Saints and Sinners
Perceptions of Filipinas in Christian religious communities in Tokyo
Anna Shaw [email protected] Student Number: 10443495 Thesis for MSc Contemporary Asian Studies Graduate School of Social Sciences University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Supervisor: Dr. Rosanne Rutten 20 June 2013
Top photo courtesy of Goodness Tokyo, Bottom photo courtesy of Maki Takahashi Table of Contents Introduction ...... 3 Driving Questions ...... 4 Research Setting ...... 5 Research Population ...... 6 Research Methodology ...... 8 Interviewing ...... 8 Timelines ...... 9 Participant Observation ...... 10 Facebook...... 10 Challenges ...... 10 Incorporation and Exclusion...... 12 Perceptions of Filipina Migrants...... 12 Resistance and Agency ...... 13 Religious Community Building ...... 15 Assertions of Modernity ...... 17 Filipino perceptions of Japanese society ...... 17 Japan as the Asian West: “the Philippines of Tomorrow” ...... 18 Japan as an antithesis to the West ...... 24 Degrees of Difference: Catholic v. Born Again ...... 27 Ambivalence ...... 28 Conclusion ...... 31 Beyond the Entertainer: Japanese perceptions of Filipinas ...... 33 Japanese Immigration System ...... 34 Images of Filipinas in Japanese society ...... 36 The Entertainer ...... 37 The Pious Homemaker ...... 38 The Hard Worker ...... 41 Conclusion ...... 43 Class Clashes: Filipino’s perceptions of each other ...... 44 Class background of respondents ...... 45 ‘Looseness’ of working class Filipinas ...... 47 Degrees of Difference: Catholic v. Born Again narratives of entertainment ...... 49 Born Again Narratives ...... 49 Catholic Narratives ...... 50 Ambivalence towards stereotypes ...... 54 Conclusion ...... 55 Religion and Resistance ...... 56 Religion and Passivity ...... 57 Negotiation among Catholics ...... 61 Negotiation among Born Again Christians ...... 65 Conclusion ...... 68 Conclusion ...... 69 Acknowledgments ...... 71 Bibliography...... 72
2 Introduction Over unlimited refills of coffee and an appetizer of chicken quesadillas, I ask Charlotte about Japanese immigration policy. Lowering her voice to a whisper she compares immigration rules in Japan to her perception of the ‘incompetent’ immigration system in the Philippines. As she lowers her voice I hear someone chattering in Tagalog next to us. I glance at Charlotte. She knows exactly why I'm looking at her and says in a cavalier manner, “Yes, yes. I heard them already. They are Filipino.” The women had been seated for twenty minutes before I realized they were Filipinas. What I had just discovered, Charlotte picked up on the instant she saw them sit down. She then immediately adjusted her voice to a level at which they would be unable to discern the topic of conversation. During the rest of the interview she whispered her responses to me when explaining, for example, her Japanese husband’s perception of Filipinos as parasites, her experiences in entertainment, and her perception of most Filipinas in Japan as uneducated. Charlotte’s example speaks to how attuned migrants are to perceptions and expectations emanating from their own migrant group. This aspect is one that is often neglected in studies on migrants. In the context of Japan, the majority of Filipina migrants came in the 1980s and 1990s to work in the entertainment industry, an industry in which their bodies and work was sexualized in ways pleasing to male Japanese patrons. Women in entertainment perform a variety of activities from dancing, singing, and modeling, to pouring drinks for and flirting with customers, in an effort to assuage their egos and loosen their wallets (Bedford & Hwang 2010: 88). As a result of this large-scale employment, Filipina migrants in Japan are often portrayed in sexualized manners that strip them of agency and humanity (Mackie 1996: 49). Due to the unique nature of Filipina migration to Japan, numerous scholars have documented the migration, settlement, and incorporation of Filipinas as they shifted from working in the entertainment industry, to marrying Japanese men and starting families, to occupying an increasingly diverse range of industries as teachers, IT professionals, care workers, NGO workers, academics and entrepreneurs (Amaroso 2003; Ball & Piper 2002; Faier 2007; Faier 2008; Fuess 2003; Lopez 2012; Mackie 1998; Parreñas 2006; Piper 2003; Suzuki 2000; Suzuki 2003; Suzuki 2004; Suzuki 2011; Tyner 1996).
