conflict within the colonized, his mother tongue is that which is crushed. . .. In short, colonial bilingualism is neither a purely bilingual situation in which an indigenous tongue coexists with a purist’s language (both belonging to the same world of feeling), nor a simple polyglot richness benefiting from an extra but relatively neuter alphabet; it is a linguistic drama. (1965, pp. 107–8) Furthermore, when outside the Philippines, if Tagalog was neither of participants’ native languages, participants preferred to speak with other Filipinos in ‘broken Tagalog’ rather than in English. Switching between Tagalog, Taglish or English in Ireland and adopting different accents and usages of English at once deepens and complicates internalised forms of oppression and inferiority. Adopting certain parts of the local language and in some cases mimicking it allows a colonised people to exercise their agency, for they are not fully taking the coloniser’s language, but weaving together their own (Ignacio, 2005, p. 118). Thus, these adaptations are better read as performing a strategy of survival. Their manoeuvring of their enunciation exerts agency, for these performative acts are ‘forms of authoritative speech’ (Butler, 2000, p. 108).

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  85 For example, Fe further illustrates that even though speaking in one’s own language may seem natural, speaking in Tagalog or Taglish is an exertion of dominance through language. It points to the fracturing of identity (Macedo, 2000) and colonial mentality, the cultural inferiority as a result of Spanish and American legacies (Ignacio, 2005; David and Okazaki, 2006). When I met Filipinos on the way, we speak our language. Definitely. I will not speak in English. I don’t like other Filipinos when they are talking, they are talking in English. I don’t know, what it is about me. Why speak in English when we have our own language? But in my work, even in the hospital, even if I met Filipinos, I like to speak in English. I think it’s impoliteness. I was working with the Irish before and we were two Filipinos, and sometimes we spontaneously speak Tagalog and they don’t want that. And they said, “How about if we were speaking Gaelic, how would that feel? How do we know that you are not speaking about me?” But still, even if it’s comfortable, I will be with my Filipino friends we will speak Tagalog, so I try to speak in English. If I speak Tagalog, we will feel isolated as well. (Fe) With this in mind, I  argue that the presentation of the self is a performance of colonial mentality. Because performativity is a ‘reiteration of norms which precede, constrain, and exceed the performer’ (Butler, 2000, p.  112), Filipinas are enacting their habitus and cultural capital. In the recognition of one’s inferior position, one has the opportunity to exert agency through emulating the dominant position. One asserts agency when moving between dislocation and belonging and simultaneously remaps a sense of identity specific to Ireland as one grapples with different usages of English and perceptions of those usages. This is an engagement of la facultad (Anzaldúa, 2007), where Filipinas’ adaptation to hearing different accents and adopting local phrases and expressions reflects multiple border crossings, manifested in language, expressions of the self and contradictory identifications. Additionally, Memmi argues: ‘Possession of two languages is not merely a matter of having two tools but actually means participation in two psychical and cultural realms. Here, the two worlds symbolized and conveyed by the two tongues are in conflict; they are those of the colonizer and the colonized’ (1965, p. 107). Using the English language, while tied to colonial mentality, is not a blanket acceptance of white dominant ideologies. Rather, it is more a reflection of how dominant ideologies function in people’s lives, that people use the tools that are available to them. Some participants stated that they were proud that Americans brought English to the Philippines, which in turn gave them access to other opportunities across the globe. For interviewees, using Irish English was not a source of shame, but showed resilience that comes with adaptation and taking on characteristics of the destination country. They were also happy to swap previous phrases for local ones such as ‘you know the way’ (or ‘you know yourself’ instead of ‘you know what I mean’). Because of the complicated layers of colonialism embedded

86  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ within the confluence of Irish and Philippine histories, Filipinas in Ireland embody the borderlands: ‘Confronting anything that tears the fabric of our everyday mode of consciousness and that thrusts us into a less literal and more psychic sense of reality increases awareness and la facultad’ (Anzaldúa, 2007, p. 61). They switch between languages and dialects in response to dislocations. And while they may be personifying the coloniser at the same time as being colonised (Pierce, 2005), using American and Irish English provides opportunities for mobility not just in Ireland, but also future ‘greener pastures’.

Conclusion: seeking home through language Language is a powerful tool in creating and maintaining relationships. Language gives Filipinas the ability to make known their positions and simultaneously speak back to them in the destination country, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Tagalog, Taglish or English allowed Filipinas to make known their multiple expressions, simultaneously make known and respond to their dislocations and acculturate parts of the destination country. This provided moments of continuity and direct links to the Philippines. From changing accents to blend in with the California accent, adapting to local phrasing and learning new terminologies and idiomatic expressions, participants’ experiences reveal that language is more than communication, it is also about subjectivity, acceptance, belonging and power. In the act of changing accents, adopting phrases of the host country or acculturating parts of local customs, these enactments demonstrate belonging in multiple spaces. Filipinas claimed their spaces, intentionally or unintentionally. Their uses of Tagalog, Taglish, Irish English or other languages of their destination countries, are embedded within multiple layers of colonialism and marginalisation. Pierce argues that ‘being mestiza means struggling between physical and metaphysical cultural borders, struggling to maintain a consistent and coherent identity despite the fact that the dominant culture attempts to disaggregate you and recognize only what it considers the most “valuable” parts of yourself at every given turn’ (2005, p. 33). In this regard, among the contradictions of macro processes that shape their lives, Filipinas work towards homeplace among their dislocations. Although not always explicit, borderland strategies and linguistic performances reveal the cultural norms of both the actor and the receivers (Butler, 2004). Filipinas, through their multiple approaches, use language to narrate their lives, giving them a sense of agency as well as the opportunity to negotiate relationships on their own terms. This allowed them to tap into and enact the homing desire, with opportunities to speak back to their historically invisible positionalities in the diaspora. Interviewees and participants purposely sought each other to speak Filipino language(s), but noted that this was not enough to sustain group membership or a sense of belonging. Paradoxes of home are constant, dynamic, exposed to and affected by global power relations and local reactions to these forces. Race and gender, among other axes of differentiation, ‘are also deeply implicated in the ways in which we inhabit and experience space and place, and the ways in which we are located in

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  87 the new relations of time-space compression’ (Massey, 1994, p. 164). Everyday enactments enable imaginings of home from a politics of return to a ‘politics of destination’ (Chu, 2006). Home is in more than one space. It is many spaces. In these experiences of dislocation, Filipinos turn to the diaspora for support and a sense of belonging. They look for belonging through the construction of an ‘imagined (global) community’ in their shared experience of dislocation (Parreñas, 2001c, p. 1131). Although language can be a very powerful in creating barriers, Luz says that language was not a barrier for her, attesting to the fluidity of boundaries and the way people interact with them. No matter how participants used language to communicate, participants took an active stance to the host society’s perceptions, revealing the relations between language, place and memory. Their responses are a socially identified activity (Holland and Lave, 2001). I quote Luz extensively to illustrate her story. For me, language is not really a barrier. I  remember when I  was in Hong Kong, I met, I was in the park, my aunt was there and her friends in the park, and I  saw this .  .  . the first time I  met this Indonesian. Indonesian and Sri Lankan, and they worked together. So I was passing their house and they said hello to me. I said hello back, and when I was talking the Indonesian, I don’t know if she’s in shock, but she can’t really relate. She can’t understand. But I like friends. You know? I love friends, whatever nationality. So, I just put myself to you, and I am not waiting for you to put yourself to me, as long as I can sense when they are willing to have friends, if they are willing to say hi back . . . but ‘hi’ is enough for me. I have a sense or feeling that they are quite friendly, but there is a barrier, I will always initiate to make things work out. So, she keeps waiting for me, and every time I pass there, she will always say, ‘Hello, hi.’ And then, I realise she can only speak a few English, but I love her, she is very nice. And she is older than me. The next time I see her, she said, ‘I give you my food.’ I just accept, I don’t want to reject an offer. And then on my day off, I said, ‘Can we meet?’ I was thinking, how can we be so happy on our day off when she had few English? So, we meet and go to the park and go to the shop, and what she will always say, ‘Lucia’ – my name is Lucia but I am going by Luz, Luz is what is in my passport. But I grew up as Lucia. But she says, ‘Hi, Lucia. You eat? You finish eat?’ And I say, ‘No, no finish eat. Finish.’ ‘Ah, you finish, ok.’ And then silence. We glance at each other, ‘Hi, you ok?’ ‘Yeah, ok.’ We are still going shopping, we are not talking, but we are happy in the presence of silence. And then, ‘You ok? You hungry? You eat later?’ ‘Me eat now.’ So then she will understand me, ‘me eat now,’ so she understands the little bit of English. So, ‘later on, you come my house?’ ‘Sure, sure.’ ‘Me bring food?’ ‘No, me cook.’ ‘Ok, ok.’ So we understand each other, just try really to adapt, because that’s all she can. Later on, sometimes she will go in Indonesian language. And ‘me, no understand.’ Leave that topic because I don’t understand. It is something like Tagalog, something like Filipino language, so I  could guess and then

88  ‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’ sometimes I guess right, but we are very good friends. We go places and we have photographs, sharing food. And then, another one is Sri Lankan, she is good in English, so we go to the house, see her relatives, see my aunt, also my sister. I brought her to my sister’s house, and she brought me to her friend’s place also, to the party, just not the party, anyway, just getting along with her communities, I was there. Just some can speak English, some can’t. Even if I can’t understand, I just keep smiling, even if they are gossiping, I don’t mind. I just love to be with their company as long as I’m not doing anything, I don’t feel guilty doing that. I just mix with different nationalities, with or without English. So I’m happy, for me, language isn’t really a barrier. How you will bring yourself, just be willing to give yourself, just let the time work it out and how you can get along with each other. And if you feel it’s not really, your cup of tea, it’s not really your place [laughs], you can slowly, slowly do your exit, in a gentle nice way [laughs], in a humble way. Just do like that. I am doing like that. Still, I keep friends, even if I don’t like their taste. That’s the way they are. I love them. I can’t change them. What I can do is change myself on top of my surroundings. I am happy for every good things and bad things that come my way. I thank God to make me strong to fight the battle of every loneliness and sorrows, all the pain of being alone at the age of 42. Despite the difficulties in communication, Luz illustrates that there are a variety of approaches to language. Language and its use demonstrate how participants are situated within multiple levels of power and social relations, how they react to them and are affected by them (Levitt and Glick Schiller, 2007). While this chapter focused on language, I stress that practices of language, rituals and food overlap, interconnect and inform one another. These modalities, articulated through the homing desire, reveal the politics of difference and belonging, where home functions in different capacities: in memories, in the physical destination country, in the home country, the mixture of these three and the spaces in between. Policies and social interactions become a pedagogical medium through which people understand the politics of difference and belonging. Upon these understandings, diasporic communities maintain connections with the homeland and emplace themselves in the destination country through strategic alliances. Through Filipinas’ articulations of home-making, made up of everyday practices and material, symbolic and functional employment of cultural capital and memory, we see that home is both ‘banal and extraordinary’ (Nora, 1989, p. 24).

Notes 1 Fil-Am is a popular abbreviation of Filipino American and is used by Filipinos across the diaspora. 2 Irish English is used here instead of Hiberno English, which is sometimes used by scholars and by popular discourse. Hiberno coming from ‘Hibernia’, the Latin word for Ireland. Cambria (2014) suggests using Irish English over Hiberno English, as it

‘Our noses will bleed and then we die’  89 parallels other studies of English such as Welsh English or Scottish English. As well, other scholars use the term Irish English to situate it as a language with diasporic reach, instead of looking at it as a language or dialect solely in contact with British English. While a full discussion of Irish English is beyond the scope of this book, I mention it briefly to situate it within its own colonial history.

4 ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ Adapting rituals, religion and routine

In the previous chapters, I discussed the dynamics of migration circumstances, conditions of family separation and vulnerability. These dynamics not only shaped Filipinas’ subjectivity, but also affected strategies of language. Despite the individual nuances and differences among interview, workshop and focus group participants, all recognised the migration culture of the Philippines and the dislocations that labour migration brings, particularly contradictory class mobility. Participants noted that when Filipinos are abroad, they seek out other Filipinos to establish kinship and create a sense of belonging. Combined with other dynamics fundamental to migration, as well as the demands of a transnational existence, the dislocations that Filipinas experienced engender an ongoing sense of liminality, demanding constant efforts to adapt. In this chapter, I look at the ways in which Filipinas maintain and adapt to their circumstances through the enactments of rituals, religion and routine. These enactments are not static. They are rich with emotional and material investments, they distribute information, beliefs and ideologies and they also serve as a connection point for group identity and affinity. I first examine rituals, religion and routine as connecting sites, focusing on how these sites provide a link to the homeland and to each other. Second, because memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures and images in objects (Nora, 1989), I describe the different types of enactments that Filipinas identified as significant. Following that, I explain how religion functions as a site to seek homeplace amidst dislocations and a borderland existence.

Rituals, religion and routine as connecting sites Through moments, images and sensory emotions, diasporans tap into the homeland. Examining rituals, religion and routine provides another window into understanding how diasporans make home in their communities. As a series of repeated actions, rituals offer psychic, social and cultural spaces for the formation of group identity. They provide constant commentaries on links to the past and present (Khan, 2007), revealing multiple layers of familiarity, belonging and contestation. Familiarity in this context is crucial, for ‘[f]amiliarity is what is, as it were, given, and which in being given “gives” the body the capacity to be oriented in this way or in that. The question of orientation becomes, then, a question not only about

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  91 how we “find our way” but how we come to “feel at home” ’ (Ahmed, 2006, p. 7). In other words, orientation allows us to see ins, outs and in-between moments of group identity and belonging. In these connecting sites, Filipinas embody their homing desire. Rituals, religious practices, celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries and folk dances are oriented toward the homeland. Beliefs, ideologies and values from the Philippines may be directly or indirectly passed through symbolic and material enactments. Whether diasporans are settled, are on the margins, or do not feel fully situated, they fashion their practices and articulate their identities in response to their positionalities: ‘The defense, by certain minorities, of a privileged memory that has retreated to jealously protected enclaves in this sense intensely illuminates the truth of lieux de mémoire – that without commemorative vigilance, history would soon sweep them away’ (Nora, 1989, p. 12). As memory activates aspects of identity, notions of home become premised on the home country and collective identification with other diasporic members (Xu, 1994). For Fortier (1999), the construction of identity situates people within terrains of belonging. In her study, movement and attachment are key features for Italian immigrants and their sense of belonging in London. Fortier argues that the symbolic and material practices should not be seen as characteristics, but rather as performative acts that mark out spatial and cultural borders. Through rituals such as first communion, ideologies of gender and religion are practiced and performed to encourage the formation of group identity, an identity that is symbolic and appropriated to encourage a stable community. Khan (2007), regarding Hindu and Muslim Indo-Trinidadians, writes that religious and cultural distinctions are ideological projects. Khan explains that the shared practices and ideologies of Hindu and Muslim diasporic communities are shaped by their shared histories of dispersal and indentured servitude in Trinidad. For these communities: Rituals serve simultaneously (1) as tethers to heritage . . . though those tether are constantly debated, and (2) as agentive exercises that prepare people for an improved future – specifically in terms of tutorials: self-edification lessons that both challenge and rectify social subordination through the attainment of certain forms of (religious) knowledge. (2007, p. 151, author’s emphasis) In Fortier’s and Khan’s cases, memory is made real within and through economic, social and cultural structures. Diasporic consciousness becomes ritualistic in response to local and global dislocations. Thus, the goal of diasporic rituals is not solely about practice and faith, but also about identity and community to be passed on to multiple generations. The need to connect with other diasporans and articulate rituals from the homeland reflects a need to feel at home. Spatialities are remade and rearticulated. Home becomes real in many locations. Rituals are telling about the intersections of identity, nostalgia and group affinity. Bonus describes Filipino American beauty pageants as part of a ritual of bonding. They provide an alternative site for belonging. Pageants, and the planning

92  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ involved in organising them, are an articulation of ‘Filipino Americanness’ that ‘open up spaces for practicing a kind of politics that is alert to history, to the syncretic appropriation of values and attributes from what are considered “Filipino” and “American” cultures, and to the pursuit of collective well-being’ (2000, p. 116). Many of these events, such as pageants, sell tickets through which funds are raised for the community. Through the selling of tickets and all steps involved in organising, pageants bring together all those who participate in the event, and members gain visible recognition of their shared labour. This brings together communities and individuals, inspiring mobilisation (2000). Achieving recognition among community members is an orientation of their ‘tenuous positions’ as Filipino Americans, where they are at once not ‘fully Filipino’ or ‘fully American’ (2000, p. 122), occupying the borderlands. When referring to how Filipino Americans handle their community affairs, Bonus writes: These are at the same time the kinds of politics oriented to the new settlements in the United States, with organizations and beauty pageants serving to mobilize Filipinos to address similar conditions and achieve common ends of representation, commitment, belonging and recognition. (2000, p. 127) For Bonus, pageants are a performance of race, identity and belonging, articulations that are particular to this group of Filipino Americans in Southern California, a performance that demonstrates how Filipino Americans meet their needs within the constraints and conditions in which they live. Whether driven by nostalgia or a longing to return to the homeland, the homing desire is present: The immigrant moment provides an occasion, however fleeting, for articulating different ideas of identity. I now see how such articulations take place in the everyday world and in specific times and places. But I also recognize and acknowledge the tensions inherent in ‘articulating the articulations’ and accounting for the active, self-conscious intents of my respondents. (Bonus, 2000, p. 90). While nostalgia for the homeland can be a powerful way to engage with the present, Bonus cautions that it can also ‘reveal often concealed or unacknowledged intraethnic differentiations by class, gender or generation’ (2000, p. 90) and other intergroup dynamics. One could argue that these practices and performances operate out of their original context and are consequently different. However, I argue that it is more useful to look at the ways in which orientation towards the homeland becomes a pivot point of identification for diasporans, mediated by shared histories of dispersal as well as local and transnational relationships. In the articulation of identity and community, rituals in diaspora space are not merely re-appropriations, but also reorientation and re-enactments. This marks the important difference of being placebased and not necessarily place-bound, as origins are multiple (Fortier, 1999).

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  93 Therefore, memories of and identification with the homeland, through these rituals, can occur anywhere. Fortier writes that ‘generations, in immigrant discourses, are the living embodiment of continuity and change, mediating memories of the past with present living conditions, bringing the past into the present and charged with the responsibility of keeping some form of ethnic identity alive in the future’ (1999, p. 55). This extends, too, through symbolic attachments to cultural products and objects. Ahmed writes: ‘For diasporic communities, objects gather as lines of connection to spaces that are lived as homes but are no longer inhabited. Objects come to embody such lost homes’ (2006, pp. 149–50). Through the passage of these sites, home is about dislocation as well as translocation. Enactments of identity, of whatever form, allow diasporans to negotiate the memory of the homeland and dislocation in diaspora space.

