Reading Filipina Migrant Workers in Hong Kong : Tracing a Feminist and Cultural Politics of Transformation

Lingnan University Digital Commons @ Lingnan University All Open Access Theses and Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 6-26-2004 Reading Filipina migrant workers in Hong Kong : tracing a feminist and cultural politics of transformation Aida Jean MANIPON Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd Part of the Gender and Sexuality Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Manipon, A. J. (2004). Reading Filipina migrant workers in Hong Kong: Tracing a feminist and cultural politics of transformation (Master's thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/4 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Open Access Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Lingnan University. Terms of Use The copyright of this thesis is owned by its author. Any reproduction, adaptation, distribution or dissemination of this thesis without express authorization is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved. READING FILIPINA MIGRANT WORKERS IN HONG KONG: TRACING A FEMINIST AND CULTURAL POLITICS OF TRANSFORMATION MANIPON AIDA JEAN MPHIL LINGNAN UNIVERSITY 2004 READING FILIPINA MIGRANT WORKERS IN HONG KONG: TRACING A FEMINIST AND CULTURAL POLITICS OF TRANSFORMATION by MANIPON Aida Jean A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy LINGNAN UNIVERSITY 2004 ABSTRACT Reading Filipina Migrant Workers in Hong Kong: Tracing a Feminist and Cultural Politics of Transformation by MANIPON Aida Jean Master of Philosophy For Filipino migrant workers , the journey overseas in search of contractual employment marks a profound turning point in their lives. It registers the crossing of spatial and cultural borders that leads to the shifting of terrains from which they make sense of their selves and the world of ‘others.’ It signifies a rupture in time that alters their sense of history, giving shape to new vantage points from which they reflect on the past and project an imagination of future. This research explores the question of how Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong make sense of their experiences as ‘migrant women’, and how they might articulate a consciousness of themselves as gendered subjects in history. The study begins with a documentation of the personal histories of five Filipina women, as told in their own words and as reconstructed into written text, and offers a reading of the narratives, tracing the ways in which they make sense of their experiences as women migrant workers, wives, mothers, daughters, and diasporic citizens of a nation state. Through this process of reading and narrativizing the life histories of Filipina domestic workers, this thesis hopes to contribute to an understanding of how their gendered subjectivities are formed, shaped and changed over time. The life histories, though diverse, give voice to a shared and collective experience – a familiar story of poverty, family crises, diaspora, encounter with cultural difference and subjection to difficult working conditions. Together they are the hidden threads that form the underside of the grand narratives of ‘nation’, development, modernization, and globalization. It is against this backdrop that family crises would push five women -- Mader Irma, Gina, Esther, Miriam, and Rosario -- to enter a particularly difficult type of employment which would render them as part of Hong Kong’s invisible ‘others.’ While their journey was primarily an act of love/duty to the family, the experience of migration would eventually reinvent the meaning of ‘wife’, ‘mother’‘daughter,’ ‘worker’ ‘subaltern intellectual’ and ‘activist.’ To foreground the narratives of life histories, two chapters in the first part of this thesis are devoted to a brief review of the historical contexts in Hong Kong and the Philippines that gave rise to the current migration phenomenon. The chapters also trace the ways by which the ‘Filipina domestic helper’ is positioned and interpellated in discourse, as ‘ban mui’, ‘new heroes’ and ‘spectral presences’ in the nation. Migrant domestic workers straddle two life/worlds, always the inside-outsider/outside-insider, and in this ambiguous in-between space they carve out new identities and struggle to exercise agency. This research contributes to an understanding of the affective/subjective dimensions of migration by presenting ways of ‘narrating’ and ‘reading’ women’s experiences. It also demonstrates the usefulness of intellectual resources offered by feminist and cultural studies in interrogating the conditions of Hong Kong’s ‘social others’ and identifying issues around which an agenda for transformational politics might be explored. I declare that this is an original work based primarily on my own research, and I warrant that all citations of previous research, published or unpublished, have been duly acknowledged. __________________ MANIPON Aida Jean October 30, 2004 Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction 1. Background and objectives ................................................................................. 1 2. A job with no name .............................................................................................. 4 3. Narrativizing the life histories of Filipina domestic helpers ................. ……. … 8 Chapter Two The arrival of Filipinas and FDHs (Foreign Domestic Helpers) in Modernizing Hong Kong 1. Economic restructuring and the Filipina domestic worker ................................ 16 2. Negotiating geographies of work and time-control ............................................19 3. The Banmuis/Philippine girls as ‘modern slave’ ............................................... 23 4. From Banmuis to Street Activists ...................................................................... 25 Chapter Three ‘Underdevelopment’ in the Philippines and its Export of Female Labor 1. Colonizing territories of lands, bodies and minds ............................................. 32 2. Philippine labor export policy ............................................................................ 40 3. Heroes, martyrs and spectral presences ............................................................. 42 Chapter Four An Overview of the Narratives: Five Women’s Journey to Hong Kong 1. Memory and migration: between past and future .............................................. 48 2. Pangarap (dreams and desires) .......................................................................... 49 3. Profiles of five women……………………………………………………… 50 4. Women as domestic helpers, migrant workers and citizens ................. ……. .. 54 CHAPTER FIVE Two Mothers: Reading and Retelling the Stories of Mader Irma and Gina 1. The Story of Mader Irma ................................................................................... 57 2. The Story of Gina ............................................................................................... 62 3. Reading the stories of Mader Irma and Gina .................................................... 68 i 3.1. Transiting between two life/worlds 3.2. Voices of change and reaction 3.3. Amos, alagas, and the Filipina domestic worker 3.4. Notions of self and motherhood CHAPTER SIX Two Daughters: Reading and Retelling the Stories of Esther and Miriam 1. The Story of Esther ............................................................................................ 76 2. The Story of Miriam .......................................................................................... 79 3. Reading the stories of Esther and Miriam .......................................................... 83 3.1. Tradition and transgression 3.2. Negotiating power through speech and silence 3.3. Constituting self/subject between past and future 3.4. ‘budgeting’ as capitalist and patriarchal discourses CHAPTER SEVEN Wife, Daughter, Mother, Activist: Reading and Retelling the Story of Rosario 1. The Story of Rosario .......................................................................................... 97 2. Reading Rosario’s story ....................................................................................107 2.1. subaltern intellectual as domestic helper 2.2. ‘movement’ as site of collective and individual agency 2.3. ‘Woman’ as daughter, wife, activist and mother CHAPTER EIGHT Conclusion 1. What ‘migration’ means ................................................................................... 114 2. Selfhood and womanhood ................................................................................ 116 3. Amos and alagas ............................................................................................... 118 4. Crossing class positions ................................................................................... 119 5. Tricycles and vehicles, flight and return .......................................................... 120 6. Rewriting narratives of nation and migration .................................................. 121 7. The usefulness of this research ........................................................................ 123 8. Some areas for further research. ...................................................................... 126 9. Concluding Remarks………………………………………………………….. 127 LIST OF APPENDICES ii Appendix A. “When you come home, we will take you wherever you want to go”: The Story of Mader Irma…………………………………………….131

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