3 What is often neglected however, is the politics of identity building and community building that occurs within migrant communities and among migrants of the same nationality. If these aspects are touched upon, they take a peripheral role to the more common focus of perceptions existing between members of the host society and members of migrant groups (see, for example, Constable 2007: 164-201; Suzuki 2003; Suzuki 2000). Central to this thesis is the question of how Filipinas perceive each other in relation to their host society and how they negotiate these perceptions. Moreover, it is possible to identify certain aspects of this process that are informed by mainstream perceptions of Filipinas in Japan, whether historical or contemporary. In this thesis I take two Christian religious communities as cases in which perceptions and expectations of fellow Filipina migrants are perpetuated and negotiated. The thesis is divided into four empirical chapters that discuss Filipinas’ perceptions of Japanese society, Japanese perceptions of Filipinas, Filipinas’ perceptions of each other, and finally, how Filipinas negotiate perceptions emanating from their own ethnic and religious communities. In addition, the next chapter will provide a theoretical framework that discusses relevant scholarly literature on the subject of Filipina migrants in Asia by discussing perceptions of Filipina migrants, common modes of negotiation, and finally, notions of migrant community building. A final chapter reviews and sums up the conclusions that can be drawn based on my empirical data. First, however, I discuss the methodological underpinnings of the research.
Driving Questions To better understand the perceptions that Filipinas have of each other in the migration context I pose the following questions: How do Filipina migrants in Tokyo perceive each other in relation to Japanese society? What role(s) do religious communities play in the way Filipinas negotiate these perceptions? In addition to these questions I also pose three sub-questions that are addressed in each chapter: 1. How do Filipinas perceive Japanese society? 2. What are mainstream perceptions of Filipinas in Japanese society?
4 3. How are Filipinas’ perceptions of each other informed by their immigrant status in Japan?
Research Setting Tokyo was chosen as the research setting due to the fact that it has been a popular Asian migration destination for Filipinas since the 1980s. In 2011 29,540 documented Filipinos resided in Tokyo, approximately 16.8% of the documented Filipino population in Japan (Tokyo Metropolitan Government 2011; Japan Ministry of Justice 2012). Over 80% of these migrants were women (Ibid.). Because the Filipina community in Tokyo is so large, it proved more useful to study perceptions of Filipinas among Filipinas here rather than a rural area where there are less Filipinas and fewer contexts in which Filipinas interact with one another.
Figure 1: (left) Interior of Goodness Tokyo, Born Again Church, (right) Interior of Kyokai, Catholic Church Photos by Anna Shaw
Due to the fact that most Filipina migrants identify as Christian and many are actively practicing Christians, the bulk of my fieldwork was conducted at two Christian churches, in Tokyo Japan. The first church I attended was a Born Again church, Goodness Tokyo, located in a nightclub in one of the central districts of Tokyo. Kyokai, the second church that I attended –one that I found via my network at the Born Again church – is a Catholic church located in a northern district of Tokyo. Pseudonyms are used for the names of churches to protect the privacy of churchgoers1.
1 Kyokai means church in Japanese. I give it this name because the real name of the Catholic church is a Japanese word. On the other hand, the real name of the Born Again church is English, hence the English alias.
5 The main method through which I came in contact with these two churches was through snowball sampling. My gatekeepers are members of Goodness Tokyo and they referred me to a Catholic woman who is very active in the Filipino community in Tokyo. Through her I was able to develop relationships with members of Kyokai. After spending time at both these churches I began to notice key differences in what was expected from Filipina members as well as how Filipina members negotiated these expectation. For this reason I use Goodness Tokyo and Kyokai as comparison cases. In addition to attending services and social events at Kyokai, I also attended events at three other Catholic churches in Tokyo that are in more central locations and play more prominent roles in the Catholic community in Tokyo, among both Filipino and non-Filipino Catholics.