Rituals, celebrations and get-togethers The reasons why Filipinos continued rituals, honoured celebrations and held gettogethers were multiple. On one level, Filipinos searched for familiarity, a continuity linking the past and present (Khan, 2007). Having familiar traditions under shared circumstances of migration helped them to ease the pain of emotional and physical separation. The sharing of beliefs, values and ideologies were not only for Filipinos, but teaching children growing up in Ireland the values of the homeland. In addition, their gatherings provided opportunities to teach Irish people about Filipino culture. Across the Greater Dublin Area, Filipinos were aware of many different types of gatherings, sometimes several of them occurring in one day. Many of these included religious rituals, birthday parties, basketball tournaments, choir group practice, the performance of traditional dances and participation in small-scale organisations or associations. Because of the lack of dedicated public spaces designated for cultural groups, many of these gatherings occurred in community centres, parks, churches and people’s homes. As well, due to the geographic spread of Filipinos throughout Ireland, these gatherings held even more significance to share beliefs, values and ideologies. One of the most mentioned gatherings was the Filipino Independence Day celebration, held annually in June. While there are other Independence Day celebrations held in other towns around Ireland, Dublin’s often had the largest attendance. In a large public park in Dublin, a number of Filipino groups would organise: food tents, local business and sponsor tents, a large stage with music performances and sometimes special guest stars and minor celebrities flown in from the Philippines. At this celebration, youth sometimes would sing or dance individually or in groups. Alma, speaking about the performances of traditional dances such as Tinikling and Pandanggo sa Ilaw at Independence Day, said that these dances are also presented in their smaller spaces, explaining different sizes of gatherings. At the hospital where Alma worked, there were spaces they could use for meetings: We had that presentation in the Independence Day, and we held it in the hospital. Because normally, when you have your own community, you have

94  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ your own celebration. And the grand celebration will be in Raheny’s park, but that’s for all Filipinos in Ireland. It will be participated in, in like County Cork, Limerick, Galway, Dublin, Drogheda, all over Ireland. But for small communities like us, we have our own presentation and we do that in the hospital, we have a place there, a small place. Other regular celebrations included Christmas-related masses, specifically Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) and Simbáng Gabi (night mass), a mass held between 16–24 December. Filipinos who organised Simbáng Gabi masses around Dublin would try to coordinate with each so as to alternate days and to boost attendance and support. In these special events, participants remarked that traditional formal Filipino attire, such as the Barong Tagalog (Tagalog dress), would be worn in a proud manner. Alma added: Santa Cruzan, every May, in the Philippines, it’s like a tradition that you have a procession. We are in our own Filipino dress, you know, like for the man, the Barong Tagalog, they will be wearing some of our cultural dress. And some white gowns. And we will be parading around Dublin, you know? And then we’ll end up in the church, we’ll be praying. That’s another thing, you could inject values into your children as well. And, we could . . . we also participate in, in the Independence Day celebration. You have your cooperation, you see each other working hard to make it good, you know the way. And for the kids, if they have the talent, if they have the talent for singing and dancing, we tried to develop it and we expose them by participating in this kind of celebration. So you know, it’s good. (Alma) Religious rituals, traditional dances and clothing served as important links to the homeland. Using Alma’s words above, to ‘inject values into your children as well’, there are multiple functions of recreating practices from the homeland. The recognition of living between worlds, of not only being ‘here’ and ‘there’, but also ‘here’ with other Filipinos heightened the sense of comfort found through familiarity. During fieldwork, if I was unfamiliar with a ritual or tradition, Filipinas said: ‘Your mommy knows’ or ‘Ask your mom next time you speak to her’, including me as part of their diasporic community. Rituals, celebrations and get-togethers draw boundaries of affinity and provide spaces of continuity to embody the homing desire. While many Filipinos sought each other to build community, simply being Filipino was not enough to sustain relationships. Domestic workers and other interviewees with Irish spouses sometimes felt more isolated because they did not see other Filipinos as regularly as those who worked in hospitals or medical centres. For example, Annalisa’s homesickness hit her hard after leaving a large and tightknit extended family to move to Ireland with her Irish husband and his small family and small group of friends. Since she and her husband lived near a hospital,

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  95 she sought out a number of Filipinos who lived in the area to try to develop a surrogate network: You know, when I was in the Philippines, it is often said if you’re in another country, Filipinos congregate. They want to be together, form a group and just be part of the Filipino community. And I was missing home, I was missing how to speak the dialect or whatever it is, just the sense of belonging. Here, you’re never going to be Irish. That’s how I felt. (Annalisa) Many of the new friends she had made lived and worked together, and they were a tight group Annalisa felt she could not break into. She then joined a local Filipino choir, which also was made up of many Filipino nurses from the nearby hospital. Despite welcoming gestures and invitations, Annalisa still felt like an outsider because their group dynamic was so tightly knit, especially since they saw each other during and often after work. In the end, she still felt excluded: They were all in the same jobs. You were either a nurse, or a wife or a husband of a nurse. I was neither. I was entirely different. No matter how hard I tried to penetrate, it was hard to get in. They were really nice, they invite me in things, but even though you are kind of there you are still not. You talk, but it’s not the same how they share everything else. I was still on the outside. I was Filipino, but I was still on the outside. . .. They’ve already formed this camaraderie, and I don’t want to kind of swim against the current. Even after accepting that she could not fit neatly into that group of Filipinos, Annalisa still sought a sense of belonging, something that her neighbouring kabayan seemed to find. Her experience further supports the argument that immigration status and profession affect the distribution of social spaces and the ensuing power dynamics within them. In the end, rituals and celebrations served as a connecting site to find other Filipinos, uncovering how ties remain strong, seeking support and kinship while being dislocated, but that it is not enough to simply be Filipino.

Religion and homeplace Despite having agency and growing transnational connections, diasporans experienced varying degrees of rootlessness. The role of religion and the Catholic Church was seen as a grounding source of strength, guidance and faith. It was a place to articulate practices and teach values; a space to meet and socialise with settled and newly arrived Filipinos. It provided a space to help with ‘temptations’ or marital difficulties (G2). Since religion is an important part of many Filipinos’ lives, religious organisations can be used as a lens to look at social and cultural integration (Gonzalez, 2009). Many interviewees and workshop

96  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ participants said that upon arrival in destination countries, they could count on the fact that they would find Filipinos in the church, affirming findings in many studies, that one of the first things that newly arrived migrants do is find a place of worship (Hirschman, 2007; see also Fortier, 1999; Cherry, 2014; McIlwaine, 2015). More specifically, the church and ongoing participation in religious activities were seen as safety nets against the difficulties of family separation and constant adaptation. Attending and participating in mass helped a number of Filipinos deal with homesickness. Many interviewees were active participants in the Catholic Church and regularly attended weekly mass. After masses, some individuals and families met to share Filipino food, pot-luck style, in the church mess hall, rectory or someone’s home. Because of the lack of public spaces to meet in Ireland, participants mostly relied on church rituals and activities as a way to tap into existing social networks. Gonzalez (2009), in his study on Filipino religious sites in San Francisco, found that the church allowed Filipinos to ‘transcend the acculturative stress caused by the complexities of migrant life in liberal, multicultural San Francisco’. Those interviewees with their families in Ireland stressed the importance of going to mass together as a family. While there are no exclusively Filipino churches in Ireland, many churches throughout Dublin hold a Filipino mass once a month, where Filipino parishioners read scripture, sing in the choir or serve as lay Eucharistic ministers. Some made a point to attend Filipino masses, occasionally going to different Filipino masses around Dublin to meet more Filipinos. During fieldwork, I  learned of numerous religious groups, organisations and activities for Filipinos throughout Ireland. There are several that also identify as social and cultural groups, and this overlap makes it difficult to catalogue them as simply religious in purpose. Others were not advertised or groups did not meet formally, and some groups joined others, making it difficult to estimate the number of groups. One organisation that was popular among Filipinos in Ireland was the internationally recognised Couples for Christ (CFC), a Catholic lay movement originally founded in the Philippines (with chapters in several countries organised by OFWs). A few interviewees and focus group members were happy to find that a CFC chapter existed in Ireland. In some cases, the Irish CFC chapter allowed them to reform previous networks of friends. For instance, Teresa, upon attending her first meeting of CFC in Dublin, met some of her friends she had known in a previous CFC chapter while still in the Philippines. Due to their varying migration paths and working in different countries, Teresa had not seen them for several years. Finding friends from the Philippines through these networks such as religious groups reified the importance of attending activities and functions so as to support newcomers and older generations of migrants. The sense of spirituality and devotion to the Catholic Church also compelled participants to perform volunteer work, participate in masses and organise community-based associations. Knowing this, Luz knew she could find the support of other OFWs in churches. Although a practicing Protestant, Luz said that she knew she would be able to locate more Filipinos in Catholic churches. On her first day

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  97 off, she asked her landlord how to get to the city centre, then soon after hopped on a bus towards the city centre specifically looking for Filipinos. So, I did and then hop in the bus, and I couldn’t find my people here. I couldn’t find Filipinos. I tried every bus stop. And then when I saw them, the next bus stop, I saw Filipinos. ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh, thank God! Where are you going?’ ‘We’re going to the city centre.’ So, I introduced myself, ‘I’m a first timer here, I don’t know the place, first time to take the bus, first time to go to the city centre, I don’t know where to go.’ And they said, ‘Ok, you come with us.’ Although I have this positive attitude to people, the first time getting along with people, I’m quite reserved and hesitant to follow where they would go. I always ask, ‘Are you going to the church?’ because that’s always my life, even in Hong Kong, because that’s my life, going to the church. I stood up there, the people there, the Filipinos brought me to Henry Street because I said, ‘Where can I buy phone cards? Cheap ones? I have to call my family to inform them I am doing well. So, how am I going to buy?’ So they brought me to Henry Street and then showed me the place and I bought this card and I told them, ‘Ok, you can leave me here and I’ll find another group of peoples.’ I was in the middle of the road on Henry Street, ‘Hey, are you Filipino?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Can I ask you something? It’s my first day here.’ I was so excited telling my story, ‘It’s my first day here” and I said, ‘Have you been here long?’ ‘Yes, but I am going somewhere.” ‘Ok, great, nice meeting you.’ So I forgot all of their names because I’m not remembering their names. And then another group, ‘Are you going to the church yet? Can I come?’ ‘Yes.’ So they are the same affiliation as my church. ‘Ok, can I come with you?’ And then, ‘Mm hmm.’ So my first day, my first day off, I went to the church, so happy to see my people there going to the church, so it’s fine. And then, time flies so fast, it’s evening time, going back again, I am really so excited looking forward to another Sunday. The social bonds for which Luz searched are part of the need to support oneself with non-kin networks. In feeling a need to establish both a connection to the homeland and to Ireland through meeting other Filipinos, Luz seeks a community that exists in both places. In the practicing of religion, social bonds are formed and further entrenched through norms of kinship, reliance and exchange. Religious gatherings provided spiritual and emotional support, as well as opportunities to increase visibility and for community building and organising. In their religious connecting sites, Filipinos shared their lives in comfortable spaces: ‘The idea of community – of shared values and enduring association – is often sufficient to motivate persons to trust and help one another, even in the absence of long personal relationships (Hirschman, 2007, p.  392). While these connecting sites may sit outside traditional notions of spaces of resistance (Law, 2002), they allow opportunities for Filipino diasporans to be simultaneously connected to both the homeland and the destination country. Experiences are lived through body in mind and actions,

98  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ revealing the ins and outs and in-betweens of settlement and adjustment, of vulnerability and stability.

Constant adaptation Some interviewees enjoyed the laid-back attitude of Ireland compared with the hectic lifestyle of metropolitan Manila. Others, who came from rural provinces, felt that Dublin was too busy but that the disparity between the rich and poor seemed less obvious. However, they stressed that when they wake up in the morning, they do not always think about their dislocations or identity as an outsider. Rather, when there is a catalyst, somebody or something reminds them of their Otherness, they felt the need to adjust. Combined with dislocations of migration and family separation, immigration status and adjusting to language, these circumstances ultimately create a sense of liminality, requiring constant adaptation. In adjusting to their lives in Ireland, interviewees primarily interpreted their adaptation through differences in perceived values, cultural expectations and learning new social codes. Cultural practices and perceived values served as points of tensions and identification. Interviewees felt that Irish people appeared similar in their attention to family needs. Gladys, for instance, felt that Irish people are sympathetic and accommodating because one can go home from work and take care of a sick child. This is a great benefit to her, and like many Filipinos throughout the diaspora, she would normally rely on extended family for support (Parreñas, 2001b; Daniel et al, 2001; Espiritu, 2003). She says: ‘Once you talk about family, they are very good, you know? “Oh, you can go home, you don’t have to work.” ’ Other participants echoed this. But, while they believed that Irish people were family oriented and that a focus on the family was an important value, it was also a point of difference. Many discussed making decisions as a family. Mahal explains that attention to the family is foremost and that decisions are made together. Mahal, who came to Ireland at the age of 16, remarks that if someone wants to date her, her parents have to not only be asked, but also ‘courted.’ If you want to go out with me, you have to court my mom, too [laughs]. You have to get her permission. It’s a different thing, too, you have to court my dad, as well. Actually talk to him, give him Jack Daniels or something, give him a drink. Do whatever you want to do, just to show my parents you are interested in me and in my family. You have to convince them that I am going to be safe with you and that you are going to take care of me and basically, take care of me. The same care that you give my mom and dad you should give that to me, too. I told my boyfriend, ‘I can’t just meet up with you somewhere. You have to ring the doorbell, tell my dad that we’re just going here, this is our plan, and I will be home at this time. You have to leave your phone number and all that.’ Cara (Eileen’s daughter) agrees as well. Cara, 18 at the time of the interview, moved to Ireland when she was 13. She says that her Irish friends make more

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  99 decisions without parents’ or other family members’ input. Cara and Eileen were surprised to find how decisions were made without the consultation of the family. For them, and for many families from Southeast Asia, parenting does not end when children turn 18 (see Lee and Zhou, 2004). As well, children are expected to obey their parents and not speak back; to disobey this code of practice would be seen as disrespectful and defiant (Galang, 2005). For Cara, this point of difference reminds her that she lives in an in-between space, and sometimes it might be easier to be either Filipino or Irish instead of Filipino and Irish, although she prefers the latter. Most interviewees and focus group members perceived Irish people as very warm and polite: ‘They are very humble, they can say, “Sorry” or “Do you mind?” Sometimes, [my supervisors] will ask mostly, if you’re happy, if you don’t mind. They will ask permission. So, in a way, maybe it’s very nice’ (Eleanor). But aside from small talk and banter, in terms of deeper social relations, the displays of respect for elders was a surprise. Teresa, her husband and her friends were stunned when they arrived in Ireland and learned that grandparents or elder members of Irish families were either left alone in their homes or placed in nursing homes. Filipino nurses in other countries were also were surprised that elders were cared for in nursing homes, not in family’s homes, and viewed this as uncaring (Daniel et al, 2001; Mc Gonagle et al, 2004). When discussing the perceived differences between Irish and Filipino values, Teresa said: If no one could take care, they’d be left alone in the nursing homes. Yeah, even the thought of that, family value, even that simple, but it’s valuable. What else? Yeah, the value of respect, like, even here, they would call names of their moms. We can’t, or else we’d be punished. Especially if you have a conservative family. And then, we can still see in our youth it is totally different as well, because the young people are going to masses in our country, in the Philippines. But not here, very few, unless being told by their parents. Yeah, there are some values that I compare. Levels of respect for elders, listening to parents and regularly attending mass (even if it was at the request of parents) held resonance for many. Bella, Eleanor and Yvonne specifically spoke of teenagers harassing them on the street as they walked home from work. It is important to note that they did not want to come across as blaming Irish society or that the Philippines had better social values (or vice versa). Rather, the differences sometimes felt so jarring that it increased their sense of Otherness. Teresa’s previous comment also touches on the matter of respect not just for the elderly, but also those who are older. Language of direct address, such as opo, ate and kuya were important in addressing elders and showing respect. Opo, which does not translate well into English, is a respectful way of answering a person, particularly to a yes or no question. Opo is placed at the end of a sentence. Ate and kuya, meaning ‘older sister’ and ‘older brother,’ respectively, are terms used to address and speak about elders, not necessarily limited to family relations. Often, during my fieldwork, children, adolescents and adults only a few years younger than me

100  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ would call me Ate. These terms indicate that respect in addressing people is not mere words but expresses an attitude, a culture of respect towards elders (Gonzalez, 2009). Nearly all participants referenced the significance of these terms of address. The perceived lack of respect was intimately felt, and more easily identified as a Filipino/Irish either/or dichotomy. Eleanor recounted a story about a Filipina friend who married an Irish man. When her friend’s mother came to visit, the Irish man called the Filipino mother by her first name. This made the mother very angry and told Eleanor’s friend, ‘Teach your husband to be respectful.’ Eleanor said, ‘The mom probably wasn’t really aware that here we call straight by our first names. But I don’t like that kind.’ However, the Filipino/Irish dichotomy does not fully hold, particularly with Filipino youth growing up in Ireland. Research on perceived generation gaps among different generations of Filipino Americans and the stress that this produces reveal that intergenerational respect is an important Filipino value (Espiritu, 2003; Gonzalez, 2009). The respect for elders ‘is a deference that is cherished by elders, resulting in mutual respect and action’ (Gonzalez, 2009, p. 124). Filipino parents can often interpret their children as being disrespectful, when in actuality, the children are speaking with a socialisation process from outside the Filipino home (Gonzalez, 2009). This resonates with Eleanor’s experience. She became very upset that her 6-year-old son had called her by her first name, not just because of this being a taboo in the Philippines, but also because she recognised that addressing parents by their first names is not inherently a bad thing. So it’s just like you’re fighting already between, you know, your own ideas and then the culture that they live in now. Before, my boy is saying ‘Opo’, you know? But then when he started in the school he probably he has a bit of confusion. Before he started in the school, he was saying ‘opo, opo.’ She finds the adaptation a struggle: ‘Here, now, there’s a conflict, there’s a struggle here. Rearing up, or imposing the culture you want to, plus the culture the environment where they live, so that’s the struggle now, that’s the conflict’. Because Eleanor and her husband have chosen to raise their children in Ireland, they struggle with what is considered acceptable cultural capital. While their son is growing up ‘Irish’, they still want to instil their value system. This causes frustration with no easy solution. Other participants echoed this struggle, such as Josie. She asked the two young children she cares for her to call her Tita, meaning aunt. Tita (and Tito, for uncle) is also used for non-kin relations as a mark of respect. However, Josie found that they still called her by her first name. She finds this extremely disrespectful. It hurts her feelings when she hears them say her first name. Even when addressing the parents, she said for six months she called them Sir and Ma’am, and they did not like it: ‘I have to adapt myself by their first names, Martin and Clare.’ The children also refer to their parents by their first names. They just say, ‘Clare! Martin!’ And then their parents are ‘Yes? What is it, pet?’ Oh God. If, in the Philippines, if you are going to call your mom that

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  101 way, you are in trouble. Oh God, you are in trouble. And then just letting their kids calling you that way, and sometimes they say, ‘Shut up’, I’m shocked. ‘Shut up’ or lots of bad words, but then they are just only, ‘Oh, don’t say that to your mom’, Oh God. Josie believes that although her beliefs and values are just as valid as her employers’ and their children’s, she is in Ireland and must adapt to and adhere to the social codes of Irish society. This adds to her dislocation, weighing on her greatly. Other notions of difference were explained as the Philippines being more ‘conservative’ versus Ireland as more ‘open’. Intertwined with conservative notions were public displays of affection. Mahal and Lynetta, among the younger participants (Mahal, age 22; Lynetta, age 27), discussed how public affection is not considered socially appropriate in the Philippines: Oh, the Philippines is definitely more conservative than here. Like, in terms of having boyfriends and kissing them. You can see Irish people kissing alongside the road. They are really, really liberated and Filipinos, you don’t really see anybody doing that anywhere. Only inside the house, but yeah. [. . .] I think that’s pretty much what stands out. (Mahal) Here, in front of our house, sometimes, other teenagers were lovers like that, they can do, I can see them kissing, doing such things. Even anywhere, even in the field, my God, I can’t tolerate them rolling around in the field, my God. That’s what I really don’t like. In the open. Just rolling in the field, my God. Even in front of the house, I can see them. It’s not really good for children [laughs]. It’s too early, you know, to do that. It’s too public, it’s too vulgar. In the Philippines, my God, it’s really a taboo. (Lynetta) Mahal and Lynetta both felt that the hierarchy of respect which exists in the Philippines is a good thing, and would also prevent Filipinos from making public displays of affection. Because the hierarchy of respect is not seen as rigid in Ireland, they have difficulties explaining frustrations to their Irish friends, making them feel even more like outsiders. Lastly, the role of education, and its link to employment, was cited as a major point of adaptation and difference between Irish and Filipino values. Education, for research participants, is largely about social mobility. Its importance to moving up the social ladder, the class status it confers and its reproducible benefits are unmatched by any other motivations mentioned by participants. Because choosing specific professions and career paths for emigration is widely practiced, social mobility is intertwined with third level education. Many participants said to me ‘finish your studies’ during our conversations, telling me

102  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ that having the highest degree is the greatest achievement and path to economic stability. Mahal says: They grow up differently, with different values, different principles, different perspectives of life. But here, some of them, they just, you know the way . . . in the Philippines, you actually want to finish your studies as much as possible, as soon as possible. But here, they actually take their time not to stress themselves too much, as in doing the leaving cert. Most of my friends took a year out just to unwind before they go into college. Even now after they finish their [college], most of them didn’t even start until this month because they wanted to go on holidays, have a break from school and from starting work. So, that’s important to them, and it’s not like they’re gonna be running out of jobs, that’s what they’re thinking. They can take how many years off after school, enjoy life and then go back to school. That’s some of their perspectives that I’ve gathered from the past years living here. But, I don’t see any Filipino do that. I don’t see, I haven’t even heard of anybody do that. You can’t waste it. Finish their studies and then working and working and working. While expressing her frustration, Mahal said it did not make sense to take a break. The negotiation of her views and her Irish friends’ views is more than a personal debate, for it draws on existing cultural values and social capital of the Philippines and her own opportunities for mobility. Because social mobility is a key aspect of diaspora, education, therefore, is linked to social positioning and moving ahead. Employment was a significant socio-spatial site as well, particularly since thirteen of the eighteen interviewees were directly recruited to work. Although there is ample literature that explores negative experiences at work, many participants said that they have had incredible support and encouragement from non-Filipino colleagues and managers. Some nurses were happy to report that patients treated them like family, and in some cases, kept in touch with them and their extended families. I was working in this respiratory ward and during my seven nights, she was kind of in the dying stage, so she would be up and down, deteriorating, and then she would be up a little bit. And then in my seven nights, it was kind of a struggle for her. There were nights she was drowsy and then arousable, but, she’s arousable but not fully conscious yet. She was diagnosed with lung ca—, but anyway, she was single and had some nieces and nephews that looked after her. A few months after she died . . . her niece went over and brought me her necklace and gave it to me. It’s an Irish necklace that has kind of an oval shape. It’s a cross and then has an oval shape. She gave it to me and she said, “My aunt wanted you to have this.” So it’s still with me. And it’s nice, it’s nice. I think that’s one of the positive things, being welcomed and

‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’  103 being a part of the family of the Irish patients that I have. I think so. That’s from my own understanding. (Teresa) The inconsistency of dislocations, however, was key in their experience of liminality. Most participants said that Irish people perceive Filipinos as hard working. The contradictions of being accepted and seen as hard workers against being seen as stealing Irish people’s jobs (Marisol) or being given a heavier workload than Irish co-workers (Marisol, Grace) or being given difficult tasks and being heavily criticised compelled them to seek a sense of belonging found through rituals, religion and routine. Even though Grace felt these moments as discriminatory, she says that she must accept criticism through a transformative lens: ‘Because if not, I will be the one who will be miserable in the end, so I have to stand and prove that I  know what I’m doing.’ Participants understood their adaptation to their destination countries as an adjustment to differences in values. While they dealt with alienation, racism, estrangement, financial difficulties, contradictory class mobility, transnational families, but also mobility, freedom and openness, they constructed their sense of the margins and the mainstream (Espiritu, 2003, p. 158). In the repetition of rituals and routine, Filipinos felt a sense of reassurance found within a familiarity oriented towards the homeland.

