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Socially Transformative Transnational Feminism: Filipino Women Activists at Home and Abroad

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Socially Transformative Transnational Feminism: Filipino Women Activists at Home and Abroad SOCIALLY TRANSFORMATIVE TRANSNATIONAL FEMINISM: FILIPINO WOMEN ACTIVISTS AT HOME AND ABROAD by MARIA LOURDES CARRILLO B. S., Northwestern University, 1970 M.S.P.A., University of Washington, 1972 M. Div., Vancouver School of Theology, 1993 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Women’s and Gender Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2009 © Maria Lourdes Carrillo, 2009 ABSTRACT Twelve Filipino women activists who shared the same ideology were interviewed in three locations: the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Vancouver, BC. The study considers how massive migration and displacement of Filipino women have produced transnational communities of struggle that are a source of political consciousness and positive social change. The research compares personal and social changes among those immersed in daily struggle under different circumstances. It looks at how and why women and communities are transformed in the very process of struggle -- women becoming more socially empowered and communities learning to be more assertive, democratic, and politically engaged. In the stories they tell, the women historicize, contextualize, and politicize actions for structural change. While transnational feminism appears to parallel global strategies of transnational entities and nation-states, feminist movements struggle to be relevant. Mohanty (2003) sees anti- globalization activism as imperative for feminist solidarity, yet feminist projects continue to seek focused, collective efforts against neo-Iiberalism. This group’s activism enhances our understanding of feminist praxis. They jointly address neo-colonial domination (capitalist globalization) and systemic race-class-gender oppression. Economic experiences of those from a poor Majority World nation and actions from socially and politically conscious activists are integrated into community-based and academic feminist theorizing. Their analyses of global trade/labour trafficking contribute to learning about responsible communities and hope for transnational solidarity. This project proposes a socially transformative feminism that does not merely recognize anti- globalization efforts, but analyzes progressive feminist praxis that points to women’s liberation as directly linked to positive structural change locally, nationally, and transnationally, while already demonstrating its possibility. Citing the work of Mohanty (2003), Tuhiwai-Smith (2002), Sandoval (2000), and community-based research by the Philippine Women Centre of BC (1 996-2006), it builds on feminist research and social change movements. It focuses on marginalized women’s/communities’ capacity to show creative assertion and political participation, and examines criteria for what is socially transformative. The study concludes by reassessing the relationship of feminism and transnationalism in the context of these women’s lives and work — the realities of migration, the dialectics of women’s marginalization and empowerment, and the perpetual, constantly changing nature of social transformation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Listof Figures iv Acknowledgements V Dedication vi Part I Framing the Study 1 Chapter One: Introduction 2 Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework 51 Chapter Three: Methodology 87 Part II Analysis and Interpretation of Data 118 Chapter Four: Common Beginnings, Common Struggles 119 Chapter Five: Domesticity and Political Activism 184 Chapter Six: Community Based Feminist Praxis as a Model of Social Transformation 220 Conclusions and Reflections 263 Chapter Seven: Social Transformation and Trans/National Solidarity 264 Bibliography 295 Appendices 313 One: Certificate of Approval Behavioural Research Ethics Board 314 Two: Interview Questions 315 Three: Key to Codes and Coding Form 317 Four: Comparison of Live-In versus Live-Out Domestic Help 323 Five: Marcos-Martial Law 1972 & Macapagal-Arroyo State of Emergency 2006.. .325 III LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Three Intersecting Problems of the Philippine State 28 Figure 2 Theoretical Framework 52 Figure 3 Participants 103 Figure 4 Summary of Common Issues 208 Figure 5 Effective Feminist Praxis in Response to National and Women’s Issues 261 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS doctoral committee: Dr. Shauna I wish to express my profound gratitude to my Butterwick, Dr. Valerie Raoul (Chair), and Dr. Sunera Thobani, who guided me through their lenses as professors, feminist scholars, and community activists. In these pages, their effort, time, and wisdom are woven in with mine, allowing me the experience to richly and dynamically integrate academic scholarship with community-based perspectives. I wish to thank the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies (the Centre for Women’s graduate students, and its directors: Research and Gender Studies when I started), the Sneja Gunew during the period of my courses and Dr. Valerie Raoul when I