Research Population Informants for this research were drawn primarily from the two churches mentioned in the previous section. In addition, two interviewees were attendees of a Catholic church in Saitama –a prefecture bordering northern Tokyo –and two were attendees of a larger Catholic church in central Tokyo. In addition to the twenty-four Filipinas I interviewed, I also conducted interviews with two Filipino men, –one of which was a Catholic priest –one Filipino-American man (the pastor at Goodness Tokyo), one Japanese-American woman (the wife of the pastor at Goodness Tokyo), and three Japanese Born Again Christians. Since I met all my interviewees at church, my sample is restricted to practicing religious Filipinas and Japanese. This is not a problem since I focus my main question on the roles of religious communities in determining how Filipinas negotiate perceptions held of them. I tried to sample a relatively equal number of informants from the Born Again church and the Catholic church so as to be able to make some comparisons between the two groups. Of the Filipina women, fifteen were Catholic and ten were Born Again Christians. On average, the women from the Born Again church were younger (ages ranging from 23-46) than the Catholic women (ages ranging from 31-63). In addition, a higher average of Born Again Filipinas were middle or upper class– a category I measure using level of education, occupation, and husband’s occupation, if applicable. For example, Eleanor is classified as a member of the upper class due to her husband’s career in IT (internet technology), her upbringing as the daughter of a
6 ramie2 plantation owner, and her education in medical technology in the Philippines. On the other hand, Joan, a Catholic woman is classified as working class due to her lack of education, her impoverished background in the Philippines and her current employment as a factory worker. These class differences and other background characteristics such as amount of time spent in Japan, age, and their reason for migrating to Japan, engendered different perceptions and different ways of negotiating these perceptions. See Tables 1 and 2 for an overview of the background characteristics of Born Again and Catholic Filipinos. The imbalanced gender representation in the sample is partly due to choice, partly to circumstance. The majority of migrants leaving the Philippines are now women (Parreñas 2008: 5). Moreover, because of the entertainment history in Japan, Filipinas in the country still outnumber Filipinos. In 2011, only 46,120 Filipino men were documented as living in Japan as compared 129,639 Filipina women (Ministry of Justice 2012). Because of the unique gendered history of migration between the Philippines in Japan, Filipina women were particularly appealing to study.
Table 1: Background characteristics of Born Again Christian Filipino informants.
Born Again Sex3 Marital4 Age Current Time in Reason for Level of Filipinos Status occupation5 Japan6 Coming7 Education8 Aaliyah F S 27 EngTeacher 9 J/S B-finance Amy F W 47 EngTeacher 20 E/S B-accounting Avic F M [nj] 36 EngTeacher 10 S G-economics Charoltte F M 39 Housewife 23 E HS Dhy F M 31 EngTeacher 3 W B-education Eleanor F M 46 Book Factory 24 E B-med tech9. Grace F S 23 Student 1 S/W B-nursing Jennifer F S 36 EngTeacher 7 J B-HR10 Mhy F M 40 Housewife 1.5 E G-education
2 Ramie is a fiber crop commonly used for fabric production. 3 F=female; M=male 4 M=married; S=single; D=divorced; W=widowed; [nj]=not Japanese 5 EngTeacher=English Teacher 6 Numbers given in years 7 E=entertainment; J=Japanese heritage; S=student; W=work other than entertainment; M=marriage 8 B=bachelor; G=graduate; HS=high school 9 Medical Technology 10 Human Resources
7 Naomi F M 36 EngTeacher 6 M B-business Pido M M [nj] 30s Publishing 10 S G-unknown
Table 2: Background characteristics of Catholic Filipino informants.