Conclusion Although Filipinas are part of the Irish landscape, their simultaneous inclusion and exclusion inhibit their full engagement in Irish society. It is within these dislocations that Filipinas make sense of their experiences. In this chapter, I examined how rituals, religion and routine served as connections between other Filipinos in Ireland, giving way to articulate group identity and community formation. I discussed the ways in which they enact the homing desire through activities and social relations. These enactments occur in connecting sites where Filipinos can meet other Filipinos in Ireland. These sites are the means by which they enact a sense of belonging in response to shared dislocations such as separation, alienation, discrimination, language and cultural barriers. Although their group formations were not uniform, and people’s involvement in community activities varied, many participants sought kabayan to exchange stories and support one another. The church and religious gatherings not only were important for Filipinos’ worship, but also provided opportunities to disseminate values, beliefs and ideologies to other Filipinos and non-Filipinos. In their attempts to adjust to their destination country, Filipinos oriented their social practices to the homeland, driven by nostalgia and a need for familiarity and a sense of belonging. In their social interactions in daily life, they worked hard to negotiate new social codes and local know-how. This did not always happen evenly, as those who worked as nurses or as skilled migrants had more opportunities and free time to socialise with each other than those who worked or lived outside Filipino circles.

104  ‘Hey! Are you Filipino?’ Situated within complex circumstances, Filipinos were not disempowered. They performed acts of resistance, contesting their liminal positions through participation in mass, in organised celebrations or in social and cultural organisations. They expressed, internalised and resisted dislocations as they learned new social codes. Within dislocation are also dynamic spaces that can open up opportunities for an alternative consciousness, resistance and possibility (Anzaldúa, 2007; Sandoval, 2000; Grewal, 2002). Maintaining and adapting rituals, religion and routine made visible everyday moments that would otherwise remain unseen. Rituals, religion and routine allow us to see the ins, outs and in-betweens of settlement and adjustment, inclusion and exclusion as well as vulnerability and stability. Participants worked within the resources and opportunities available to them. As identities are informed by dialogue and social interaction, the maintenance and adaptation of their practices becomes more salient.

5 ‘As long as you have your food, you feel at home’ Eating, gathering and socializing

‘Does your mom make this’? ‘Is this how your mom makes it’? and ‘I made you Filipino food to make you feel at home’ – these were all common remarks I received while visiting Filipinas’ homes to ask them about their journey to Ireland. What would begin as a scheduled interview would soon turn into a few hours of rounds of eating, laughing and sharing our migration stories. Occasionally, we began and ended our conversation at the kitchen table. At other times, we would move from the kitchen table to the sitting room, and after some time, return to the kitchen for tea. Sometimes I even received (and accepted) invitations for future meals. The initial offer of food may have been made as a gesture of hospitality, but sharing these experiences centred around food revealed more to me than just passing a pleasant afternoon or evening. In discussing the circumstances of their arrival to Ireland, the hardships of family separation and movement across the world, as well as their interest in my mother’s migration from the Philippines to the US and my own movement to Ireland, I began to understand food as a pathway which can ascribe and inscribe a shared sense of belonging, creating a sense of familiarity for ourselves – however fleeting. In this chapter, I examine how Filipinas use food as a means of creating and sustaining social relationships. This discussion of food for Filipinas in Ireland provides another window into the modalities of making home in diasporic communities. Because of the circumstances of their arrival and settlement, their immigration status and their experiences of race and ethnicity in public life that shape their day-to-day interactions, I  argue that Filipinos’ food practices reveal how orientations are linked to the cultural and political landscape in which they are embedded. Thus, an examination of attitudes towards food offers insight into the transformations of globalisation, transnational activities and the politics of belonging in Ireland.

Food as a connecting site For Filipinos, who hold a strong sense of reliance, allegiance and solidarity with immediate and extended family and fictive kin, social networks are important for socialising and support. To deal with the pain and loss associated with migration, Filipinos sought each other to speak Tagalog, celebrate rituals and anniversaries,

106  Eating, gathering and socializing practice their faith and gather to eat food. It is important to note that these overlap, and in some cases, one does not always necessarily precede the other. Because speaking the language of the homeland, celebrating and practicing religion often occurred over meals, food serves as as an integral connecting site to explore the interrelations between Filipinos’ social, cultural and psychic experiences. Studying food practices reveals how participants use familiar food as a way to access a sense of nearness to home (Ahmed, 2006). From ‘Oriental’ food shops to Filipino stores and restaurants, participants sought these specific places in order to find produce, seafood, sauces, spices and snacks as well as toiletries, trinkets and cookware. Such items are available only in these specialised stores. These sites evoke memories and a sense of comfort: nostalgia along with the components of day-to-day life in Ireland mix together and mark a space of difference. The Oriental stores, mostly concentrated in Dublin’s city centre, stock specific goods and products from different parts of Asia, but mainly cater to the Chinese population, which has the largest population of immigrants from Asia, with 11,161 migrants (Central Statistics Office, 2006). A couple of participants shopped at other retail outlets, with large warehouses located in industrial estates outside Dublin’s city centre. Some of these businesses also provided services to send remittances. Many interviewees said they utilised these services, as well as frequented the businesses to check bulletin board postings to see news and current events in Ireland and the Philippines. At the time of fieldwork, during 2006–2009, there were very few such spaces located outside Dublin’s city centre. Unlike in other countries such as the US, Oriental stores in Dublin are not located in residential areas with high concentrations of Asians in order to cater to the population (see Bonus, 2000; Laguerre, 2000; de Leon, 2004).1 Further, Filipino stores and restaurants opened only in the last decade. Because of the limited access to places that offered Filipino or Asian food products, interviewees noted their efforts to go to these businesses. For example, Marisol, who did not have a car for the first few years of living in Ireland, would take a large suitcase into Dublin twice a month to fill up on food from the Oriental food stores. Overall, the travelling time would take three hours. The long journey exemplified the importance of specific types of products. Restaurants also were important spaces, primarily because they offered sites in which to engage with those that shared similar histories, values and circumstances, even if these shared aspects were not discussed. Interviewees liked that they saw ‘non-Filipinos’ in restaurants, which offered others the opportunity to try Filipino food. Two prominent Filipino restaurants in Dublin both maintain a Filipino specificity through their bamboo decorations and pictures of the Philippines. One of them adds even more of a touch of ‘home’ with their direct feed to the Filipino Channel on their big screen TV on the back wall of the restaurant. Some interviewees remarked that the décor gave them an opportunity to enter the Philippines for the time they spent there, even if it was only in their imagination. The specificity of décor was particularly important for Eleanor, who also decorated her house with objects that reminded her of the Philippines. Taking things she has found at the Oriental shops as well as a local hardware, she recreated the

Eating, gathering and socializing  107 inside of her kitchen to look like the walls are covered in bamboo, resembling a native hut. She stocks her freezer with food from Asian markets, spacing out the time she eats food so that she can go to her freezer when she is feeling homesick. Eleanor, who arrived in 2001 during the early years of nurse recruitment from the Philippines, says of her arrival in Dublin, ‘It was very hard, really. Aside from the weather, and before, there was no like, much Filipino foods, there wasn’t a shop before, so it was totally strange. You need to eat what Irish are eating [laughs], you’re looking for your own tastes’. Eleanor’s house, and in particular, her kitchen, becomes a site for seeking home, with a feeling of longing heightened by the difficulties to access familiar food. She says: Oh yeah. It’s really nice. We’re really feeling at home now. Especially they recently have an Asian store here, you know, the Indian store with Filipino foods here, so it’s better now. We feel really at home because you can buy fresh vegetables that you cannot get in Tesco and the major shops here. So at least . . . and you can buy real Filipino foods and Filipino goods coming from Philippines, not only from other Asian countries. It’s really from the Philippines. At least we can cook what we want. You know, we’re feeling at home. Like many interviewees, Eleanor found adjusting to life in Ireland very challenging. She said that with the geographic spread of Filipinos around Dublin and only knowing a few Filipinos with whom she worked, she felt isolated from the larger Filipino population. This feeling of isolation, added to an unfamiliarity with Ireland and the difficulties in obtaining Filipino food products, exacerbated her homesickness. She sought participation in the church to help deal with these challenges: So once you’re religious, like, if you have the church, sometimes, if you have like, you know, personal struggles, it will help you really ease, you know. Your problems like, so . . . that’s it. So when I first came here, and you know, your homesickness, you have like struggles, you know, inner struggles. I think that really helped me a lot to survive. You know, of course, when you first come here, you can’t deny that you have personal struggles. You’re adjusting. Plus, the issues, like, at home [in the Philippines], you know? The families are stressing you out. Eleanor helped to organise food gatherings with close friends after mass, mostly on an informal basis once a month. On an individual level, she sought a variety of ways to find and make homeplace for herself, reaching out to other individuals who had similar struggles. Material and symbolic orientations towards food – whether that is shopping at Oriental or Filipino stores, eating at Filipino restaurants or preparing Filipino food at home – are embodiments of the homing desire. Recipes, potlucks and food exchanges also allowed individual and group identification with such orientations: ‘For diasporic communities, objects gather as lines of connection to spaces

108  Eating, gathering and socializing that are lived as homes but are no longer inhabited. Objects come to embody such lost homes’ (Ahmed, 2006, pp. 149–50). Practices of sharing food helped to maintain relations over distances, especially the geographical scattering of the Filipino community. Because these transnational activities maintain ongoing material and symbolic relations with the Philippines and help to sustain a collective imaginary of ‘Filipino-ness’, these activities served as crucial connecting sites. Enactments of identity, of whatever form, allow diasporans to negotiate the memory of the homeland and dislocation in diaspora space.

A ‘Filipino’ experience? While the décor in her kitchen helps with her longing for home, Eleanor recognises that they only partly contribute to feeling grounded. She invested emotional and psychic stock in the material objects, her children’s upbringing, and the regularity of family day, rooting her in her recreation of the Philippines. These investments reveal how Eleanor used familiarity as a way to feel near to ‘home’ (Ahmed, 2006). Many participants sought ways to reach that ‘nearness’ to home. Gladys, who arrived in 2002 on a work visa, said that she misses food in the Philippines, but because the Filipino stores are much smaller and have less variety in produce and canned goods than the Oriental stores, most of the time she can only come close to cooking Filipino dishes: ‘I know that we can eat, we can cook Filipino food, here. But it’s very limited because the vegetables that you find in the Philippines, you can’t really find a whole lot here. So you can just cook variations, like compared with the ones in the Philippines’. Both Eleanor and Gladys, despite not being able to get the exact products from the homeland, rearticulated the homeland with the products available to them. They use food and family meals to transmit Filipino values. These portrayals of the homeland are important in the construction of the narrative of a coherent identity and history (Abdelhady, 2008). I return to Eleanor’s and Gladys’s narratives of home in the following chapter. Bonus (2000), writing on Oriental stores, says that his interviewees found that recognisable products and specific types of food carry a specific association with and for the Philippines. These products are seen as more genuine, and labels such as ‘Made in the Philippines’ help Filipinos feel closer to home in the diaspora. To say that the products are genuine because they come from a certain place (the ‘homeland’) invites a sense of relationship to such products that one does not have with ‘other’ products that one can buy from other, bigger stores. . .. [T]he assignment of certain values and properties to specific commodities (according to their perceived qualities and referents) becomes a point of articulation of otherness – transcending what may be the ‘objective’ properties of such commodities. (Bonus, 2000, p. 63)

Eating, gathering and socializing  109 Bonus argues that these objects ease separation from the homeland, providing levels of comfort (2000, p. 64). On the other hand, Ahmed argues that these objects are not about nostalgia but rather they ‘make new identities possible in the “textures” of the everyday’ (2006: 150). However, I argue that the relationship between nostalgia and the articulation of new identities needs more attention. Filipinos find comfort through nostalgia while simultaneously rearticulating their borderland identities. In eating, preparing and sharing recognisable food and in the producing and consuming commodities and objects, Filipinas make sense of the borders and dislocations around them. Their food practices embody the intersections of social relationships, belonging and diasporic settlement. When I first started here, I thought there was no rice. Because I started here, I  don’t know much Filipinos here, of course, we just move in here, we’re 13 Filipinos, batch mates. We shared a house, five of us. [. . .] And then we thought, ’Oh my God, how are we going to buy rice?’ So I rang my mom in the Philippines, “Oh, I can’t survive here. We don’t have rice, here. It’s only potatoes, chips, like that. You know, after a week or so, we met Filipinos and they said, ‘Oh, you have to buy your rice here in that kind of shop’. They’re very helpful as well, and now we know everything. [laughs] Even when we go to America, maybe I don’t know where to buy this kind of stuff. (Gladys) The attachment to cultural products and objects is an embodiment of the homing desire, of memory, change and seeking continuity. Practices of identity, of whatever form, allow diasporic subjects to negotiate the memory of the homeland and dislocation in diaspora space. Furthermore, these practices are constantly negotiated within transnational social fields and continue to occur after settlement (Kelly and Lusis, 2006). Filipinas continually seek a sense of familiarity and belonging as they navigate their dislocations. Food, whether prepared with products and materials directly from the Philippines or not, provided a strong marker of identity. The reminders of the homeland point to the elusiveness of home, for what people try to achieve through décor and sharing food is a cultivation of the need for security and familiarity. I argue this need is more than nostalgia; the need is about finding products and relationships to ease the pain of separation and the challenges migration brings. Workshop participants concurred. Their shared relationships and kinship were maintained through gatherings in order to ease their troubles. Through an emphasis on cultural and social aspects rooted in kinship and reliance on each other, rather than on their shared economic circumstances, participants portrayed their activities in terms of togetherness. Seeking each other to share food and socialise was a way to seek a sense of home. However, I am not proposing that one can merely replicate home. Homes are constantly changing and contingent upon a complex network of individual and social factors. Nevertheless, Filipinas constantly embroider a sense of belonging

110  Eating, gathering and socializing through cultural practices, working to feel at or near home. These enactments of belonging are not universal, but we can examine them for markers of how Filipinos fashion their identities towards the Philippines. Enactments tell us how bodies are oriented and how dislocations orient one’s sense of direction: ‘Directions are instructions about “where,” but they are also about “how” and “what”: directions take us somewhere by the very requirement that we follow a line that is drawn in advance’ (Ahmed, 2006, p. 16). These lines ‘drawn in advance’ are migrants’ sense of home, shaped by their dislocations. Their migration stories, their language, values and beliefs, their foods, products and materials, their gestures and activities are manifestations of their orientation to the Philippines. These manifestations show how food serves as a pathway to fill existential needs. Their orientations function as a psychic glue that holds them together.

Gathering and socialising Gathering around food and socialising provides ways to examine the importance and the role of food in sustaining as well as creating social relationships. Sister Maria Lourdes, a religious contemplative recruited by a monastery, was surprised when she arrived to a Filipino welcoming party. Even though she did not know the 30 or so Filipinos that attended the party, having a Filipino gathering upon arrival was a warm welcome. She also said that the nuns were so happy to hear laughter, remarking that usually they are ‘so dry’. The nuns were also amazed at the amount of food that the welcome-party brought, asking how it was possible to prepare such a huge amount of food. Sister Maria Lourdes said: I said, ‘You know, it was not prepared by a single person only, it’s a pot-luck. Yeah, you know? They just agree with themselves, ‘I will cook this . . . I will prepare this . . .’ and so on. Because you know, there is plenty of food. I said, ‘You know, that’s the joy of Filipinos . . . eating.’ [Laughs] Fiestas, party, you know. Just about anything, eating . . . We cannot gather without eating. (Sister Maria Lourdes) The welcome-gathering created a sense of place and community for Sr. Maria Lourdes. In their informal and borrowed spaces, activities become a series of moments that reveal a transience of belonging for migrants. Activities for welcoming new migrants are part of a discourse of recognition and expression as an OFW. Alma supports this idea, adding that food is a great way to socialise as well as greet new arrivals from the Philippines. She says that many gatherings involved several people and a great deal of effort: And you know what we did before, you know, we would go countryside picnic. All Filipinos love picnics, and if it is picnic, you have food, you have pack lunch, you know, stay at the seaside. Just socialise, you know the way, and the kids have time to get along with each other as well, a form of socialisation, and they will be playing whereas we will be talking, you know the way? Yeah. We always do that, you know. And it would be convoy [laughs].