applied, Dr. comprehensives, and Dr. Gillian Creese in the phases of writing and revisions. I thank the graduate student advisors during my studies: Dr. Isabel Dyck, Dr. Geraldine Pratt, and Dr. Nora Angeles. Wynn Archibald and Jane Charles, CWGS staff, have been witnesses and gentle support during this time. friends in Vancouver, and those in gratitude to my friends who I met at UBC, I extend my other parts of Canada and abroad, who have witnessed my journey through this research study and offered me their constant vigilance and nurture. I thank my friends who helped me transcribe hours of audiotapes, and some who read many parts and versions of this thesis and gave me valuable feedback. I have you in my grateful heart, specifically and individually. My profound and heartfelt thanks goes to my partner, Marcelino Denis-Beltran and our son, David, who understood what I was trying to achieve, respected my work and my necessary absences, and guessed accurately when needed taken away and loved. I to be V DEDICATION I dedicate this work to all the women in this study who have devoted their lives to the struggle of Filipino people and most especially, Filipino women. Whether in the Philippines, Canada, or the Netherlands, they have risked their lives and made sacrifices that deepened my understanding nations’ have learned from them of struggles. What I has changed me and inspired my public life. I dedicate this work with utmost respect and humility to the Filipino people who deserve a prosperous society, and who continue to struggle for change at the highest cost through means that manifest, and lead to, genuine peace and justice. I honour the volunteers and staff of the Philippine Women Centre of BC and other groups in Canada under the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada, the women’s organization in the Netherlands, Pinay sa Holland, and GABRIELA Philippines including the groups there to which the women in this study belong. parents, Crispina Giorla Finally, I offer this work to my de Guzman and Francisco Lopez Carrillo, who instilled in me the compassion for the poorest of the poor and bequeathed sister Liza the enduring value of study. I offer this work to my who modeled the way to achieving a doctoral degree with humility and diligence, and who, with full support of my brother-in-law Tom, has translated this advanced degree to the service of others; Manolo, my sister-in-law May and three nieces Lisa, Anna, and Julie, who accept me with warm and intelligent curiosity; and my brother John, whose music accompanied me through these years. I honour all of their achievements, academic or otherwise, and share mine with them. vi PART I FRAMING THE STUDY “Ang taong nagigipit, kahit sa patalim ay kakapit.” “A person in dire straits, cornered, will cling even to a knife’s edge”. --Filipino saying 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Personal Preamble: Situating the Researcher It is perhaps with great presumption that I claim that this study both records an important part of the history-in-the-making of Filipino women at the start of this millennium and participates in it. When I first came to North America to enter second-year of university in 1968, I learned some lessons very quickly: not those of my own history as a young Filipino woman, but from the experience of being a visitor to a wealthy United States mansion. Ignoring my own privileges in the Philippines, I was mesmerized by the size and scope of affluence in the US. I remember one of my trips whispered first to Kroger’s grocery store in Evanston, Illinois, when I to myself, “This is just like Manila, only bigger and better.” Some fifteen was leaving years later, as I Merida, Venezuela, where I had lived for almost five years, to return to Canada, I looked down Avenida 2 at the market and said to myself, “I am not likely to ever see this type of under- development again.” Now, over twenty years later, perceptions and I can no longer frame my experiences in “privileged” terms, or compare in binary terms who or what is “bigger and better,” “developed or underdeveloped.” Further, I see that escaping and abandoning “Third World” experiences as I did then, not appreciating them but feeling indifference instead (even shame), became reasons for personal remorse and social radicalization. This study, therefore, hopes to contribute to the assertion of a Majority World story that makes history. The words and feelings of Filipino women in the midst of social revolution, militancy, and creative action at home and abroad are history-in-the-making, within the dialectics of personal awakenings intertwined with local, national, and transnational social change. The origin of this study lies in the multiple experiences of a community of Filipino women living, like myself, in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), who were or are immigrants or migrant workers, spanning two generations. Some of those from the younger generation were born in 2 the Philippines to immigrant parents or migrant workers, while others are Canadian-born with either one or both parents being Filipino. As an immigrant whose Filipino parents now live in Los Angeles, situated as member California, I am a of this politically active community.
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