Catholic Sex Marital Age Current Time in Reason for Level of Filipinos Status occupation Japan Coming Education Anabel F D 53 Interpreter 30 W B-zoology Carla F M 63 Housewife 31 M G-dentistry Debra F D [nj] 42 Realtor 1 W B-business Dina F M 32 EngTeacher 23 M G-theology Gena F M 40s Housewife 6 M G-education Janet F W 49 Maid 28 E HS Joan F D 31 Factory Worker 12 E HS Mae F M 46 Waitress 24 S G- psych11. Maki F M 42 Housewife 22 E HS Malou F M 35 EngTeacher 11 W B-media Neri F M 47 Interpreter 22 S G-accounting Olive F M 46 Realtor/Nurse 26 E HS Pam F M 59 Babysitter 9 W B-accounting Sr. Edita F n/a 58 Nun 7 W G-theology Fr. Resty M n/a 41 Priest 12 W G-theology George M M [nj] 43 Entrepreneur 16 W G-business
Research Methodology
Interviewing Throughout the fieldwork process interviews ranged from semi-structured to unstructured. Usually the first interview conducted with informants began relatively structured and then I would focus questions as pertinent topics arose. In addition to helping me acquire a working knowledge of my informants’ backgrounds these interviews also provided knowledge for understanding Filipinas perceptions of other Filipina migrants as well as perceptions of Japanese society as a whole. With the non-
11 Psychology
8 Filipina informants interviewed, this technique enabled me to better understand perceptions of Filipina migrants and perceptions of migrant behavior and lifestyle. In addition to interviewing Filipinas in particular I also looked for people who offered unique, and perhaps contrasting, perspectives to the majority of my informants, such as Born Again Japanese college students, religious leaders, and Filipino men. Ultimately, the selection process was aimed at getting a diverse set of opinions regarding perceptions of Filipinas in Tokyo, and at Kyokai and Goodness Tokyo in particular. Most of the interviews took place in cafés or at restaurants. A few also took place at church locations. In total I conducted twenty-four interviews, five of which were with two or more people. In one focus group there were six interviewees. In the other focus group there were seven. The other interviews with multiple people consisted of two informants. In one of these three instances the second person acted as a translator as well as a participant. In the other two interviews both people were solely participants. In total I interviewed thirty-two people. In most instances people were open to talking with me. With the women I knew better and on a more personal basis, it was easier to discuss sensitive information. Usually my youth served as an asset and made people feel more comfortable and open with me. Generally, the process of interviewing went quite smoothly and I was able to establish rapport with my informants. In a few cases language presented a challenge, as not all of my informants were comfortable in English. Generally, the people that had no formal college education were the ones who had more trouble communicating in English. Language barriers tended to be most salient during social events that I went to, especially house visits, when people were relaxing, eating food, and speaking in Tagalog. In these instances there were usually a couple women I could ask to translate for me.
Timelines With three Filipina informants I conducted second –and in one case third –interviews in which I asked them to draw a timeline of their lives related to their migration history. Examples of events that they drew include their first trip as entertainers to Japan, the development of their relationships with Japanese spouses, or the development of their religious activity in Japan. Using these timelines, I was able to pinpoint aspects of their migration experience that they found important, as well as see how their outlook towards their own migration and the migration of Filipinos in
9 general had changed. By talking to me about their experiences and history in Japan, they also revealed perceptions they held of their host society and other Filipinos, which were important for my research.
Participant Observation The main places in which observation was an important research tool were at church and church-related social gatherings with Filipinas, such as during catechism at Kyokai, or when eating or together after the masses and services. In addition, I also visited four houses of Catholic women and one house of a Born Again woman. Almost all of these visits were for the purpose of having a priest bless the space. One woman, for example, was opening a salon in a rented apartment space. She held a gathering with food and drinks and had the priest come and bless the area before we ate and socialized. By attending these sorts of events I was able to observe the important place religion takes in everyday lives. I was also able to observe interactions between different Filipina actors and get a sense of the group dynamics that took place.
Facebook Facebook was an important avenue through which I was able to make and maintain contact with Filipino informants. For example, before entering the field I was able to get in touch with my gatekeepers and set up a date on which I could attend church with them. During my fieldwork Facebook served as a forum through which I could plan appointments, and keep up with the daily lives of many of my informants. The connections I made on Facebook also provided me with a great deal of photos from informants, some of which I use –with the permission of the owners – in the thesis.
Challenges One important challenge to address here is my own disenchantment with religion and Christianity in particular. Similar to not being Filipino, I think not being Christian created a barrier in my relationships with informants. Perhaps this difference made certain religious people wary of sharing more personal information with me that would have been relevant for research. On the other hand, I noticed that some informants took every opportunity to share the gospel with me. This took time in which they could have been answering questions regarding my research. Most of
10 the time I refrained from offering my opinion when people shared their religious beliefs. In the end however, I was able to have a couple open and honest conversations with some of the Born Again Christians from Goodness Tokyo. The discussion didn't lead to any great revelations but it was important to have it; to demonstrate that it is possible.
11 Incorporation and Exclusion The main concern of this thesis is to better understand how Filipina migrants perceive each other in their migration country and, to be more specific, how these perceptions are produced, perpetuated, and acted upon within the religious contexts that many Filipinas participate in. These religious contexts provide ideal environments to study Filipino perceptions of fellow Filipina migrants since they provide an important avenue through which migrant Filipinos stay in contact with each other. In this chapter I discuss current scholarship on (1) perceptions of Filipina migrants, (2) resistance and agency, and (3) religious and ethnic affiliation among migrants.