Eating, gathering and socializing  111 Welcoming activities are used to articulate recognition and expression, which form part of the collective imagination as Filipinos in the diaspora. Sometimes, meeting around food was accompanied by other symbolic markers. When an interview took place in an interviewee’s home, I often saw items typically found in a Filipino household, such as religious images of the Last Supper, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Our Lady of Fatima, or a large wooden spoon and fork hanging on the wall (see Ignacio, 2005 for a checklist on ‘You Might Be Filipino If . . .’). These markers, alongside the sharing of Filipino food, claimed a boundary of ‘Filipino’. In other words, the same products, décor and images are in the Philippines, they are not necessarily ‘Filipino’, but become Filipino in a transnational context. In the orientation to the homeland, the ethnicising of objects becomes more salient. In contemporary Ireland, while international products are much more accessible and common than in previous years, these materials and practices retain their Filipino-ness. In Filipinas’ social gatherings, food helped to inscribe identity. I think food is very important. Sometime you don’t care about anything bothering you as long as you have your food, you feel at home. (Eleanor) And, like, you know, for the food, the timings . . . their food, their food is really different as well. And, because you know, for us, it’s rice, rice, rice. For Filipinos, it’s rice, rice. And we always eat. For them, it’s not. We’re fond of food, actually. It’s part of our culture, that, yeah, food. If we are in the party, food, you’ll see loads of food in there. And they were really amazed, you know? The way we celebrate. (Alma) Interviewees often brought food to work to share with colleagues or invited them along to birthday parties and house parties. Food was primarily about feeding nostalgia and cultivating kinships and friendships in the spaces around them. Doing so enabled to them to feel at home. Finding a community is incredibly important, but, as seen in previous chapters, being Filipino or of Filipino descent does not give one an automatic ticket to belonging. Belonging must be actively cultivated. As well, developing Filipino networks as surrogate family does not mean that people do not socialise or develop relationships with Irish or other nonFilipinos. Many participants regularly socialised with Irish people, particularly work colleagues. For Fe, she felt that most of her friends are Irish because when she arrived in 1999 there were few Filipinos in Ireland. By the time the Celtic Tiger recruits began to arrive, she already had her own circle of friends. But, she remembers the feeling of excitement of seeing other Filipinos on the street soon after she arrived: ‘If we see some Filipinos, we go running after them, “Are you Filipino?” So we’re excited, and they’re excited, too’. While Filipinos are socially and culturally heterogeneous, participants still sought unity to find a common voice. Participants, both throughout Dublin and among workshop participants in Manila, did not see Filipinos in the diaspora

112  Eating, gathering and socializing as a unified group. Much to the dismay of some participants, the lack of unity among Filipinos represents the main reason that they cannot form one community. Despite the happiness that a lot of participants found while gathering and socialising with other Filipinos, research participants also discussed the existence of a strong amount of discord, regionalism or personal issues that get in the way of socialising. This tension is well documented in studies on Filipino Americans (Bonus, 2000; Espiritu, 2003; Ignacio, 2005; Jimenez, Nititham and Norman, 2015). Additionally, Filipinas hold different levels of power and abilities to exercise agency, given their dislocations such as immigration status, migration circumstances, and professional opportunities: ‘Different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows of movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving-end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it’ (Massey, 1994, p. 149). This is evidenced through many participants claiming that once OFWs earn money, some display their newfound wealth through purchasing expensive cars or renting homes that are at or beyond their earning level. This display of wealth is a source of power and a mark of status both on the individual’s terms and to be held in comparison with other OFWs. Melinda, for example, is happy to be part of a Filipino social group. Yet, she recommends to newcomers, especially domestic workers, that they be wary of those who are boastful of their euro earnings: ‘Filipinos try to be something or somebody when they really can’t, they can barely afford it, just to show the people, that you know’. For Melinda, she perceives this as a negative Filipino trait that Filipinos have brought to Ireland, which helps prevent the establishment of a cohesive Filipino community. The divisions and tensions that occur because of these displays of wealth are an expression of inter-group classism: ‘As individuals without class privilege come to believe they can assume an equal standing with those who are rich and powerful by consuming the same objects, they ally themselves with the class interests of the rich and collude in their own exploitation’ (hooks, 2000b, p. 77). These intergroup class divisions shape their understandings of their positionalities. In so doing, this can further intensify the differences in upward economic mobility for different immigration status/professions and reify constructed dichotomies of skilled/ unskilled workers. Manuela said, ‘Filipinos tend to be – to group where they are. You know, you can only mingle, I think, with Filipinos who are around you’. Manuela, who has been involved in different levels of community organising for Filipinos in Dublin, said that there is nothing wrong with having so many organisations to celebrate one’s culture or region, but it is difficult to unite people and it prevents political movement. She adds that, because Filipinos may speak different dialects, they may prefer to stay with people from their own region. This creates a further barrier to developing a sense of one Filipino community. Despite the various challenges to move towards a perceived community, the driving factor to seek relationships with other Filipinos (even if selectively) was

Eating, gathering and socializing  113 to deal with their dislocations. One workshop participant said that she tried her best to avoid those who brought out the worst part of their migration experiences. For her, it was important to emphasise the positive things about working abroad, such as being able to support her family financially, send her siblings to college and help her parents build a house. She said, ‘instead of being friends, [some Filipinos] tend to see the negative side of an experience. They bring out the negatives instead of emphasizing the positive of being away from family, of being away from home. They bring out the worst part of the experience’ (Workshop participant, Group 2). [Some Filipinos] tend to be not too supportive of things. They bring problems out, they . . . instead of being friends, they tend to see the negative side of an experience. [. . .] Because some Filipinos, they like to gossip, or they bring out the negatives instead of emphasising the positive, of being away from family, of being away from home. They . . . bring out the worst part of the experience. (G2) However, what underlies most of the participants’ issues with unity is that they feel they lack political recognition from the Irish government. Some participants felt that they do not need to invest time in a political movement because they felt personally slighted by the Irish government. They felt that the active recruitment of Filipinos meant that they were welcome in Ireland, but they faced multiple problems with the GNIB and the inconsistent application of regulations. Participants wanted recognition of their complex migration experiences, the ability to do their job without barriers from immigration laws, and full recognition as human beings. For most of the participants, unity is only in name and identification, for they are aware of the different circumstances of Filipinos across time and space. The meaning of these food gatherings exists within a landscape of dislocation and labour emigration from the Philippines. The material and symbolic attachments to food, products and the spaces in which these were consumed and shared reveal the importance of social networks for support and community identity. In sharing their struggles of adaptation and family separation with kabayan, participants sought respect and equality from others in shared circumstances. Filipinos in Ireland, as well as other Filipinos in the diaspora, are part of a global community. Knowles argues that to be with others who share affinity is not necessarily a primitive or inherent need, but rather feeling at home is about being in the world (2003, p. 164). Memories of the homeland are made real within and through economic, social and cultural structures (see also Fortier, 1999; Jazeel, 2006; Bhattacharya, 2008), taking root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures and images in objects (Nora, 1989, p. 9). Filipinos’ social practices around food, oriented to the homeland, served as a basis to feel at home. Their inability to make long-term plans and feel fully part of Ireland heightened their sense of Filipino identity and Filipino-ness.

114  Eating, gathering and socializing

Conclusion In this chapter, I discussed the ways in which Filipinas enact the homing desire through eating, gathering and socialising. Filipinos purposefully sought kin, nonkin family and their larger social networks to share beliefs, values and ideologies. They met newly arrived and settled diasporans in the destination country and looked for opportunities to express, internalise and resist their dislocations. In Oriental stores, restaurants and shops, in swapping recipes and gathering to socialise, they respond to their own needs and connections to the homeland. In these spaces, the symbolic and conceptual become material and functional (Nora, 1989; Massey, 1994; Ahmed, 2006). For Knowles, ‘space is about the calibration of forms of attachment and sense of belonging or ownerships that individuals and groups exercise over the areas in which they operate or live’ (2003, p. 96). Through speaking Tagalog and learning new accents and phrasing, gathering for rituals and celebrations, practicing faith and consuming food, Filipinos showed that their get-togethers were important for the articulation of Filipino identity and group belonging. As they engage the homing desire, Filipinas remain in touch with the Philippines through their food activities while they strive for continuity and consistency. One could argue that their food practices and performances of identity operate out of their original context and are consequently different. Whether these practices are ‘authentic’ or re-appropriated is not the concern. Rather, practices in diaspora space are not merely re-appropriations, but reenactments that are politically and historically contingent. I am more interested in how the homeland becomes a pivot point of identification for diasporans. This marks the important difference of being place-based and not necessarily placebound, as origins are multiple (Fortier, 1999, p. 47). Therefore, memories of and identification with the homeland can occur anywhere. They stretch across locations, over borders and through constructs of inequality, calling attention to identity, community and home in diaspora space. I stress that these are not exactly the same as home country practices, nor are they entirely different because they are in the destination country. Rather, what is important is how cultural capital is mediated and given meaning, how activities are repeated and oriented. Brah writes: ‘The question of home, therefore, is intrinsically linked with the way in which processes of inclusion or exclusion operate and are subjectively experienced under given circumstances. It is centrally about our political and personal struggles over the social regulation of “belonging” ’ (1996, p. 192). Even if there is no physical return, the act of not returning is still oriented toward the homeland, for diasporic subjects return in the minds, actively engaging notions of home (Ahmed, 2006). Situated within politics of power and human agency, participants constantly negotiated their dislocations. In order to mitigate their challenges, participants looked for other Filipinos to find a sense of continuity. Yet, they recognised that establishing kinship with kabayan was not enough. Belonging had to be continuously cultivated. While participants spoke about community and togetherness as Filipino values, there were simultaneous divisions within their communities. At

Eating, gathering and socializing  115 times, regionalism was cited as leading to these high levels of discord, a reproduction of tensions from the Philippines. This reproduction reflects ongoing transnational dynamics. Thus, their enactments and articulations were not simply transferred to Ireland, but were re-enacted and re-articulated in transnational social fields. In other words, ‘home’ is not simply articulated in the destination country, but re-articulated in the historically and socially contingent spaces in which they take place. In Ireland, as these spaces lie outside public domains and occur mostly in private locations, the enactments of ‘home’ are performed mainly through social activities and reveal the social positioning of Filipinos. As Filipinas are psychically, emotionally and symbolically invested in multiple spaces, these connecting sites reveal the everyday interactions of one’s dislocations. Through their enactments, Filipinas redefined traditional notions of rootedness and belonging in Ireland. In their connecting sites, Filipinas negotiated varying levels of inclusion and exclusion. Their negotiations did not always happen smoothly, and conflicts and different motivations of individuals made it difficult to form a unified community. Ultimately, the shared landscapes of dislocation outweighed participants’ tensions. Their identity as immigrants, and the exclusion they felt from dominant Irish society, was more salient than the divisions within their communities. Participants took active roles to build bridges between the Philippines and the destination country as well as in that destination country. Regardless of the contradictions, the practices and the formation of social networks were strongly tied to the memory of a real and imagined homeland. Participants were not always yearning to return to the homeland, but rather expressed orientations to the homeland driven by nostalgia, familiarity and a sense of belonging. They sought visibility and made themselves visible in a variety of spaces and actions. These moments reveal that Filipinos are not lost within their dislocations, but instead are involved in finding homeplace, no matter where they are. What underpins their connections is the socio-economic and political economy of migrant culture, of being able to make do while they face the reality of why they left the Philippines in the first place.

Note 1 While there are historical Filipino enclaves and communities, some of which formed because Filipinos were not permitted to own their own businesses or purchase real estate, many Filipinos in the US do not live in ethnic enclaves. Because of this, Filipinos mark social spaces through ‘Oriental’ stores. Many Oriental stores are in suburban strip malls, following the trend of migration to the suburbs in the 1970s (see Bonus, 2000; Laguerre, 2000; de Leon, 2004). While there is some research on enclaves in Canada (see Qadeer, Agrawal and Lovell, 2010), there is a need for more research outside of the US context.

6 Romanticising the homeland

In their diverse trajectories, Filipinas are not nameless and faceless, but active agents who perform multiple acts of resistance and contest their liminal positionalities through different channels. This chapter shows how the homeland remains a pivot point of identification for Filipinas as they contest their liminal spaces. The ways in which participants work to feel at home reveals the familiarity and semblances of home made possible in social relations. Thus, this discussion brings to light the symbolism that home holds for participants. I discuss strategies and social relations and how making home in the diasporic context is connected to dislocation. The first part of this chapter draws on the stories of four interviewees and their reflections on their migration circumstances. Through their stories, we see how Filipinas interpret the social, economic, ideological and political dynamics of the world around them. This reflexivity not only illustrates how Filipinas come to understand their orientations and motivations and make sense of their positionalities, but also brings crucial visibility to their lives. Because the examination of social relations helps to understand how people create a feeling of home, I draw on participants’ reflections of their dislocations and social interactions in order to highlight the complex emotions of the transnational subject and to provide deeper insight into how they inhabit their spaces. Eleanor, Annalisa, Mahal and Gladys reflect on their concerns regarding their physical dislocation from the Philippines and on the modes of exclusion and inclusion that they encounter in the destination country among the Irish population and their fellow diasporans. These include being constrained by immigration laws, facing linguistic and cultural barriers and experiencing discrimination. They discuss how they negotiate feelings of ‘here’ and ‘there’, which become increasingly blurred as they maintain ongoing relations in the Philippines, develop social networks while living in Ireland, feel homesickness and try to bridge the gap between Ireland and the Philippines. I consider their orientations, their expressions of the homing desire and how these link to their consciousness of their dislocations. While the lines of ‘here’ and ‘there’ become blurred through transnational activities, their challenges of migration do not end upon return to the Philippines. The last part of the chapter investigates how workshop participants spoke of their return to the Philippines. Some did not feel welcome upon return;

Romanticising the homeland  117 others faced difficult adjustment periods. The similarities between Filipinas in the diaspora reveal that dislocation is not a singular experience, but a tension experienced among many Filipinas in the diaspora.

Enactments and borderland strategies As discussed in previous chapters, enactments of home may be intentional or unintentional, and may not always be explicit. Positionalities exist and persist on material and symbolic levels, and the ways in which these positionalities are differentiated is not always challenged by Filipinas or the dominant group. The concern here is how Filipinas’ enactments become borderland strategies, of overcoming painful dichotomies in both their home and destination countries such as us/them and successful/failed migration stories. Their understanding of their diasporic lives is part of the metaphoric space of living between the Philippines and their destination countries, and achieving continuity through their homing desire. Filipinas have said that ‘home is where my home country is’ or ‘home is where the family is’, but in their enactments, they reveal that home is more than these statements. They weave in and out of ideologies and social spaces in the homeland and destination countries that challenge their continuity. Their enactments are the socio-spatial site at which performativity is given meaning in their connecting sites. Examining their transnational practices allows a reading of these experiences in dialogue with each other; their roles as women of the Filipino diaspora are more than singular events or occurrences. They exercise and perform differing levels of agency within the macro level processes in which they are situated. The nature of home and its manifestations are widely accepted as social constructions, but how these manifestations become enactments is debatable. Moving beyond scholarship that views enactments as a series of isolated events (Burke, 2005), these women’s enactments are more than just actions. They are part of an ongoing process. While it is a cliché, their actions speak louder than words. And, the multiplicity behind rituals, festivals and informal activities can vary on each new performance. These stories are not universal, but are useful in that they shed light on material complexities and shifting subjectivities that occur within the intersections of diaspora, migration and home. In this chapter, the four stories of these women show the expressions of difference, resistance and adaptation below the surface. The narratives of Eleanor, Annalisa, Mahal and Gladys bring a greater depth to their sites of contestation. Their narratives show how Filipinas in Ireland, in their social and cultural enactments, both imagined and created, understand the complexities of their identity and belonging in the circumstances of their migration to Ireland. This not only relies on strategies of maintaining a sense of settlement, but also a pathway that enables the process of continuity through images, sensory emotions and memories and through repetition, ritual and reflection. Their borderland strategies are ‘forms of authoritative speech’ (Butler, 2000, p.  108). The homeland becomes performed through their movement, drawn on their social and cultural capital. The

118  Romanticising the homeland examination of these four narratives gives greater depth to their practices, as well as the criteria that is used to make decisions. Their narratives present different investments in time and planning and how ordinary items and activities become strategies of survival in the diasporic context.

Eleanor Eleanor fills her kitchen with decorations that remind her of the Philippines. Many of these decorations either were brought back from the Philippines or were found items in Ireland that were similar in appearance. One entire wall of her kitchen is covered in short bamboo fences that she purchased at a local hardware store. Normally used to partition sections of an outdoor garden, the bamboo fences have butterflies and small knick-knacks hooked or pinned in. A palm plant extends itself to gently brush the ceiling, the rest of its branches resting quietly in the corner. The large wooden spoon and fork hanging on the wall near a painting of The Last Supper, and the Santo Nino and the Baguio Barrel Man sitting on a shelf1 are just a few items that Eleanor has that are typical and ordinary decorations in homes in the Philippines. In her home in Ireland, these decorations hold more significance; as links to the homeland, the nostalgia they evoke is a sense of ease and comfort (Bonus, 2000). Eleanor says, ‘So, if you’re interested in the Philippines, I have it here, like.’ Hoping to evoke ‘a native hut feeling’, Eleanor wishes to bring the tropical world indoors. She leans into her freezer, smiles and takes a durian seed out of the bottom drawer. The durian, a large tropical fruit whose seeds and flesh have a pungent smell that people find either favourable or offensive (and is banned on public transport in many Southeast Asian countries), is not only expensive to buy in Dublin, but also is difficult to find. Eleanor had already finished her shopping at an Oriental market when she saw the spiky fruit near the checkout. Short on cash (durian is sold by the kilo, the fruit cost €60), she quickly put items from her cart back on the market shelves so she could buy it. Her eyes widen and she giggles as she opens a square plastic container, and she tells me she has been saving the last seed for a special occasion and that my shared love of the fruit is reason enough. For Eleanor, food is extremely important in feeling a sense of comfort. ‘Sometimes, you don’t care about anything bothering you. As long as you have your food, you feel at home’. As she chops off the flesh around the seed, Eleanor says, ‘If you’re in the Philippines, they try to decorate their home in a Western way. But then if you’re here, you want to feel at home, so you have your house look like the Philippines.’ But Eleanor’s kitchen accesses the Philippines not only through her decorations, but also through her laptop. She and her family regularly stream The Filipino Channel online while they eat dinner, and occasionally use webchat to talk with family and friends in the Philippines. Eleanor’s kitchen functions as a site of memory and a mode of struggle against forgetting (hooks, 1990). Tuan argues: Home is an intimate place. We think of the house as home and place, but enchanted images of the past are evoked not so much by the entire building,

Romanticising the homeland  119 which can only be seen, as by its components and furnishings, which can be touched and smelled as well: the attic and the cellar, the fireplace and the bay window, the hidden corners, a stool, a gilded mirror, a chipped shell. (1977, p. 144) In other words, the homeland takes root in the decorative objects and activities in the kitchen, marking homeplace, a safe space of familiarity (hooks, 1990). Eleanor embraces her memories and nostalgia, articulating her dislocations through these decorations (Bonus, 2000; Ahmed, 2006). Oriented toward the homeland, Eleanor enacts the homing desire in response to the hardships she faces, especially homesickness and family separation. Eleanor found adjusting to life in Ireland very challenging. With the geographic spread of Filipinos, and aside from knowing her batchmates, she felt removed from her kabayan. This, in addition to not knowing much about the country before her arrival and not being able to readily find Filipino food products, intensified her homesickness. When her husband joined her in 2002, they decided to start their family in Ireland. Knowing that their primary reason for being in Ireland was to remit earnings to Eleanor’s siblings to send them to college and to pay for her late father’s medical bills, they decided to raise their 6 year old and infant sons with a blend of perceived ‘Filipino values and Irish values’. The negotiation of perceived Filipino and Irish values, however, has not always been easy. As their older son attends Irish schools and plays with Irish friends, he draws on a wealth of Irish cultural capital, social norms and customs. As mentioned in earlier chapters, Eleanor works hard to find a balance between Filipino values and the social codes of Ireland, which sometimes clash with what is or is not acceptable in the Philippines. She does not want to punish her children for preferring ‘Irish values over Filipino’ values, but still wants to raise her son as ‘Filipino’. First and second generation youth often experience tensions of two separate and distinct social worlds, yet remain intertwined (Lee and Zhou, 2004). These worlds are often the ‘old world’ of the parents (in the home) and the destination country (outside the home). Despite cultural or generational differences, she hopes that her children will rely on her and her husband for guidance and support, rather than see them as a source of frustration or anger, especially when they face hardships such as discrimination. As they wish to raise their children in Ireland, Eleanor says that they are the ones who have to adjust. In order to handle this adjustment, Eleanor aims to provide continuity and consistency for her children. For example, she insists that Sundays are family days and that they spend time together, ‘because we used to have like that in the Philippines, and that Sunday is our special day, our family day for us’. She wants her children to understand the importance of family to her, especially because supporting her family is the main reason that she left the Philippines in the first place. Continuity and consistency of activities also ease her homesickness. Eleanor regularly contributes to activities in her parish. She is a reader at mass on most Sundays and she, her husband and older son sing in the Filipino choir. The Filipino choir sings once a month, after which people meet in the church meeting hall

120  Romanticising the homeland to share food, exchange stories and welcome new members. The continuity that her faith and familiar faces in the parish have provided has helped her with her struggles. Your homesickness, you have like struggles, you know, inner struggles. I think [church] really helped me a lot to survive. You know, of course, when you first come here, you can’t deny that you have personal struggles. You’re adjusting. Plus, the issues, like, at home, you know? The families are stressing you out. Because Eleanor and her husband are permanent residents and their children are Irish citizens, they do not encounter problems that other Filipinos in Ireland face, such as whether their status will be renewed, access to the labour market, and being able to change employers. Yet the burden of responsibility to provide for her family in the Philippines remains, as do the challenges of negotiating cultural differences that she and her family encounter. She knows that homesickness will not necessarily fade away. Here, for Eleanor, through the repetition of ritual, belonging becomes a fixed practice of reliability. This fixing, of course, can be revoked or revised, but in its repetitions, identity and belonging are inscribed through mass attendance. This establishes the possibility of accessing ‘home’, even if it exists in the imagination or as a fantasy. For Butler: ‘Fantasy is what establishes the possible in excess of the real; it points, it points elsewhere, and when it is embodied, it brings the elsewhere home’ (2004, p. 217). In other words, Eleanor is able to establish moments of continuity through regular attendance and commitment to parish activities with her family. Although Eleanor wishes to return to the Philippines, Eleanor and her husband say that Ireland is home ‘for now’: If we’re going back to the Philippines, the major issue is . . . how and where you will start again? It’s just like you have settled here already. And then we will see if the kids when they are grown up, if they choose to stay here, probably we will stay for a while, but still, at the end, we will be ending up in the Philippines. We want to be in the Philippines [laughs]. If we win the lotto, we are going home. Probably everybody’s dream, yeah? [laughs] While the decorations in her kitchen help with homesickness, Eleanor recognises that they only partly contribute to feeling rooted: ‘You know, there are a lot of things that can help you feel at home. I have that kind of plant at home [pointing to the tall palm plant in the corner]. When I saw it here, it’s a bit expensive, but I bought it. I really wanted it. So it’s just feeling at home’. She invests emotional and psychic stock in the material objects, her children’s upbringing and the regularity of family day, anchoring her in her recreation of the homeland. Tyagi argues: ‘For those of us who move beyond such disparate worlds, perhaps the only way to make sense of who we are is by creating an inventory of our investments and reckoning with it, ambivalence and all. Anything less than that is insufficient’ (1996, p. 51). These investments reveal how Eleanor uses familiarity as a

Romanticising the homeland  121 way to feel near to ‘home’ (Ahmed, 2006). She connects to the homeland through her imagination, family day, her decorations in her kitchen and online communication. Her homeplace is constructed ‘precisely (in part) through the specificity of the mix of links and interconnections to that “beyond” ’ (Massey, 1994, p. 5, author’s emphasis). She fills the space of ‘here’ with good memories of ‘there’ so as to tuck away the challenges of her dislocations, knowing that a physical return to the Philippines would not give her and her family the economic mobility that Ireland provides.