Perceptions of Filipina Migrants Due to the rise of the nation-state and its centrality to identity, attitudes and perceptions toward immigrants have historically been characterized by wariness and antagonism (Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002). Doubly disenfranchised, women from the global south face the more extreme forms of these attitudes and perceptions. Common perceptions of Filipinas held by Japanese actors are reflections of the sexualized nature of entertainment work. Some of the images documented in literature on Filipina migrants in Japan include Filipinas as prostitutes, Filipinas as willing victims of male power, Filipinas as heroes who sacrifice their dignity for the sake of their impoverished homeland, and, more generally, a racial or cultural Other (Tyner 1996: 89; Makie 1998: 47). As Filipinas began to settle in Japan and marry Japanese men, perceptions shifted to focus on the fecundity of Filipina brides, and their ‘natural’ maternal inclinations (Suzuki 2003: 404). Since 2008, Filipinas have been migrating to Japan under economic partnership agreements in which Filipinas train to work in Japanese nursing homes. Though this is a step up in status from working in the entertainment industry, ultimately the notion that Filipinas are ‘naturally suited’ to care work – whether it be by pouring drinks or changing diapers –overshadows many positive interpretations of this new image (Lopez 2012: 260). Image changes that accomapany changes in concentrations of Filipinas working in different industries are widely discussed in the Filipino migrant communities I participated in. While little has been written about Filipina migrants’ perceptions of each other, scholars that do touch on it emphasize the ways in which migrants encourage
12 and discourage each other from resisting treatment and perceptions encountered in the host society. Constable, for example, discusses how Filipina workers in Hong Kong encourage each other to resist discriminatory treatment from members of their host society by, for example creating advocacy groups and organizing protests (2007: 164). On the other hand she also notes that “domestic workers impose discipline on themselves” in ways that discourage resistance and impose perceptions of Filipina women as accommodating, chaste, and passive (Ibid: 181). Similarly, Suzuki focuses on processes in which newcomer Filipina immigrants in Japan attempt to distance themselves from the entertainer image by encouraging their peers to “preserve the moral values of the home” (2000: 432). This recurring “ideology of domesticity” –the persistence of the idea that women’s work in the labor market must reinforce notions of women’s domesticity, subservience, and maternity – “limits women’s choices in a sex-segmented labor market, trouble[s] them with a wage gap, and burden[s] them with a double day” (Parreñas 2008: 9). Beyond the economic level, images that overemphasize and naturalize certain traits of Filipina women keep the identities of Filipinas as people in all their contradictions and complexities –not just as mothers, or devout Christians, or entertainers –out of the spotlight. The next section discusses how Filipinas negotiate these images and perceptions.
Resistance and Agency Studying modes of resistance and negotiation among marginalized groups focuses on the way in which individuals in these groups are agents in changing their circumstances or acting in complicity with the status quo. By highlighting the agency of individuals in these positions scholars are able to acknowledge subjectivities in the field of power that have previously been muted or ignored. Resistance manifests in its overt forms as protest and public activism and in its more covert forms as less confrontational forms as “daily…minor defiances” (Abu- Lughod 1990: 43). Instead of seeing resistance as a way to counteract power, contemporary scholars dealing with marginalized groups theorize resistance as action that is “never in a position of exteriority in relation to power” (Foucault as quoted in Constable 2007: 13). By framing resistance in this light, scholars are able to situate agents of resistance “within the field of power, not as equal players but as participants” (Constable 2007:13). This positioning, in turn, highlights the agency of
13 actors that have previously been fixed as lacking relevance due to their ‘inherent’ outsider positions. Previous works on Filipina migrants have emphasized the agency of migrants by highlighting covert and overt acts of resistance that migrants participate in (Constable 2007; Constable 1999; Faier 2007; Faier 2008; Suzuki 2003; Gibson, Law and McKay 2001; Parreñas 2008; Parreñas and Liu 2007). For example, in her research on rural Filipina brides of Japanese men Faier concludes that professions of love enable women to claim “globally translatable senses of modern personhood” in a way that contests conceptions of these women as third world, and interested only in money (2007: 157). Thus by claiming romantic love for their husbands, Filipina brides are able to resist perceptions of their marriages as illegitimate. Suzuki also focuses on how rural Filipina brides of Japanese men try to reassert their own “sexual subjectivity and economic autonomy” (2003: 399). In her research she highlights how Filipina brides secure autonomy by, for example, having affairs or insisting upon working outside the home (Ibid: 409-410). Like Suzuki (2003) and Faier (2007), Constable (2007) acknowledges subtle forms of resistance exercised by Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong. Constable also takes as part of her analysis overt forms of resistance such as social activism that domestic workers in Hong Kong participate in (2007). Protests organized by migrant groups in Hong Kong demonstrate migrants’ ability to exert pressure on the institutions that are in charge of protecting their rights. However, Constable warns that despite improvements made by migrant-run organizations, “the overall structural position of domestic workers [in Hong Kong] remains unchanged” because in many instances they are merely “struggling for the right to continue to do menial work in exploitative conditions” (2007: 209). This observation is part of a wider critique on the tendency of resistance studies to romanticize resistance as a sign “of the ineffectiveness of systems of power and of the resilience and creativity of the human spirit in its refusal to be dominated” (Abu-Lughod 1990: 42). On the contrary, resistance often takes place along side actions that symbolize marginalized individuals’ own complicity in their marginalization by, for example, promoting norms of docility and chastity (Constable 2007; Abu-Lughod 1990). The next and final section of this chapter discusses the role of religion in the migration context and the ways in which it encourages and discourages acts of resistance
14 Religious Community Building The role that religion plays among migrants groups has been underexposed in scholarly work (for exceptions see: Mateo 2000; Karagiannis & Glick Schiller 2006; Glick Schiller, Çağlar & Guldbransen 2006). Studies of Filipina migrants document that Christian doctrine encourages women to act as passive subjects, accepting hardship in the face of marginalization as something they have no power to change (Constable 2007: 192). On the other hand, religious institutions also serve as places from which migrants draw strength to face the difficulties their migration presents (Mateo 2000; Parreñas 2008). Not only do churches serve this function on a spiritual level –providing space for migrants to reflect and heal –but on a material and social level church grounds function as marketplaces for a wide variety of goods and services that migrants consume ranging from shoes and purses, to remittance services, to Philippine food items (Parreñas 2008: 6; Mateo 2000). In these institutions, migrants participate in processes of identity and community building that impose norms encouraging individuals to adhere to a ‘Christian lifestyle’. Acceptance or exclusion from the group depends on one’s ability to maintain a respectable lifestyle. One way in which social control is exercised is by “monitor[ing] the behavior and attire” of Filipinas in attendance (Parreñas 2008: 105). Parreñas also notes that Filipina migrants in Italy engage in self-monitoring in which they forbid themselves from participating in illicit behavior at church such as smoking (Ibid.). Moreover, it is in these communties among members of the same ethnic group that many migrants discuss and contemplate perceptions held of them by the host society as well as perceptions they have of other members of their community. Most scholarly work on migrant religious communities is based on the “assumption that in their initial states of settlement migrants organize their churches on the basis of homeland identities” and not necessarily on the basis of religious or spiritual commonalities (Karagiannis & Glick Schiller 2006: 140). The transnational expansion of Born Again, and other Charismatic Christian religious movements paired with a simultaneous growth in migration flows necessitates a questioning of this assumption. Failing to do so runs the risk of overlooking the function of religious beliefs in shaping the experience of migrant settlement and incorporation. In the realm of perceptions, a religious sense of diaspora versus an ethnic or national sense of diaspora certainly has an impact the perceptions and expectations that migrants in a
15 community have of each other. For the purposes of this research, then, the notion of a religious identity among Born Again Christians in Tokyo can help in explaining the different perceptions and expectations they had of each other as compared to Catholics