Annalisa When Annalisa wakes up in the morning, she does not feel that she is in a foreign country. She does not think about whether she feels like an Irish or a Filipina citizen. She does not think about what it means to be a Filipina in Ireland, nor does she think about how easily Irish curse words roll off her tongue, nor that no matter how much she likes the Irish-ised Chinese dish of chicken balls, she still wants to eat it with rice, not chips. However, when someone makes a racist comment, when she uses her Filipina passport to travel, or when she plans for the future, Annalisa becomes profoundly aware of the challenges she has faced in Ireland and the complicated terrain of feeling at home. Home. When I say home, it is still Philippines. But, when I’m there, I think home is here. But I think I’m realising more and more, what I’m observing more and more, I’m kind of more or less referring to home as here. I think it’s because I’ve been here a long time. So, I can’t really say which one is which. Maybe it’s 50/50. [laughs] I don’t know. Annalisa met her Irish husband, Michael, in the Philippines when he was visiting his brother, who lives outside Manila with his Filipina wife. They married in 2002, and she came to Ireland in 2003. In the years that Annalisa has lived in Ireland, she neither feels that she has fully settled in nor that she belongs in Ireland. For her, having citizenship in both countries is not a sign of belonging, but rather a determinant that allows her privileges in both countries. When asked if she feels at home in Ireland, Annalisa says that her sense of home fluctuates. Because Annalisa does not feel that she has a sense of permanency in Ireland or the Philippines, she feels somewhere in-between (Tuan, 1977; Bonus, 2000). It’s like missing food that you can’t cook yourself. Lechon or something [laughs], you know things like that. You know, things like that, and you’re just, ‘Oh yeah, I’m not home’. Even though it’s only a little part, it’s still a part that bugs you, ‘Yeah, this isn’t home.’ It reminds you. While Annalisa says that she feels at home ‘maybe about 90 per cent’, the 10 per cent often triggers knots in her stomach, exacerbating her sense of loss.

122  Romanticising the homeland Sometimes, it is so painful that she longs to return to the Philippines. The main barriers that aspire her to return are the institutional challenges she has faced and her inability to fit in with a Filipino community. Her attitude towards return is compounded by physical uprooting and family separation, which affect her orientation to the Philippines. Like many participants, Annalisa received inconsistent information regarding the procedures of legalizing her stay, registration, and rights and entitlements. At Dublin Airport, a passport control officer told Annalisa and Michael that they needed to go to the main GNIB office and present their marriage certificate. When they arrived at the GNIB office, Annalisa said that the immigration official told her that it was not necessary to present their marriage certificate: ‘ “What do you want me to do?” he said. And we were like, “We were told to come here.” We’re thinking that they’re supposed to know what to do’. Although this left her a bit flustered, she did not worry afterwards because the official told her that she had the same rights as Michael and that she would be able to travel freely within the EU without any problems or further documentation. Furthermore, the official told her that they did not have to go to GNIB in the first place. When Annalisa and Michael travelled to Italy for their one-year anniversary, she was almost deported to the Philippines by Italian officials, since neither of them had proof of their marriage. Italian officials informed her that in order for her to travel freely through the EU, she needs an Irish passport. What made the situation more harrowing for Annalisa was that she was escorted to a plane heading back to Dublin by armed guards without her husband, making her feel that she was a criminal, an Other, an inferior human being. For Annalisa, barriers at the institutional level have been a constant theme. Her bachelor’s degree in architecture was not recognised by architecture firms, so she decided to look into studying law, another interest of hers. When she was informed by law schools that she would have to be fluent in order to practice law, she was not sure if she could devote the time to study Irish at the same time as learning a new legal system. She decided to look into taking supplemental courses in architecture to learn more about boilers and chimneys, which are not common in the Philippines. She contacted a college in Dublin, who told her she needed a portfolio and would have to complete another full degree course: I don’t have a portfolio because I  came from a small city and everybody knows everybody. We were not told about any portfolios. If you are a photographer, you have a portfolio or something or whatever, but I don’t have a portfolio. And I want to build a portfolio because I can’t get a job without a portfolio. And they came back to me and said that I have to do architecture all over again. And I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.’ The college told her they would consider her past coursework and contact her soon on their decision. While waiting for a reply, she went to the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland [RIAI] to check on the recognition of her credentials: So, they got me to give them requirements from the Philippines, my grades, what subjects I did, things like that. And they wanted to get in touch with

Romanticising the homeland  123 United Architects of the Philippines, if they recognised my degree. And then after a few weeks that I got from the news from [the college] that I had to do the architecture all over again, we got news from RIAI that I’m fine. [laughs] So that means I don’t have to do it all over again, which is brilliant. But even after recognition, Annalisa still met other obstacles. I was sending CVs everywhere to get an architectural apprentice job or something like that, just to make me go in. I didn’t have to be paid, just to have an experience. Nobody wants to take me because I didn’t have experience. Well, I didn’t have experience because I just came out of college, so I was trying to get, I was like, ‘Ok, so you don’t have to pay me. I just want to get in.’ And no one wants to get me. They said, ‘Do you know how to speak English?’ And then all of Michael’s friends said, ‘Yes, you do.’ And that was a barrier as well, because they said, ‘Even though you know how to speak English’, they said ‘sometimes you don’t, like what you’re talking about and what I’m talking about, they don’t meet.’ So there’s still a language barrier even though you speak the same language. You understand it differently than them. So, that was a big thing as well. And I’m not used to not working as well. Because before when I was in college, I was busy with extracurricular activities as well. So I came here and I was not doing anything, and that kind of kills me. Like, idle minds think more things. And then my confidence when down, really, really down, nobody wants to hire me. And then I said, ‘I will work in anything.’ And I even said eventually, ‘I will work in McDonald’s’ and everybody from Michael’s side, like his friends and his mother said, ‘No, you’re not working in McDonald’s, you will get there.’ But it was two years before I got a proper job. The difficulties with the accreditation of her bachelor’s degree and finding employment cause her frustration, intensifying her homesickness. Institutions of power function directly on the migrant, with regulations becoming a medium through which people understand the politics of belonging (Foucault, 1977; Grosz, 1997; Lentin, 2004). Annalisa has internalised these institutions, reacting to the consistent feeling that she is excluded from fully engaging in the Irish society, despite her Irish citizenship. Another situation which intensifies this feeling of exclusion was an experience on a bus in Dublin. On her way back to her house after a day of shopping, Annalisa bought a cone of ice cream and then took the bus back to her neighbourhood. She sat behind a man who was holding his two toddlers in his arms. Another man on the bus, on his way out, warned the man in front of her that she might steal his wallet. Annalisa was left speechless. And I was thinking, ‘What? You can’t judge me, I’m just eating my ice cream happily. I’m really happy today’. And I was thinking, it kind of brought down everything, my heart just went down, as if someone stepped on my heart. I was thinking ‘Oh my God’. The man he told, he turned around at me, his

124  Romanticising the homeland eyes apologetic like that, but the damage was done. This old man who just came over doesn’t know this man and telling the guy that I’m going to steal something from him, and the guy looked at me apologetically, and he said to the guy, ‘It’s only an umbrella,’ and I’m here thinking, ‘Oh my God’. Annalisa’s experience demonstrates that one is not always thinking about race. But when those moments of anti-immigrant sentiment and the commonly held notion of immigrants as untrustworthy occur, they leave a heavy weight with the person on the receiving end. In the above situation, the man who suggested that Annalisa may take the other man’s wallet is an example of immigrants as untrustworthy, a reaction that is raced, classed and gendered. It shows the ‘face of the underprivileged [he] has been taught to recognize’ (hooks, 2000a, p. 4). This leaves Annalisa feeling without a strong sense of agency, where she is limited in her ‘spectrum of possibilities’ (Knowles, 2003, p. 38) and continuously ‘living in a state of psychic unrest’ (Anzaldúa, 2007, p. 95). In order to cope with these exclusions, she worked hard to align herself with other Filipinos, hoping to find support from fellow diasporans. But, as mentioned in Chapter 4, Annalisa had difficulties accessing a Filipino group of friends. While one group she tried to join was welcoming, she found it difficult to break their group dynamic, for they were already a tight-knit group that worked together at a hospital and lived in the same apartment complex. Also, because many of them were nurses, Annalisa believed that their migration circumstances were different enough from hers that she felt uncomfortable sharing her feelings. She worried that they were more concerned with sending remittances, supporting family and worrying about their immigration status and that they might see her as more privileged and as having an easier time in Ireland because she had Irish citizenship. While she misses home and longs to connect with other Filipinos, Annalisa has given up trying to find a Filipino network of friends. Annalisa wishes to have children soon but has decided to wait until she and Michael move back to the Philippines. Without having an extended family or surrogate network to rely on, in addition to the obstacles she has faced, Annalisa feels that raising children will be easier in the Philippines. She will not only have her family to rely on, but also her circle of friends who remain in the Philippines. Reflecting on her time in Ireland, she says she has a ‘European side of thinking,’ but ‘I’m never gonna be accepted as Irish. I may be an Irish citizen, I can live here all my life, but I will never, never be Irish. I can be an Irish citizen, but I will never be Irish. My children will probably be Irish if they live here. But me, I won’t be Irish, Irish. I won’t be considered as [my husband], as a natural Irish. It’s not going to be like that’. Moments like this have left Annalisa believing that she is not fully ‘at home’. So, I don’t know where I belong. [laughs] It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? Well, it feels a bit weird. But then, you know. It kind of goes away, but there was a time when it was all I thought about. All the time, pressing. Where do I belong? How? Why? When did it happen? When did you start thinking about this? All the time it was in my head. And I started talking about it with friends and

Romanticising the homeland  125 people in work, but then people just say, ‘Eh’. Because they don’t really get it. So, kind of, eventually, it went away again. But it’s just not Irish, I’m not Filipino-Filipina anymore. But I’m never gonna be Irish. Annalisa, in accepting that she is not going to be Irish, performs a strategy of taking each day slowly, remaining cautious of her liminality. Annalisa positions herself as a permanent outsider, internalising the institutional and personal challenges she has faced that remind her that she is an Other in Ireland. Saying that most people are unintentional in their Othering, she does not feel completely unwelcome by Irish or Filipinos. Instead, she identifies as being her own person who happens to be caught between arbitrary immigration policy and stereotypes of labour migrants. Ironically, this positioning further isolates her, for in locating herself as caught between the two, she fails to recognise how the two are interlinked and that her narrative is one of many complex stories that sit at the intersections.

Gladys Like many of her kabayan, Gladys had difficulty understanding different Irish accents, Hiberno-English phrasing and the speed at which people spoke when she first arrived in Dublin: ‘As if they’re eating their words, you know? Once they’re talking. So I have to ask my colleagues, “Pardon me, can you repeat that again? I didn’t get you” ’. Knowing that many people around the world have difficulty understanding the Irish accent, and this was not exclusive to people from the Philippines, she shared some comfort among her immigrant co-workers. And even though she became used to people’s manner of speech after living in Ireland for eight years, the first few months of not understanding colleagues and the exposure to new customs exacerbated the sadness she felt being separated from her husband, her son, siblings and friends. When still in the Philippines, Gladys was encouraged to apply for work in other countries by her supervisors and senior nurses at the hospital in which she worked, many of whom had applied for nursing jobs in the UK and Ireland. Learning that she could earn more than her salary as a staff nurse in the Philippines, Gladys applied to a recruiting agency: ‘I just decided it’s better for me to apply as well because, I am thinking they are paid more than I was when I was there . . . maybe there’s a greener pasture over there. So I said, ok, I might try. So I tried and then here I am’. The youngest of twelve brothers and sisters, she remits money occasionally to her siblings. Because her siblings are older, Gladys says that she does not have to remit as much as her friends remit, since her nieces and nephews are older and working. Most of the money she remits is toward the building of a house for her, her husband and two sons. Initially travelling to Ireland by herself, Gladys’s husband and older son (her younger son was born in Ireland and is an Irish citizen) joined her as her dependents. While she has been waiting for six months on the status of her application for long-term residency, Gladys does not worry about whether her visa status will be renewed, her long-term residency application approved or if she and her

126  Romanticising the homeland family will be able to stay in Ireland. Seeing these applications and regulations as more of an expensive process than a burden, Gladys sees Ireland as a temporary space, a means to an end, and believes that she will eventually move back to the Philippines. The hardest part of migration for Gladys is the separation from her siblings. And while her husband and children are in Ireland, Gladys does not feel that she is fully at home without her extended family in Ireland: There’s still something missing, you know? Your brothers and sisters aren’t here, like . . . That’s the thing that are missing, compare to, you’re in your own place, you’re in the Philippines. All your relatives are there to support you. Unlike here, there are only three of us, four of us here. It’s very different. That’s why there’s no place like home, that’s why we need to go back. We don’t intend to stay here. Gladys firmly ascribes to the multilineal and bilateral descent system in the Philippines. She stresses that family is more than just your husband and your children, but includes one’s siblings, extended family and networks of friends. She communicates with her siblings at least once a day, whether it is through text message, phone calls, emails or social networking sites. With friends in the Philippines and other parts of the world, she communicates with them at least a week. The fact that she is in regular contact with them alleviates the physical distance that separates them. Although Gladys does not see Ireland as ‘home’, she does not find this problematic, nor does she feel in-between worlds. She often brings Filipino dishes to her Irish colleagues and Irish friends and invites them to Filipino gatherings. With her Filipino friends and their children, she makes sure that they participate in multi-generational activities, such as organizing weekend adventures to national parks or sports activities. Gladys also mentions that her younger son’s ninang, or godmother, is one of her closest Irish friends. Because she sees Ireland as a pragmatic solution to the opportunities she could not provide for her family if she were to raise them in the Philippines, she is not worried about fitting in. Gladys’s dayto-day activities, underneath them all, are oriented towards her planned eventual return to the Philippines. Living in-between worlds is not a concern because her goal is not to settle in Ireland. Gladys hopes that her older son, who is 9 years old, finds a balance between his Filipino background and his Irish life, which comprise his main interactions. She speaks to him mostly in Tagalog and ensures that he participates in her Filipino choir and in Filipino activities. He occasionally tells her that he wants to visit his cousins and see different cities in the Philippines, which signals to Gladys that he sees Ireland as more permanent and that the Philippines is a vacation spot. She makes sure to tell him stories about the Philippines so that he sees it more than as a place to vacation, but a place that holds his family’s history and possibly, his future. Because he is on Stamp 2A, he is not recognised as “habitually resident” and faces the possibility that he may have to leave Ireland if he is not accepted into college as an EU student or does not obtain work authorisation when he turns 18.

Romanticising the homeland  127 As argued in previous chapters, this fragmentation of families is situated within a politics of exclusion; regardless of long established ties in Ireland, migrant families are seen as foreigners in Ireland (Mac Laughlin, 1997a). Gladys hopes that both of her children will be able to choose which country they wish to live in, rather than being forced to leave. Gladys, with an unwavering tone, tells me that she will return to the Philippines. Ireland is about opportunity, and a place that will allow a more fruitful life than if they were to return to the Philippines right now. Knowing that her time in Ireland is limited, she takes advantage of the ability to travel: It’s just an opportunity to be here. So, we have to travel to Europe countries, because even in the Philippines, even if you have money, it’s still hard to get visas and like, if you’re here, like, you have all the papers, you know the bank statement, certificate of employment, your payslip and everything. You’re grand, you know, you can go wherever you want to. So yeah, we just travel. Viewing Ireland as a place of opportunity allows Gladys to rationalise the advantage of having two places to choose from, that she can be here or there: ‘We can sell this house and then presto, we’re home. And then we have our . . . at work, since I am full time permanent, so they have the pension scheme as well. So, by the time if I will retire, the pension, I will spend it over in the Philippines.’ If the economic crisis in the Philippines does not improve, she need not worry because she owns her home in Ireland and they have a place to stay. If Ireland no longer is to their benefit, she can return to the Philippines and reunite with her siblings and friends. She transforms her dislocations by making her barriers advantageous. When I asked her how long she might stay in Ireland, Gladys replied: You just can’t say how many years . . . Even if I have a house here, whatever you know, we’re still going back to the Philippines. We’re not only concentrating here, we have to build our own house as well, just in case, if we move back in there, we’re still ok, when we go there. That’s why I was saying to my Irish friend, I was telling her, “I think I’m still lucky compared to you. Because at least I’m Filipino. I’m just working here in Ireland, right? And if something happens here in Ireland, I still have another country to go to,’ which is my own country . . . I don’t know now with my children. If they want to stay here, they can stay here, and they can just go back, especially the little boy because he has Irish citizenship, so he can just stay here or whatever. Gladys’s preparing for both countries is an explicit expression of the homing desire. Even though she says she plans to return to the Philippines, she prepares for the possibility of residing in Ireland. This is a strategy of practical provision tied to a diasporic consciousness. She exhibits the myth of return, even though she may not know it by name. In establishing herself in both places, and remaining active with her extended family in the Philippines and with her kabayan in Ireland, she engages the intersections of diaspora, migration and home, appreciating

128  Romanticising the homeland some of the benefits of transnationalism. And, in teaching of values and beliefs from the Philippines to her children, Gladys hopes to help them move beyond liminality. While this may read as ambivalence, Gladys is aware that her future is uncertain. Viewing Ireland through a pragmatic lens allows Gladys to see ‘here’ and ‘there’ as a win-win situation. The process of ‘living in displacement’ explains Gladys’s strong connection to returning to the Philippines (Parreñas and Siu, 2007). While she misses her family, she knows that she is able to provide opportunities for her children, educationally and financially. She is able to travel to other parts of Europe with her family, something that would not be possible if she and her family returned to the Philippines in the near future. Because of the inability to feel ‘at home’ without her siblings, despite her ongoing and constant communication with them, Ireland remains a means to an end. I want to die in the Philippines [laughs]. Who will visit you here in the grave? You only have a small family here. Your children, that’s it. You don’t know either if they want to stay here or not. So, it’s just a future goal, really. I think it’s a straightforward goal. Go back and just spend your money there. For Gladys, ‘here’ is ‘there’ because ‘here’ contributes to ‘there’. While she views Ireland as a means to an end, she contributes to her life in Ireland, which is inextricably linked to the Philippines through transnational connections and participation in Filipino and Irish activities. ‘Here’ and ‘there’ are simultaneously occupied, for ‘home is made in the imagination and practice accomplishment of human agency. It is a testament to human capacity to go on making and remaking lives, even in the most adverse circumstances’ (Knowles, 2003, p. 164).