16 Assertions of Modernity
Filipino perceptions of Japanese society Perceptions Filipinos have of Japanese society are inevitable contrasts to their own lives and experiences in the Philippines and to their lives as Filipinos in Japan. Many of the Filipinos I interviewed articulated their perceptions of Japan terms of levels of modernity in Japan as compared to the Philippines. Though my informants articulated generalized perceptions of Japanese society that were not directly related to modernization or westernization, here I limit myself to these types of perceptions for two reasons. First, the notion of westernization has played an integral role in the respective histories of both the Philippines and Japan as they were both occupied by the American military. The Philippines’ encounter with western occupation goes back even further to Spanish colonization. Second, the claim to being more or less western reveals an interesting politics of identity through which Filipino migrants are able to resist or conform to perceptions of them that are disseminated in mainstream Japanese society. Several scholars have already begun a discussion that explores the consequences for Filipina migrants, positive and negative, of making claims to modernity in their host society (Faier 2007; Constable 2007; Suzuki 2003). I add to this discussion in this chapter by presenting a dichotomous understanding of Japanese society in which, on one hand, Filipinas see Japan as an ‘imagined west’ (Suzuki 2004) and on the other hand, see Japan as west’s antithesis - or at least less western than the Philippines. When speaking of western or modern identities I refer to “conflated notion[s] of ‘America’ and variants such as the ‘West,’ ‘foreign,’ and ‘modern’…[as sources of] “the powerful located on the outside” (Cannell 1999 as quoted in Suzuki 2004: 496). In many cases, respondents themselves directly labeled certain characteristics as modern or primitive. The topics I discuss in relation to Japan’s modernity are superior standards of living and a more lucrative economic atmosphere in Japan. Standard of living and economic security were appraised in moral terms, the Philippines being represented as as lacking these moral elements due to its lack of economic security and the, on average, lower standard of living. On the other hand, in relation to the lack of modernity in Japan I discuss generalized moral
17 decay that some Filipinos see in Japan as a result of non-Christian lifestyles and, ironically, even as a result of economic growth and stability. After this delineation I identify spaces of ambivalence, in which informants express their adherence to multiple and conflicting notions of Japan’s modernity or lack thereof. Thus, at certain moments, individuals perceive Japan as both an ‘imagined west’ (Suzuki 2004: 496) and west’s antithesis. When these binary oppositions are let go space is created, enabling individuals to respect the “exteriority of the other” as one which forces him/her to “question the self’s ‘ability for power’, i.e. the very notion that something called ‘my power’ can be exercised over a passive ‘thing’” (Edgar & Sedgwick 2002: 138). In other words, notions of the west and modernity end up speaking more about the people applying them than the people they are applied to. Instead of acknowledging the Other’s exteriority these categories define the Other through the self. When exteriority is acknowledged and ambivalence is expressed the self admits –at least partially –that binary oppositions fail to encompass another’s humanity. Agency is afforded the Other to exist in the eyes of the self as it sees fit. Ultimately, the categorization of oneself as more or less western/modern than an Other participates two-fold in an exercise that limits agency. First, identification to a western standard can easily be construed in the light of a legacy of orientalism that “constructs the identities of cultural subjects through a relationship of power in which the Other is the subjugated element.” (Edgar & Sedgwick 1999: 266). Second, adherence to such a standard of western/modern supremacy prevents individuals from seeing each other ethically in the way Levinas describes. The ethical relation is founded on the ability of the self to welcome the other and by welcoming it, to be challenged by the alterity of the other. By applying a western standard to the Other, one immediately denies that alterity under the pretense that the “Other can be reduced to the same” (Edgar & Sedgwick 2002: 137). Ironically, in the case of Filipina migrants living in Japan, this standard of modernity is not even emic to the Philippines itself but is the legacy of western colonialism and a separate, but related, narrative of the denial of the Other.