Mahal When people hear Mahal’s strong Dublin accent, most assume that she was born and raised in Ireland. If someone’s back is turned to her and she begins speaking, she finds that the person is shocked to see the voice come from a young Filipina instead of a white Irish woman. She asks them if it is a bad thing because people are continually surprised. She laughs, saying, ‘If they were to turn their back to me, they wouldn’t know I’m Asian just by listening to the conversation. And, even on the phone. . .. There’s this Asian girl with an Irish accent.’ While people are initially shocked by hearing her Irish accent, she says that most of them begin to regard her as Irish after a suitable exchange of ‘Where are you from? How long have you been here?’ The interactions regarding her accent mostly make her laugh, but occasionally, the undercurrents of race and its conflation with place cause her conflict. She tells me that she is not Filipina-Irish or Irish-Filipina, but a Filipina living in Ireland: Mahal: My friends, anyway, when we go out and get drunk, I say, ‘Oh, I don’t have any friends here’ [laughs]. They’re like, ‘You have us. Don’t feel

Romanticising the homeland  129 like you’re an alien. You belong here now. This is where you are living, so don’t feel so hard on yourself.’ Diane:  I know. I have those moments, too. Mahal: Isn’t it so hard? It is rare, not rare, but sometimes, you get thinking, oh yeah. Like, I feel like this, I feel like that, I couldn’t blame myself. You should put up with that, you should deal with it, because you’re here. Deal with it. Deal with the situation. Or else you will be depressed. Yah [laughs]. Mahal, 22, came to Ireland at age 16 as a dependent of her mother. Mahal’s status, age and migration circumstances have been significant factors in shaping her interactions with her parents, kabayan and Irish friends. Mahal recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and has been offered employment as a staff nurse in a Dublin hospital. She has been having difficulties changing her Stamp 2A to a green card, with two visits to the GNIB office, each time being told she does not have the correct paperwork and needs to bring different documentation. Faced with the possibility that she might have to return to the Philippines, Mahal now realises that her choices are constrained by larger social structures. Because Mahal’s years as a student were not considered ‘habitually resident’, she feels that this policy is outdated and does not reflect the kind nature she perceives Irish people to have. With her immigration status currently approved as Stamp 4, she reflects on the momentary feelings of being unable to stay (see Chapter 2 for immigration stamps). They heightened her sense of balancing the role of insider/outsider, compounding the difficulties of her physical uprooting and her social relationships. Mahal’s migration circumstances differ from those of research participants who left the Philippines in order to work abroad. While many participants initially immigrated to Ireland and left their families in the Philippines, Mahal and her younger brother reunited with their mother, who had been working in Ireland since 2001 and previously worked in Saudi Arabia. Their father, who had raised the two of them in the Philippines, had travelled to Ireland a few months before they arrived. Mahal tells me that her mother had been living and working abroad since she was a young child, so she really only met her mother in Ireland. The growth of transnational mothering is part of what Choy calls the ‘empire of care’ (2003). As mentioned in previous chapters, the vilification of transnational mothers by the Philippine media and national discourse paints a negative picture of migrant women, supporting the idea that women are abandoning families instead of providing for families (Parreñas, 2001a). This is damaging in two ways. First, it reinforces the idea of the nuclear family and that the solution to the problem is to bring women home. Second, it ignores the reality of the need of remittances, and the effect of global economics on poor countries (Parreñas, 2001a). As mothers go abroad to work, the care of children usually transfers to another woman in the household, relatives or close family friends. In the case of Mahal and her brother, their father became their primary carer before he joined their mother in Ireland (a few months prior to their arrival).

130  Romanticising the homeland Mahal recognises that her mother moved abroad in order to provide for her and her brothers to have access to education, ensuring opportunities and upward social mobility. She does not believe that her mother abandoned her family, but she wishes that she could have lived her younger years in a nuclear family. This echoes research conducted on children of OFWs, who understand the culture of emigration (Parreñas, 2001a). However, when asked if they themselves would become migrant workers, almost all would say they would choose to stay with their families (Parreñas, 2001a). Like other children of OFWs, Mahal understands her mother’s efforts were sacrifices and they were not without meaning. Her moments of resentment are made known through arguments with her mother, some which she admits to starting herself. Looking back on her and her mother’s separation, Mahal says that she wishes they could have had typical mother-daughter bonding activities, such as shopping for a dress for prom. Since she knows that moments like that may not come up if she holds a grudge, she works hard to have a good relationship with her mother to make up for lost time. I didn’t even really know my mom when I was a kid. She comes home and we arrive in the airport and I’d be like, ‘Who is she?’ I remember my dad saying that to me because I hardly see her. I know, probably, as a kid, if you don’t see someone that much, you don’t really know them. So, but, yeah. My dad explained everything, he’s so good, he made me think that my mom is doing this so that we can have a really good education, and we could get and she could provide everything that we need and all that. So, yeah, I don’t hold a grudge, it’s just that you miss. . .there were opportunities that she missed, that I missed. You know? The mother and daughter opportunities, bonding, because that’s the perfect time to bond, picking your dress and her flight was the next day, and the next day was my prom. I was like, ‘Can you not just stay for one day?’ That’s what I remember. I remember, ‘I really, really want you to stay, but you can’t.’ Yeah, that’s when it hits me, really. Mahal says that even though she does not necessarily agree with her parents and their value system, she does not want to hurt her parents’ feelings because they have sacrificed a lot for her and her younger brother. I was in first year college and my dad noticed we had been going out weekly, like Friday and Saturday night. Not just going out for drinks, but hanging out with his friends, too. And, at that time, birthday parties, I don’t know how many birthday parties I went to at that time, and my dad was just like, he’s too afraid that I might miss out on school, that I might flunk this test, flunk that test because I was too busy with my boyfriend. He didn’t want me to continue on the relationship, I could see that. I could see every time I walked out of the house and tell them that I’m going with him, I could tell that they were not comfortable. So I kind of, I couldn’t go on doing that. It’s not fair to them, it’s just, I can’t. It’s just not fair on them. So I was like, ‘Fair enough.

Romanticising the homeland  131 But I’m telling you, he’s not my boyfriend,’ even though he is. Ah, oh gosh. So, but, yeah, and this happened for about 3 months. In response to her parents’ hardships, Mahal works hard to stay in touch with her friends from the Philippines to look for support. She uses social networking sites such as Friendster and Facebook to keep in touch regularly with her friends outside of Ireland. When she first arrived, she would call her friends in the Philippines and the US (where her two childhood friends now live) at least once a month. Now, through social networking sites, it is easier and inexpensive to stay in touch. Mahal stresses that the reason for her active connections with her childhood friends is that they are in similar circumstances: at least one OFW parent, separation from friends, shared experiences of racial and economic discrimination and a sharper recognition of global economic tensions than their destination country counterparts. Reflecting on her education, Mahal was surprised that her Irish friends were more concerned with simply passing exams. For her and her Filipino peers, she felt that education is about learning and acquiring tools to move ahead in the world. Because her experience of moving to Ireland is underscored by economic migration, Mahal sees that education is linked to social mobility. She feels that in the Philippines, there is a much stronger emphasis on the value of education. For her, education, economic and social mobility are inextricably linked to success. For Mahal, the differences in attitude towards education made it difficult to connect to her Irish friends because they were more concerned with extracurricular clubs and societies than with studying. Aside from the differences in approaches to education, different values made it difficult for Mahal to convey issues on a deeper level. Like in school, I didn’t feel like I could personally feel like I could get that close to an Irish person than to a Filipino. Like, I don’t know. It’s different. I don’t know now. They’re really, really nice, but there are some things that I could really only say and confide with to a Filipino, rather than an Irish. But I kind of got used to that. That was at the start. I know I said I wouldn’t have a problem having friends here because I’m friendly enough and sociable enough. But, the fact that I’ve had a really, really tight bonding with friends in the Philippines, I can’t help but not compare my bonding with my Irish friends and my bonding with my Filipino friends over in the Philippines. Mahal used to be upset that she had a bigger social circle in the Philippines, where as in Ireland she could “count my friends on my fingers.” She tells me that she had to eventually let this go in order for her to form deeper friendships. After three years, it hit her hard, and she said she misses the support her Filipino friends gave her, and missed being able to contact her friends and do various activities, such as taking a pottery class or trying ice skating, whereas avenues for activities like this in Dublin are rare. In the Philippines, she felt she was always busy, on the go, but she doesn’t feel that here.

132  Romanticising the homeland After realizing that worrying about the size of her social circle was counterproductive, Mahal worked hard to have her Irish friends open up to her in order to form deeper relationships, sometimes telling them more details about herself to establish trust. She compares the types of friendships she has with her friends, saying that ‘I feel like it’s a different kind of bonding, even though I have really, really close Irish friends, I feel it’s still different. I think it’s just culturally it’s different’. In order to overcome the difficulties in forming deep friendships, Mahal chose to actively cultivate her life through participating in Filipino activities and inviting her Irish friends to take part. I had a twenty-first birthday party, but Filipinos usually have it when they’re eighteen . . . Because I was doing my leaving cert when I was turning eighteen, and it was really hard to prepare everything, because I wasn’t used to their exam. They’re all essay type questions, one question you have to write at least four A4 size pages. So I’m like, I’m really, really shocked, I got stressed. You don’t know, I had rashes all over my neck, my wrist, at the back of my knees, my arms, just because of stress. So I decided not to do it for my eighteenth. You know, I decided not to pattern it after their culture here. They don’t do anything when they turn eighteen. They have a big twenty-first party, so I thought, ok, I’ll do it at my twenty-first, and let my Irish friends know how we do it in the Filipino culture and what we do. So I  invited my college friends and my secondary school friends over for my twenty-first birthday and I made them light candles, you know twenty-one candles. And twentyone roses, and the twenty-one treasures, you know, Filipino kids, seven years and below, and we had the whole Filipino community here as well. Mahal’s interaction with Filipinos helped to maintain community and fill the gap of what she felt she was missing. Weaving not only her Filipino and Irish networks together, but also aspects of herself through different performances of behaviour, such as courting, her twenty-first birthday party2 and sharing food allows her to navigate through different cultural capital. Mahal consciously tries to blend her Filipino and Irish social circles, acknowledging that this does not happen neatly, especially when it comes to ‘family values’ or ‘cultural differences’. She recounts a story that illustrates finding a balance between Irish friends and her parents: You just have to be open minded to the Irish culture and the Filipino culture. You have to make that work, even inside your house, because my mom and dad would say something about me going out and having drinks with my Irish friends and I had to tell them, ‘I’m living here now and this is their culture. I’m not saying I  have to follow their culture and traditions, but I  have to adapt, I have to adjust in some way to survive here.’ If I keep that Filipino tradition and I’m on my own, how would I grow? How would I survive, basically? That’s what they can’t see at the start. They think that it went to a point where my mom actually said, ‘Ok, you have to choose your friends or us’. They don’t want you out because they’ll be worried. I understand that. But it

Romanticising the homeland  133 came to a point where she asked me, “You walk out there, you have to choose between your friends and me’. And I  said no, because it’s not about that. I stood up to her and said, ‘I have to be friends with them. I have to or else I won’t have anybody with me. They were so nice to have me, to invite me, to bring me in their social circle. So I can have my own social circle, I have to give in return what they are showing me. They are so nice, I have to do my part as well and it’s not that I’m leaving the Filipino culture aside. No, it’s not.’ I’m kind of like mixing them together, not a good idea. Well, it’s a good idea, actually, but it’s really hard [laughs]. It’s not that easy. Yeah. It’s kind of good now, because I can see now that I’m comfortable between my Filipino friends and my Irish friends. I don’t feel separated from the two, so, yeah. It’s kind of. . .hmm. It had a good effect on me, thank God [laughs]. Her understanding of her life in Ireland, particularly in regard to race and racism, is largely informed by her friendships and alliances in school. According to Rustin, understandings of racism are a product of ‘group life and culture’ (2000, p. 185) and identification with a racial group, whether with, against, oppressing or in resistance ‘by groups who define themselves in racial terms for this purpose, are among the most important forms of social cleavage, domination and resistance’ (2000, p. 184). While differences may occur among different generations, Mahal and her parents, as well as other adult participants may draw on existing reservoirs of knowledge, habitus and cultural capital from the Philippines, but the ways in which Mahal also draws on local knowledge in Ireland is from her interactions with Irish friends her age. Mahal makes conscious and strategic decisions to negotiate values and beliefs from the Philippines and Ireland, which are constantly present. She remains grounded by remembering the sacrifices her parents have made for her brother and her. Home, of course, is the Philippines. It’s still home home. Yeah, I miss home. And then, just, childhood memories, high school memories come rushing back. And, yeah. It’s like, it’s different to living at home and living here. I kind of consider this as my home because it’s where we have lived for the past six years, but still, you know. The Philippines is still home. I don’t think there is any, I don’t think any other country can take that way, because that’s where you’ve been raised, it’s where you grew up, and it’s just where you feel more comfortable. You feel settled and safe, even though there are tons of crimes happening here and there, and kidnapping here and there, but you still feel safe, and just ‘Ah, I’m glad to be home’. She tells me that she knows a few others of her age that had reunited with one or both of their parents in Ireland, but were so unhappy that they returned to the Philippines. While she has given that thought, she says that she will never get to know her mother if she leaves Ireland. What remains at the back of her mind is that there was the possibility that she could have been legally separated from her family. By

134  Romanticising the homeland employing and performing the cultural and social capital of both the Philippines and Ireland, she plants her feet in two spaces, giving her a sense of stability.

Going home Physically dislocated from the homeland, Eleanor, Annalisa, Gladys and Mahal find ways to enact links to the homeland while they are in Ireland. Whether through decorating the home, saving for the future building of a house in the Philippines, regularly participating in church activities or weaving Filipino and Irish social circles together, these women simultaneously create and maintain relationships in Ireland, the Philippines and elsewhere. These activities and the connecting sites in which they occur are the means through which they understand their relationship to Ireland. In addition, the advances in communication technologies have helped to alleviate the pain of separation, in some ways, have helped to make the distance between countries feel a little bit smaller. For Knowles, ‘space is about the calibration of forms of attachment and sense of belonging or ownerships that individuals and groups exercise over the areas in which they operate or live’ (2003, p. 96). Filipinas live and symbolise their ideological links to the homeland as they live between worlds and work towards homeplace. Despite being the main economic providers of their families, enhancing educational and/or professional skills, active leaders in church activities, Filipinas still remain in vulnerable positions. Whether they encountered a lack of recognition of qualifications, or experienced institutional or interpersonal racism or other dislocations, Filipinas do not feel fully accepted by the host country. Dislocation is more than the physical uprooting from the homeland and relocation to the destination country. It also encompasses the internal and the exclusionary practices and vulnerability that come with location (Espiritu, 2003; Haraway, 2003). Their feelings of ‘home’ and dislocation combine with and are exacerbated by nostalgia, loss and feelings of otherness. These negotiations occur not just exclusively in the destination country and through transnational networks, but also upon return to the Philippines. For those OFWs who do return to the Philippines, return is not always easy, even though many were initially more than happy to just physically be in the Philippines (P6). While returning to the homeland can be extremely positive, for ‘both the migrant and family appreciated each other more and their relationship with each other’ (G1), repatriation comes with its own challenges. Most often, many of the choices made by returnees are not perceived within the constraints of the destination country. The inability to send more money home (if the cost of living is high in the destination country) or the inability to visit the Philippines more frequently, if at all, was a prominent factor mentioned in workshop conversations. Workshop participants also said that sometimes they or their friends were not always fully accepted by those that were left behind. Workshop participants faced class issues with other Filipinos, particularly when they believed returnees may be awash with money (Bagasao, 2007). Group 1 emphasised that these struggles were extremely tough in the first few months

Romanticising the homeland  135 and sometimes lasted years: ‘Some [OFWs] became more distrustful coming home, wary of other people who are just after their money or their green card’ (G1). These returned women often faced exclusion from those who stayed in the Philippines. This exclusion is also a form of colonial mentality. Ignacio found in her study that Filipinos who live or who have spent time in the US are challenged regarding their ‘Filipino identity’ because ‘ “Filipino” is usually defined against the Filipino/United States dichotomy’ (2005: 116). Their loyalty to the Philippines is viewed suspiciously. Furthermore, the tensions of class relations become more apparent. OFWs are perceived as a ‘have’ by ‘have-nots’, with a perception that they lived in continuous affluence. The ‘haves’ are portrayed as betrayers of poor and working class interests and are not seen as viable stakeholders (hooks, 2000a). They are accused of ‘selling out’ in the colonial motherland (Ignacio, 2005). Another challenge that returnees faced was that they themselves constantly compared their situation with the destination country. The difficulties in settling back in, adjusting to lifestyle, seeing that other people’s lives continued while they were away, as well as substantial changes in the physical landscape, led to existential challenges, particularly with identity and belonging (Tannenbaum, 2007; Ralph, 2009). Having lived abroad for a significant time, workshop participants have to not only negotiate the cultural capital that they acculturated in the destination country, but also any social changes that occurred in the Philippines over the years, and in some cases, decades that they were abroad. For example, Manila becoming a global metropolitan city over the last few decades shocked many returnees, leaving them unsettled with the pace of life, congestion, pollution and increasing poverty. Not all OFWs had bad experiences, so upon return, they recommend migration because they were able to save, spend money and return to the Philippines. And while some OFWs become more distrustful, P8 said: It depends on the context, also. When you come home and then your relatives and your friends know that you worked abroad and that you’ve earned. Usually, the others, of course, they have a different perception . . . they think that you are really well off and that you can spend a lot of money. So, I think, in that context, you become wary that people are taking advantage, or thinking that life was very easy for them, earning there and that they didn’t have a hard time. Some people have that perception of them. Being able to work abroad and now that they can give a lot of money and they can spend. While workshop participants stressed it was important to tell of the opportunities that migration and remittances can allow, the encouragement of more positive stories to further support outward migration continues a cycle of dependence on remittances. In the same vein, this leads to the continued disruption of traditional and nuclear families and the vilifying of migrant mothers by the Philippine government. The continuing dependence on migration and the vilifying of migrant mothers in the Philippines is a damaging contradiction (see Tung, 2003; Parreñas, 2001b, 2008). This is particularly damaging because a return to the homeland

136  Romanticising the homeland does not happen without power struggles. Friends and families that have been long separated do not fit together like a jigsaw. Furthermore, structural relations stay more or less the same, and Filipinas remain somewhere in-between an axis of agency, with ‘choice’ or ‘more options’ on one side and ‘little choice’ or ‘few options’ on the other side (Van Hear, 1998, p.  42). Many workshop participants stressed that they were not only in charge of finances while they were abroad, but that the role of primary caregiver and provider did not change when they returned. In most cases, they picked up more responsibilities, such as household chores and caregiving for other OFWs’ children now left behind. The persistence of women in this position of reproductive labour hinders a radical transformation of gender roles (Parreñas, 2008). The moral disciplining of migrant mothers, which continues upon return, ignores the struggles that OFWs have undertaken in order to contribute to their family’s wellbeing. It downplays the sacrifices that these women have taken abroad and the responsibilities of migrant women in the global labour market. This positionality produced by the persistence of women as reproductive carers, further exacerbated by institutional and racialised exclusions in the destination country, leads OFWs to idealise the Philippines when talking about home and what it means to be at home. Participants often talked about ‘home sweet home’ and ‘no place like home’, with the Philippines remaining a ‘mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination’ (Brah, 1996, p. 192). The Philippines became idealised through their lived dislocations. Research participants, when abroad, acknowledged that return was not imminent and that a corrupt government and extreme poverty, which allow few chances for upward social mobility, are the major deterrents for seeing the Philippines as a stable home. Yet, the homeland, in its idealised vision, still serves as a place of return, whether they choose to return or not. Home is not rational or consistent, nor must it exist in one specific space. Home is a complicated landscape that exists in many spaces. As a place of comfort and conflict, constant negotiation and mutual exchange, home does not produce a singular experience. Rather, home is linked to the politics of destination and to a struggle for continuity, and to the multiple fragments and social relations entangled within. When asked if she plans to stay in Ireland with her family, Grace responds that she is unsure. With two Irish-born children, she said that she would change her plans depending on her children’s needs. That migration, like, it’s very difficult to transfer, transfer, transfer, isn’t it? You cannot really settle. You cannot really start, you cannot really move on if you keep on migrating, migrating, migrating. But I’m doing this because of my kids. I’m thinking of the place where the future is stable for them. For me, I’m old already, so what future for me? The future will be for the kids. Among the different representations of what ‘home’ is, participant’s responses are more than the answers to my questions. Although aware of their positions as diasporans, their expressions of home are found in their enactments, conscious

Romanticising the homeland  137 and unconscious. The notion of ‘home’ constitutes a space of how participants make sense of their formal and informal routines. Home is contingent upon location, mobility and opportunity. In the end, migration from the Philippines will continue in order to provide better lives for family members. The notion of ‘home’ will continue to be sought because dislocations are constant and linked to a myriad of personal and institutional factors.

Conclusion This chapter discussed participants’ reflections on their migration circumstances. Their stories reveal that the formation of transnational networks and activities in both the Philippines and in Ireland are multiple and problematic. Through the decoration of one’s home to resemble the Philippines, to institutional barriers preventing full engagement in Irish society, to seeing Ireland as a means to an end, as well as the negotiation of sets of cultural capital, participants reveal how the dynamics of diaspora space intersect with their everyday existence. Whether feeling ‘here’, ‘there’ or somewhere in-between, finding a sense of home is not a singular experience, neither is it consistent nor logical. Home is a lived and conceptual space that is continuously sought; it is a process that is place-based, linked to the homing desire. For research participants, the symbolism of ‘home’ becomes a ‘ground of remembrance’ (Fortier, 1999: p. 50) and an open site for multiple memories. The construction of the Philippines as the homeland served as a point of identification, a safety net of belonging and a space of renewal in the imagination. When Filipinas feel the brunt of social inequalities, racial discrimination, classism among Filipinas, from the outside and the inside, they internalise their struggles and in turn make sense of the world around them. While they might not think of the dynamics of diaspora space, nor outline the day-to-day or long-term challenges they face, they recognise that they are outsiders in the destination country. Simultaneously, Filipinas maintain and cultivate the use of Tagalog, share food and prayer with their fellow diasporans. This balance, occurring within diaspora space, is a constant negotiation of and struggle for consistency. As they mark spaces of homeplace around them, these Filipinas demonstrate that identity, location and belonging do not easily fit together.

Notes 1 These artefacts are ubiquitous in Filipino American households. See Ignacio (2005). 2 Her twenty-first birthday party was modelled after a Filipino cotillion, most often held for debutantes between the ages of sixteen and eighteen.

7 Working towards home

Home is about striving for continuity amidst dislocation. As diasporic subjects, Filipinas live in fragmented spaces as they physically and psychically navigate between the destination country and home country. On one hand, Filipinas can be seen as mobile, as they have crossed geographical borders and are physically located in the destination country. Yet, on the other hand, they are also constrained by immigration laws, technologies of Othering, linguistic and cultural barriers and institutional structures. Filipinas simultaneously occupy and move between the destination country and the Philippines in their minds, in their memories and in their imagination. I stress that striving for continuity should not be seen as a binary of ‘fully at home’ on one end and ‘complete dislocation/alienation’ on the other, but rather as a continuum, a constantly shifting state shaped by multiple circumstances on micro, meso and macro dynamics. Filipinas continually work to feel at home, yet home remains elusive. This study illustrates that the notion of home is entirely problematic. Notions of home in the migration context as a settled place of belonging are not adequate in the contemporary world. Migration is fundamentally about movement; it is not a singular happening or event, but an ongoing journey that continues after arrival. Filipinas cross physical borders but maintain transnational social relations with family and friends in the Philippines, in their destination countries and other countries in which loved ones may live. Constrained by their dislocations, they live in fragmented spaces while negotiating their migration circumstances, family separation and vulnerability within the dynamics of diaspora, alongside the social and institutional challenges that shape their lives. Filipinas strive for a sense of home amidst their dislocations, they orient themselves towards the homeland. As a consequence, working towards this sense of home should not only be seen as a process of striving for continuity, but also something that is an ongoing journey. Whether home is envisaged as rooted in the homeland, the destination country, as having one’s family nearby or having constant comfort, home as a state of being is fleeting, constantly in motion. The construction of home is made real through cultural practices, within and through political, economic, social and cultural structures. Home carries an ideological premise upon which people articulate their identities. Home reveals histories, ideologies and politics of belonging. Social practices are layered with

Working towards home  139 symbolic and material attachments to homeplace. These practices should not be seen as characteristics, but as performative acts of belonging (Fortier, 1999). But, it is not enough to look at these practices simply as a process. Home comprises multiple socio-spatial connecting sites and emotive locales where people employ ideologies of race, class, gender and citizenship. Memories take root in gestures, in narratives, in activities and in the maintenance of transnational connections (Nora, 1989; Jazeel, 2006; Bhattacharya, 2008). Home, therefore, does not follow a linear trajectory. Furthermore, because Filipinas are invested in both the Philippines, Ireland and other places where their loved ones may be, they hold transnational identifications that often are contradictory. The idealisation of homeplace adds another dimension of desiring continuity, for dislocations can produce a yearning for a safe space of renewal (hooks, 1990). Part of the key difficulty with conceptualising home is that the term is used unproblematically in everyday life and popular culture and is discussed in several academic disciplines. This has generated a vast range of approaches, which not only leads to complexities in trying to articulate home, but also difficulties in analysing it. In order to capture the multiple dimensions and strategies of Filipinas’ home-making, I  applied Brah’s framework of diaspora space (1996). Diaspora space provided a conceptual vehicle to discuss the intersections of the political, ideological and historical dynamics of the Irish and the Filipino diasporas, the relationship of Filipinas to these dynamics, and the contemporary public and institutional discourses regarding immigration. The intersections of these dynamics shape the ways that home is perceived by both Filipinos and by Irish society. With anti-immigrant rhetoric pervading media and public discourses, birth, tradition, access to full rights and entitlements maintain a sense of Irish national identity. Because many Filipinas who migrated to Ireland were directly recruited, Filipino migration into Ireland must be seen within the context of Ireland’s history of migration. The experiences of Irish migrants of dislocation, vulnerability, and racism during mass emigrations in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries are disconnected from contemporary anti-immigrant rhetoric. This disconnect leaves Filipinos to be seen as another immigrant stream, and, as a result, the raced, classed and gendered experiences of Filipinos are rendered ahistorical rather than something embedded within and produced by the conditions of Ireland’s diasporic history. Discourses of immigration, particularly in terms of the history of Irish labour migration, should be reconceptualised from a problem to be solved to an opportunity in the same ways as Irish emigration has been, to include the diverse historical and political contexts in which migrants come to Ireland, and to challenge false dichotomies of us/them and Irish/Other, which continue to exclude and marginalise. The framework of diaspora space interrogates the sedentarist bias implicit in much of the earlier literature on migration. Theories on assimilation and acculturation tend to overlook the ways that dislocations affect migrants on the day-today. These theories also do not pay sufficient attention to how migrants negotiate the dichotomous landscape of us/them and belonging/otherness, and therefore neglect the in-between spaces and multi-axial power relations. Because migrants

140  Working towards home experience multiple social and institutional challenges, and immigration status confers different rights and entitlements, migrants do not have equal ways of accessing Irish society. In examining the contradictions involved in Filipinas’ migration, diaspora space provided opportunities to explore the ways in which Filipinas are also multiply situated and interconnected, with friends and family in different countries. Their simultaneous affiliations and investments in more than one geographic location challenge the notion of being rooted in either the homeland or the destination country. These multiple challenges and dynamics shape the home-making process. The framework of diaspora space underpinned my fieldwork. In the variety of circumstances and settings that I met Filipinos, I was hopeful that Filipinas had opportunities to make home, despite and because of their dislocations. Many Filipinas worked long hours, spent little to maximise their earnings and dedicated spare time to Filipino social activities. I anticipated that if Filipinas found homeplace, that space of renewal and recovery (hooks, 1990), this could mean that they achieve home. These expectations were rooted in my experience growing up in a Filipino American network and being around fellow first, 1.5 and second generation Americans. I had seen how my mother and members of her Filipino association had marked a sense of group belonging through their bi-annual church fundraisers, commitment to teaching younger generations about traditional dances and folklore and summer picnics for adults and youth to foster solidarity. In addition to marking spaces of belonging, I had understood that these activities were ways to respond to dominant hegemonic discourses of whiteness and thus were manifestations of choosing the margins as a site of resistance (Anzaldúa, 2007; hooks, 1990). I had imagined that Filipinas in Ireland, in similar organisations and activities, and through their relationships with kabayan, might find this sense of homeplace. However, upon beginning my fieldwork, I found that my expectations, as well as my hopes for them finding homeplace, were not rigorous enough. Participants stated that they did not ever feel fully at home. In addition to the conditions of their migration path to Ireland, most participants are non-EU citizens, in contrast to the Filipino Americans in my social circle, almost all of whom are either naturalised or ‘native born’ American citizens. The dislocations produced by the dynamics of diaspora and migration, and the inconsistencies of them, create a constant disruption in the lives of Filipinas. Therefore, my approach to Filipinas had to move beyond existing literature. In adjusting my research lens, I paid attention to new topographies of how Filipinas make home. While migration scholarship in Ireland has shown an increasing interest in diasporic communities, and research on social cohesion and policy, globalisation and economics and race and racism have brought awareness to discourses on the construction of Irish national identity, more attention is needed to the dynamics within individual migrant groups. The power dynamics within one group, the networks in the home country and connections with other members in the diaspora influence social practices and orientations. These intergroup dynamics are situated within social and institutional challenges. Filipinas not only experience unfair treatment, classism and regionalism among their kabayan, but also

Working towards home  141 experience racism and classism from Irish people and in social institutions. Furthermore, because many Filipinas work in care sectors, and the role of women as reproductive labourers remains uncontested, the intersections of gender within the migration experience must be explored. Given the central role of women in the Filipino family and their invisibility as gendered labour migrants, rigorous scholarship is needed to examine in much greater depth the spaces of intersectionality of race, class and gender, and the ways in which Filipinas inhabit them. Irish migration scholarship also falls short in relation to Filipino social relations, particularly the notions of kabayan, kapwa and hindi ibang tao, which reflect intimacy, reliance and kinship with fellow Filipinos. The reliance and responsibility placed with non-kin networks goes beyond friendship and mutual affiliation; values of being ‘one of us’ permeate every activity and are inseparable from Filipinos’ sense of being. In order to understand the depth of these Filipino connections, the literature available on Irish migration and the Filipino diaspora needs to be rigorously applied through diaspora. This would not only weave together different social and historical contexts, but also provide a re-imagining of social space in the context of transnational forces and social institutions. It would account for the cultural transformation of knowledge and practices and the varying expressions of power among Filipinos in the diaspora. Research on how Filipinas inhabit their spaces and perform their values is important in the Irish case particularly because Filipinos tend to live near places of work and thus are in clusters near their employers. The multiple activities that occur in connecting sites, where enactments of the homing desire take place, gain prominence because of this geographical scattering of Filipinos in Ireland. These activities respond to their migration circumstances, family separation and vulnerability. Because communities are becoming more mobile and more diverse, and people have multiple affiliations and motivations, it is not sufficient that group identity be based on a common homeland as a basis of affinity. Additionally, distance does not always foster detachment (Parreñas, 2008), for the participants in this study relied heavily on social networks and activities to cope with their dislocations. Thus, I argue that connecting sites provide a better frame of analysis to examine how Filipinas orient themselves towards the homeland. In speaking Tagalog, celebrating rituals, practicing religion and sharing food, their enactments allow opportunities to see how Filipinos mark their social spaces. This is more useful than simply linking home to one geographical space or country in which people reside. Filipinas are multiply located, blurring the lines between here and there. Contemporary scholarship that focuses on diasporic life illustrates how legal policies, constructs of inequality and changing dynamics among migrant generations have shown the multiple dimensions of transnational activities. Filipinos contest the dynamics of dislocation and that they not only blur, but transform the lines between here and there. They embody transnational borderlands. Filipinas occupy more than one space psychically and emotionally through the constant flow of material goods. Through remittances, they sustain the livelihood of their families, contribute to the building of roads and other facilities in their hometowns, and

142  Working towards home set aside money for future return and retirement. They send packages to family members in the Philippines and other countries where loved ones may live. These transnational behaviours are further enhanced by communication technologies, with direct access through social networking websites and software applications that allow voice and webcam calls over the Internet. In addition to the continuation of rituals and celebrations, Filipinas seek food, products and decorations that are either from or remind them of the Philippines, transforming here and there to cope with persistent dislocations. These strategies are embodiments of the borderlands, a psychic state of unrest. They demonstrate that where there is a strategy, there is a location to construct alternative spaces of opportunity. Immigration bodies and institutional agencies impose racialised and classed restrictions that stratify them, shaping their mobility. They internalise and/or resist these stereotypes, they interact and transcend them. Amidst their dislocations, Filipinas turn to narratives of loss and nostalgia, which are embedded in their performances of identity and community. These narratives revitalise, strengthen and reaffirm the contradictions of home and belonging in the migration context. This symbolism often leads to an idealisation of the Philippines, masking the realities of conflicts in both private and in public spaces. Furthermore, locationality in contradiction, in being a positionality of dispersal, reveals more contradictions upon return to the homeland. Feeling marginalised upon return, returned workshop participants experienced difficulties upon re-integration, and sometimes were coerced into redistributing wealth that they earned. This leads to a double sense of loss, for an idealisation of the destination country exacerbates the pain associated with dislocation. While Filipinas primarily envision the Philippines as home, their orientations, social practices and symbolic attachments to the homeland show that home is a continuous journey of achieving comfort and continuity, no matter where one is located. The ways in which people embodied the homing desire, even with the variety of responses to the dynamics of diaspora space, transform the politics of belonging in contemporary Ireland. Although efforts to achieve home were constant, these efforts were not fruitless. Participants worked hard to provide social and economic mobility for themselves and their families. They heavily invested in strategies to maximise benefits with the intent to provide work and educational opportunities. Given that their migration journeys produced multiple affiliations and contradictions, participants, shaped by their circumstances, continued to strive for continuity amidst their dislocations. The stories in this book only provide a small window into the variety of circumstances and challenges that Filipinas in the diaspora face. Filipinas are more than the predominant images of them as sex workers and mail order brides. At best, Filipinas can achieve some sort of balance among numerous local and global dislocations. Due to changing immigration policies and the stratified system of immigration status, inconsistent social and institutional racisms, the pain and loss produced by the dynamics of migration and experiences of contradictory class mobility, Filipinas are entangled within complex webs of race, class, gender and citizenship. They find ways to cope with their dislocations, connecting with

Working towards home  143 other members of the diaspora in various connecting sites, striving for a sense of belonging in their endeavours to create or re-create home. These stories cannot be viewed in isolation, but should be viewed in the context of diaspora space. The social relations that exist in the home country and the destination country, and each country’s understanding of the intersections of race, class and gender contribute not only to the diasporan’s story, but also the reader of that story. This ethnography raises this concern, and also opens up new areas for the overlapping areas of diaspora, migration and gender studies. In terms of diaspora, I ask for further examination on colonial mentality beyond Filipino Americans. While the majority of scholarship on Filipino diasporans is American-centric, the increased dispersal of overseas Filipinos across the world, and their global interconnectedness through advanced communication technologies, calls for attention to colonial legacies and growing tendrils of whiteness. The scholarship in Asian American studies importantly recognises the intersections of subjectivity, individual problems and social structures, yet the frameworks remain specific to ideologies and paradigms rooted in US-centric social and political contexts, making it difficult to fully capture the depth of experiences outside of the US. This extends into migration studies, with which a deeper understanding of ideologies of whiteness extend through relationships across and within borders. Furthermore, the overlap of these concerns warrants further attention to how these ideologies are reinforced and subtly differentiated through immigration status and profession. The nexus of colonialist ideologies, the pervasiveness of whiteness and gender ideologies reify Filipinos’ positionalities at different levels of the diaspora, affecting Filipino subjectivity both in the Philippines and abroad. Lastly, the political and economic undertones of Ireland’s response to increased immigration suggest that immigration is a problem to be solved. With a sustained attitude that migration is something to be solved, or controlled, the implication is that migrants are not seen as equal and should remain marginal. These discourses become a pedagogical tool through which diasporans understand difference and belonging. The research on how Filipinas work towards achieving a sense of “home” in Ireland provides the opportunity to open up these damaging discourses and the intersections with diaspora and migration. The study highlighted the diversity of Filipinas and their circumstances, their enactments of community and identity and their symbolic responses to their dislocations. Framed by dichotomies of us/them, Irish/Other, participants in the study hoped that Ireland would recognise that they are active in their contributions to Irish society and thus acknowledge them as human citizens. Because Ireland does not have visible geographically situated ethnic enclaves, this ethnography provides an important basis upon which to investigate how other diasporic groups inhabit their social spaces and connecting sites. Scholarship in these areas has potential to add to the notion and analysis of Ireland as a ‘diaspora nation’ (Feldman, 2006). Immigration is a powerful symbol in Ireland and should be reconceptualised as a mechanism that produces dislocations rather than a problem to be solved or dynamic to be controlled. People have differing levels of power and abilities to exercise that power. The responsibility for making home cannot be solely left with the migrant,

144  Working towards home because immigration, as a mechanism of power, is a crucial site that ultimately constitutes a regime of Othering, preventing the ability of migrants to feel fully at home. The stories of these Filipinas, in making home in their communities, challenge discourses that reproduce and maintain inequality, enhances research on practices and enactment that sit within social relationships and institutional apparatuses and deepens the scholarship on the visibility of Filipinas in the diaspora and the meanings and symbolism that home holds for dislocated subjects.

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Appendix A Profile of participants

Table A.1  Interviewee characteristics Name

Migration Status

Occupation

History of Place of Migration in Residence Family Before Ireland

  1 Teresa   2 Marisol   3 Josie

Stamp 4 – work visa Stamp 4 – work visa Stamp 1- work permit

Yes Yes No

Philippines Philippines Hong Kong

  4 Manuela   5 Grace   6 Alma

Irish citizen – post-nuptial Stamp 4 – work visa Stamp 4 – work visa

Nursing Nursing Nanny/ domestic Retired Nursing Nursing

Yes Yes Yes

 7  8  9 10 11

Stamp 4 – work visa EU resident Stamp 4 – green card Irish citizen – post-nuptial Stamp 3 – religious

Philippines Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Philippines Philippines Philippines Philippines Philippines

Gladys Eleanor Lynetta Annalisa Sr. Maria Lourdes 12 Cara

13 Mahal

14 15 16 17 18

Melinda Fe Eileen Bella Luz

Stamp 2 – international student, arrived under Stamp 2A (dependent student) Stamp 2 – international student, arrived under Stamp 2A (dependent student); applying for Stamp 4 (green card) Stamp 4 – work visa Irish citizen (naturalised) Stamp 1 – work permit Stamp 1 – work permit Stamp 1 – work permit

Nursing Yes Nursing Yes Nursing Yes Architecture Yes Sequestered Yes nun Student Yes

Philippines

Nursing

Yes

Philippines

Nursing Chaplain Carer Nanny Assistant

Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Philippines Philippines Philippines Philippines Hong Kong

All names are pseudonyms. All information correct at time of the interview.

Number of Interviewees 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

1978

1999

2001

2002

Figure A.1  Year of arrival in Ireland.

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

Appendix B Interview questions

Interviewee schedule/discussion guide 1 - Migration story a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l)

Tell me a little bit about yourself. Why Ireland? Come to Ireland alone? Where is family? Lived elsewhere? Did you come directly from the Philippines? Expectations/preparations Has anyone else in your family moved abroad to work? Which province are you from? Which language/dialect do you speak? If married, where did you meet spouse? And what was your life like in the Philippines? How long have you been in Ireland?

2 - Work and occupation (settling; economic/social) a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k)

Immigration status Educational qualifications – are they recognised? Previous jobs How did you find your job? Recruited? Agency? Word of mouth? Tell me about your job; describe typical day What are you typical working hours? Work environment Privacy? Are you aware of employment rights, leaving employment? Holiday Pay/Sick Leave/Pregnancy? Do you feel accepted by colleagues?

Appendix B  161 l) Do you socialise with work colleagues? Establish friendships? m) Experiences of racism? Sexism?

3 - Participation in Ireland, day to day (security; economic/social inclusion) a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l)

Describe neighbourhood, interaction. Do you feel safe in your neighbourhood? Do you access local grocery or visit Filipino shops? Where in Ireland have you lived? Likes/Dislikes Do you experience language difficulties? Any examples? Do you communicate with people in Philippines? Access to services – voting? Aware of entitlements? Do you participate in local politics? In community activities? Voluntary? Socialise in spare time? What do you do? Socialise with other Filipinos or migrants? What types of socialisation? What do you think Irish people think of Filipinos? Socialise with Irish? In what ways?

4 - Home/making and participation (belonging; political/cultural) a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l) m) n) o) p) q) r) s) t) u)

Are you able to provide for yourself? For family? Do you send remittances back to the Philippines? Who decides what happens with that money? Are there any complications with remittances? How does this make you feel? Are you able to visit the Philippines? Have you had visitors from the Philippines? If/when you go to the Philippines, what is it like? Have you applied for family reunification? Do you think there is a Filipino Community in Ireland? Do you belong to the Filipino community? Do you have social network here? Can you describe social network? Catholic? Religious? Social space? Do you feel that you are accepted by Irish society? When you are walking down O’Connell Street, do you feel that you are in a foreign country or that you are at home? Do you feel ‘at home’? Where is ‘home’ for you? How long do you intend to stay in Ireland? Do you intend to return to the Philippines? Experiences of racism? Sexism? Exploitation?

162  Appendix B v) w) x) y) z)

How does your life compare to others you know? Do you feel that your immigration status affect your life? Do you feel welcome by Irish people? Do you miss anything about the Philippines? Are things better in Ireland? Do you feel anything is lacking from Ireland? Is better in Ireland?

5 - Practices and identification (security; social/political/cultural) a) When people ask you where you are from, what do you say? b) Do you feel Filipina? – What does Filipina mean? c) Do you think if a Filipino were doing your job, his situation would be different? d) What are Filipino values? Do they conflict with Irish values? e) Do you feel part of Irish society? In what ways? f) Would you like to feel more accepted? g) Do you share common values with Irish people? h) What do you think being Irish means? i) Is it possible to both Filipina/Irish? j) What do you think Irish people think of Filipinos? k) Have you heard any stereotypes about the Philippines or Filipinos? l) More Filipinas are moving to Ireland than men. What does this mean for you? m) Is the Philippines ‘home’ because of Ireland’s policies? n) Do you feel there are barriers to your participation? o) If you have children, and are here, how do they identify? p) Does temporariness affect you? Conclusion a) b) c) d)

Is there a future for Filipinos in Ireland? So overall, has experience been positive or negative? Where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years? Is there anything you would like to say to the Irish government, if you could speak to them directly? e) Is there anything you want to add? f) If Ireland is actively recruiting, what does this mean for women in Ireland? For migrant women?

Discussion prompts for workshop Manila, Philippines Exercise 1: Notions and representations of home Part A •

What are the first things that come to your mind when you hear the word ‘home?’

Appendix B  163 • • •

Where is ‘home?’ What does it mean to be or to feel ‘at home?’ What is the worst thing about migration?

Part B • • •

With migration, there are essentially two ‘homes.’ What do you need to feel ‘at home?’ What are some barriers to feeling ‘at home’? Can you draw on your experiences? What are some specific examples?

Exercise 2: Drawing links between ‘home’ and remittances • • • •

How can remittances help or support family? Who decides what happens to remittances? How do members of your family feel about migration? How about your contemporaries, neighbours, and/or peers? Is there competition among your family, contemporaries, neighbours, and/or peers and remittances sent/received? Did feeling ‘at home’ change upon returning to the Philippines?

Appendix C Notes on terminology

Ate  A  Filipino term of respect meaning older sister. Also used as a term of respect for non-kin who are older in the same generation. Batchmate  A classmate, or someone in the same group or programme. Those participants who were nurses used this term to refer to those who traveled to their destination countries together in the same group. Filipino/Filipina  Generally, Filipino is the masculine and Filipina is the feminine form. Research participants, whether a woman or a man (in focus groups), sometimes referred to themselves as the masculine form. As well, participants, whether a woman or a man, used the masculine form (Filipino) to describe culture, values or behaviors. Kabayan  ‘Fellow countryman’ in Tagalog. It was often used to address fellow Filipinos. Both interviewees and workshop participants regularly used this term when referring to specific people and the Filipino diaspora. Kuya  A Filipino term of respect meaning older brother. Also used as a term of respect for non-kin who are older in the same generation. OFW  Overseas Filipino Worker Tito/Tita  Tito means ‘uncle’ and ‘tita’ means aunt. It is also used for fictive kin or non-kin, as well as a term of respect for those who are generally one generation older.

Index

acculturate / acculturation 35, 39, 71, 86, 136, 139 agency 4 – 5, 18 – 19, 55, 62, 67, 70, 72, 84 – 6, 95, 112, 114, 117, 124 – 5, 128, 136; see also choice Asian 1, 2, 26 – 9, 32, 46 – 7, 70, 106, 128, 143 Asian American 1, 2, 26 – 7, 36 assimilate / assimilation 4, 7 – 8, 10, 39, 46, 71, 81, 83, 139 asylum seekers 4, 7, 12; see also migration belonging 3 – 7, 13, 24, 29 – 31, 34 – 6, 38 – 9, 41 – 3, 45, 47 – 8, 50 – 3, 74 – 6, 84 – 8, 90 – 2, 95, 103, 105, 109 – 11, 114 – 15, 117, 120 – 1, 123, 134 – 5, 137 – 40, 142 – 3 borderlands 5, 28, 38, 41 – 2, 50, 74, 81, 86, 90, 92, 109, 117, 141 – 2 borders 2 – 7, 9, 15 – 16, 19, 21, 39, 44, 46 – 8, 53, 55, 64, 66, 72, 74, 76, 79, 81, 85 – 6, 91, 109, 114, 138, 143; boundaries 8, 12, 23, 28, 42, 48, 50, 66, 87, 94, 111 boundaries see borders capital: cultural capital 3, 41 – 2, 48, 53, 55, 74, 85, 88, 100, 114, 117, 119, 132 – 3, 135, 137; economic capital 3; global capitalism 5; social capital 102, 117, 134 Catholic church / Catholicism 9 – 11, 14, 24, 35, 37, 49, 94, 95 – 7, 103, 107, 119 – 20, 134, 140; see also religion Celtic Tiger 2, 7, 22, 36, 111 choice 5, 18, 27, 36, 39, 41, 55, 57, 59, 62, 80 – 1, 129, 134, 136; see also agency citizenship 2, 8 – 9, 11 – 13, 16, 21 – 2, 53, 121, 123 – 4, 127, 139, 142 Citizenship Referendum 12 colonial / colonialism 4, 6 – 7, 16, 29, 33, 45, 70, 77, 79, 143; American

colonialism 46 – 7, 77, 79, 85, 135, 143; British colonialism 10; colonial history, legacy 7, 18 – 19, 21, 35, 62, 65, 69, 77, 85, 143; Spanish colonialism 13 – 16, 18, 36, 45 – 7, 81, 85; see also postcolonial colonial mentality 34, 45 – 7, 51, 69, 76, 85, 135, 143 community: Filipino communities 2, 22 – 4, 30 – 1, 47 – 9, 51, 59, 75, 95, 108, 112, 122, 132; imagined community, collective imaginary 10, 46, 49, 108, 111; Irish communities 35; migrant and transnational communities 4, 7, 8 connecting sites 34 – 5, 38, 49 – 52, 90 – 1, 97, 103, 108, 115, 117, 134, 139, 141, 143 Couples for Christ (CFC) 96 destination country 3, 5 – 7, 11, 18, 34 – 6, 38 – 43, 50 – 1, 71, 74 – 6, 85 – 6, 88, 97, 103, 108, 114 – 16, 119, 131, 134 – 8, 140, 142 – 3; see also host country diaspora: diasporic consciousness 34, 38, 42, 46 – 7, 51, 91, 127; diasporic identity 10; Filipino diaspora 3, 13 – 14, 19, 34, 36, 38, 43, 83, 97, 117, 139, 141, 143; Irish diaspora 9 – 11, 13, 19, 21, 23, 31, 143; rootlessness 13, 95 diasporan 5 – 7, 24, 39 – 42, 48, 51 – 2, 74 – 5, 81, 90 – 3, 95, 108, 114, 116, 124, 143; diasporic subject 3, 21, 23, 51, 71, 109, 114, 138; Filipino diasporan 3, 36, 43, 56, 74, 76 – 7, 83, 97, 136, 137; Irish diasporan 10 diaspora space 4 – 7, 13 – 14, 18 – 19, 21, 23, 25, 35, 40, 44, 46 – 7, 50 – 2, 90, 92 – 3, 108 – 9, 110, 114, 137, 139 – 40, 142 – 3 discrimination 3, 10 – 15, 20 – 1, 27, 29, 32, 40, 45, 47, 63, 67, 72, 76, 82, 103, 116, 119, 131, 137; unfair treatment 68, 70, 83, 140

166 Index domestic work, domestic workers 3, 10, 17, 19 – 21, 23, 44, 48, 56, 58 – 9, 61 – 2, 68 – 9, 94, 112 Dublin 1, 23, 25, 33, 48 – 9, 60, 68, 93 – 4, 96, 98, 106 – 7, 111 – 12, 118, 122 – 3, 125, 128 – 9, 131 economy / economics 10, 17, 43, 61, 115; economic boom see Celtic Tiger; economic crisis 14, 16, 18, 60, 127; economic development 4, 22, 43, 52; economic mobility see mobility education: college 16, 28, 57, 68, 70, 101 – 2, 113, 119, 126, 130; recognition of degree or qualifications 16, 20, 36, 58, 122 – 3, 129; schools / schooling 26, 78, 102, 132 emigration see migration employment see labour exclusion 2, 4, 5, 7, 12 – 13, 21, 40, 48, 51, 58, 74, 75, 103 – 4, 114 – 16, 123 – 4, 127, 134 – 6 exploitation 3, 20 – 1, 55, 59, 68, 112 family: extended family 30, 44, 49, 55, 65, 72, 94, 98, 102, 105, 124, 126 – 7; separation 34 – 5, 49, 53, 63, 65 – 6, 90, 96, 98, 105, 113, 119, 122, 125, 133; surrogate family, network 66, 95, 111, 124; see also kinship; transnational, family, relationships famine 10, 78 festivals 42, 117 Filipino Community Network 23 food: food products 41, 105 – 7, 113, 119, 142; Oriental stores 49, 106, 108, 114 – 15; restaurants 49, 77, 106 – 7, 114; sharing of food 88, 105, 108 – 9, 120, 132, 137, 141 foreign / foreigner 1, 6, 8, 12, 28 – 30, 32 – 3, 63, 71, 81 – 2, 121, 127; foreign national 8, 12; see also Other Galway 23, 48, 94 gender: discrimination 14 – 15, 45, 141 (see also discrimination); feminisation of migration 18, 20 gendered labour migration, professions, recruitment 19, 22, 55, 58, 59, 141; migrant women as main economic providers 19, 35, 58, 59, 134; spaces 40, 44, 47, 55, 76, 79, 124, 129;

vilification of mothers 20, 52, 58, 129; see also labour, reproductive labour; transnational, mothering generation: first generation 24, 83, 119; intergenerational 27, 100; multi-generational 126; 1.5 generation 24, 27 – 8; second generation 24, 27 – 8, 83, 119 globalisation 2, 3, 6, 13, 19, 24, 33, 36, 41 – 2, 105, 140 habitus 75, 85, 133 healthcare / healthcare professionals 12, 19, 22 – 3, 48, 58, 80 hegemony / hegemonic 2, 24, 27, 39, 70, 81, 140 Hiberno-English see language home: home country 3, 18, 33, 38 – 41, 51, 58, 61, 63, 71, 75, 83, 88, 91, 114, 117, 138, 140, 143 (see also origin, country of); homeland 35 – 42, 48, 50, 52, 67, 71, 74 – 6, 83 – 4, 88, 90 – 4, 97, 103, 106, 108, 109, 113 – 21, 134, 136 – 8, 140 – 2; homesickness 49, 67, 94, 96, 107, 116, 119, 120, 123 homeplace 39, 75, 77, 86, 90, 95, 107, 115, 119, 121, 134, 137, 139 – 40 homing desire 34, 38, 41 – 2, 47, 50 – 2, 86, 88, 91 – 2, 94, 103, 107, 109, 114, 116, 117, 119, 127, 137, 141 – 2 host country 7, 21, 39 – 41, 50, 86, 134; see also destination country identity: Filipino American 2, 13, 24, 43, 46 – 7, 77 – 8, 81, 83, 88, 91 – 2, 100, 112, 140, 143; Filipino identity, Filipino-ness 45 – 7, 70, 77 – 9, 83, 108, 111, 113 – 14, 135 (see also colonial mentality); Irish identity, Irishness 8, 10 – 11, 52, 95, 113, 124; transnational identity 39, 52 (see also transnational) immigration see migration immigration policy 3, 4, 8, 14, 16, 20 – 1, 31, 64, 69, 74, 125, 142 immigration status / migration status 8, 20 – 1, 25, 30, 47, 53, 57 – 9, 62 – 8, 72, 75, 95, 98, 105, 112, 124, 129, 140, 142 – 3; dependent student 57, 60, 126, 129; habitual residency 8, 12, 57, 126, 129; international student 1, 3, 7, 28 – 9, 56; religious worker 3, 60 – 2; undocumented 6, 20 – 1, 68;

Index  167 work permit 56 – 7, 62; work visa 54, 56, 108 Internet 47, 63, 66, 142 intersectionality 4 – 7, 19, 21, 39, 141 invisibility 2, 17, 21, 69, 86, 141; faceless 17, 116; see also visibility Irish diaspora see diaspora Irish-English see language Irish language see language kinship 35, 66, 77, 90, 95, 97, 109, 111, 114, 141; non-kin 44, 67, 97, 100, 141; spiritual kin 49, 64; see also family labour: deskilling 67; employment 12, 14, 16 – 17, 19 – 21, 24, 54 – 5, 57, 65, 68, 79, 81, 88, 101, 120, 123, 127, 129, 141; labour market 8, 10, 12, 17, 20 – 2, 55, 57, 120, 136; labour migration see migration; recruitment 4 – 5, 7, 12, 15 – 16, 20 – 2, 25, 43, 54, 56, 58 – 9, 61 – 2, 110 – 11, 113, 125, 139; reproductive labour 22, 37, 43 – 5, 136, 141; semi-skilled, skilled labour 10, 12, 16, 55, 103, 112; unemployment 16, 54, 68; unskilled labour 10, 20, 55, 67, 112 language: American accent, American English 1, 29, 78, 80 – 2; British English 79, 89; Filipino accent 46, 77, 83, 86; Hiberno-English 88, 125; Irish accent 80, 125, 128; Irish-English 76, 78 – 80, 85 – 6, 88 – 9; Irish language, Gaelic, Gaeilge 9, 11, 79, 85; Tagalog 1, 30 – 5, 46 – 7, 49, 76 – 80, 83 – 7, 105, 114, 126, 137, 141; Taglish 76 – 80, 84 – 6 liminal / liminality 23, 40, 43, 81, 90, 98, 103 – 4, 116, 125, 128; limbo 47, 62 marginalisation 25, 28, 34, 36, 45, 47 – 8, 70 – 1, 79, 81, 86, 139, 142 – 3 migration: culture of emigration 17, 54 – 5, 130; Filipino migration 14, 15, 17, 63, 139; Irish emigration 4, 7, 10, 139, 141 (see also diaspora); labour migration 2, 13, 17 – 21, 40, 44 – 5, 54, 58, 72, 76, 90, 139; myth of return, return migration 36, 39, 41 – 5, 51, 55, 61, 75 – 6, 83 – 4, 87, 92, 114 – 16, 120 – 2, 126 – 9, 132 – 6, 142; social costs of migration 43 – 4, 54, 61, 63 – 4, 76 migration status see immigration status

mobility 16, 18, 34 – 5, 48, 55 – 6, 58 – 60, 72, 75 – 6, 78 – 9, 84, 86, 112, 137, 142; economic mobility 57, 67, 112, 121, 142; social mobility 57, 67, 101 – 2, 130 – 1, 136 model minority 27, 70 nostalgia 6 – 7, 33, 91 – 2, 103, 106, 109, 111, 115, 118 – 19, 134, 142 nurses / nursing 3, 10, 16, 20, 55, 58 – 9, 61 – 2, 67 – 8, 79 – 80, 95, 99, 102 – 3, 107, 124, 125, 129; nursing homes 48; nursing programmes 55, 99; see also healthcare oppression 11, 46, 59, 79, 84, 133 Oriental stores see food origin, country of 5 – 6, 38, 41, 50, 84; see also home Other, Othering 1, 3, 6, 28, 42 – 3, 69, 75, 79, 122, 125, 138 – 9, 144 Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) 15 – 17, 33, 37, 43, 45, 54, 60 – 2, 68, 72, 76, 83, 96, 110, 112, 130, 134 – 6, 143, 145 postcolonial 4, 6, 13, 71 – 2, 78 – 9 poverty 62, 135 – 6 Protestant 10 – 11, 96 race / racism / racialization: discourse 21, 39, 48, 59, 71, 133, 136 – 7, 142; experiences of 27, 33, 68 – 71, 105, 131, 133; racial identity 2, 10 – 16, 21, 27, 29, 45 – 8, 58, 68, 70, 133; see also discrimination refugees 6, 12, 54 religion 9, 13, 23, 35, 52, 62, 90 – 1, 95, 97, 103 – 4, 106, 141; see also Catholic church remittances 3, 14, 17, 23, 35, 39, 43, 45, 48, 54 – 5, 58, 61, 64 – 5, 68, 72, 76, 106, 119, 124 – 5, 129, 135, 141 resistance 19, 24, 35, 39, 46 – 7, 52, 59, 67, 77, 79, 83, 97, 104, 116 – 17, 133, 140 returnees 18, 36, 134 – 5 rituals 35, 42, 52, 74, 88, 90 – 6, 103 – 5, 114, 117, 120, 141 – 2 traditional dances 24, 93 – 4, 140 transnational / transnationalism (in general) 4, 6 – 7, 9, 14, 32, 36, 49, 52,

168 Index 83, 90, 108 – 9, 111, 115 – 17, 128, 134, 137 – 42; activities 6, 43, 105, 116, 141; communities 7, 66; family, relationships 3, 13, 60, 65 – 6, 92, 95, 103; households 43 – 5, 64, 76; mothering 43, 129 United States 1 – 2, 10, 14 – 17, 24, 26, 28, 31 – 4, 39, 55, 67, 77, 81 – 3, 92, 105 – 6, 131, 135, 143; US colonization,

imperialism 14, 16, 34, 46 – 7, 81; see also colonial visibility 2, 17, 21, 28, 32, 36, 49 – 51, 92, 104, 115, 143; see also invisibility vulnerability 13, 20, 34, 35, 53, 59, 67, 72, 90, 98, 104, 134, 138 – 9, 141 whiteness 7, 11, 24, 27 – 8, 34, 46, 69, 140, 143