Japan as the Asian West: “the Philippines of Tomorrow” The perception of Japan as superior to the Philippines due to the fact that it is more western or more modern has important implications for the ways in which
18 Filipinos see themselves in their host society. It also has a significant effect on the ways in which Filipinos claim –or fail to claim –agency in the face of marginalization. In this section I delineate two aspects in which Japan is seen as more modern or, to quote one of my informants, in which Japan is seen as “the Philippines of tomorrow.” These are, Japan’s superior economy and standard of living. Financial reasons being one of the primary motivators for Filipinos to leave their country in such great numbers, the economic opportunity many see in their destination country—in this case Japan—cannot be ignored. In the 1960s, the successes of Japanese and Philippine economy were relatively equal. In the next decade, the Marcos government implemented a labor exportation economy that the country became dependent upon in the economically challenging decade of the 1980s. (Barber 2000: 400). At this same time, women were finding work outside the country in increasing numbers. In this context, many women began migrating to Japan as entertainers in the 1980s to support their families back home. When asked what they liked about Japan a few women directly addressed this notion of economic opportunity. Joan, a former entertainer who comes from a lower class background in the Philippines and is now a factory worker, explains that Japan’s economic prosperity is “why I chose Japan. Big money. And Philippines is poor.” In another interview, Neri, a highly educated Filipina with a middle class background in the Philippines succinctly framed her perception of economic opportunity in Japan in terms of the American dream. “You can have everything you want [in Japan],” she says, “as long as you work for it”. Related to this notion of the American dream is also the search for a middle-class lifestyle. Several of my informants spoke about Japan as a classless society in the sense that people from all class backgrounds intermingle and are able to speak to each other as equals. These responses speak to what Suzuki calls “the power of imagining…[and the fact that] the conflated notion of “America” and variants such as the “West,” “foreign,” and “modern” are perhaps most popular in Filipinos’ everyday lives” (Suzuki 2004: 496). This surely seems to be the case with regard to the perceptions of economic opportunity and standard of living that Japan provides for many of its inhabitants. Moreover, the perception of Japan as a “land flowing with bounty” –as Father Resty put it –cuts across class background in the Philippines and in Japan. Across a board of varied educational and socio-economic backgrounds, Filipinos largely agreed that Japan is a land of plenty.
19 Related to Japan’s economic stability, many Filipinos expressed the idea that Japanese people adhered to more modern or developed conventions of stoicism and civility. This was, many contended, because Japanese people are unfamiliar with economic hardship. For example, in a focus group with four Filipina English teachers, some of the women concluded that all Japanese people are honest because they can afford to be honest
Naomi: And you can leave [forget] your cell phone anywhere [in Japan]. Amy: Not with the Chinese around [Naomi laughs]. Anna: Chinese people steal cell phones? Amy: SHHHH!!! [afraid people would hear me] Naomi: I left my cell phone. And it’s back. And also my friend, he left his iPad on the train and three days later he got it back. Malou: Me too, [I left] my cell phone. In a taxi. Amy: Maybe there was no Chinese, or Korean [Malou laughs]. Malou: In a taxi I left my phone and then they called our home. Maybe they had seen the house number. Anna: That’s impressive Amy: Actually, I’m not talking bad about Chinese or other Asian people but—when they leave something and there are other Asian people don't expect that they will return it to you or it will come back to you. Anna: Really? Why? Amy: Because they steal Anna: Do you know why? Amy: Because they can’t afford it, unlike [the] Japanese. They are very honest.
Thus, compared to other Asians, Japanese people are in general seen as more honest. Towards the end of the excerpt Amy implies that Chinese, Koreans, and other Asians steal phones because they are poor, but the Japanese are too honest to engage in such activities. There is also the implication that Japanese are honest because they can afford material goods. In a sense then, poverty has some equivalency with dishonesty. However, Amy also claims that “99% [of] Filipinos in Japan don’t steal…but in the Philippines they do.” Thus, Filipinos are promoted as model immigrants, while Asians from other countries such as China or Korea are portrayed as sources of petty crime. By voicing this opinion Amy also incorporates a well
20 known discourse in Japan regarding the immorality of Chinese and Korean immigrants (Shipper 2005: 304). In addition to placing Filipinos in Japan at the top of the hierarchy of migrant groups, Amy also places distance between the Filipino diaspora in Japan and Filipinos in the Philippines who –because they are living in poverty –steal. Blanket statements like these mask the diversity of situations and people that identify as Filipino, Japanese, or with a migrant diaspora. Living in a country with such morally transcendent people perhaps affords Amy and others who express similar ideas the opportunity to be seen as morally superior by association, especially when it is contended that Filipino migrants in Japan are both more honest than their Filipino counterparts in the Philippines and the other Asian migrant communities living in Japan. In addition to being seen as honest in the sense that they never steal, the English teachers in the focus group also painted a picture of Japanese people as more dignified –this dignity, again, being the result of better infrastructure and a stronger economy. The notion of a superior level of dignity came up in the interview seemingly randomly when I asked the women about their marriages. They began to discuss the March 2011 earthquake and their husbands’ reactions to it compared to as theirs.
Naomi: And the sense of dignity right? The sense of dignity. After the big earthquake, of course we [Filipinos] always think of ourselves: “What are we going to eat?!” Malou: Panic buying, we have that panic buying. Yeah, I learned a lot from my husband last time [after the earthquake] because in my place [neighborhood] there's no more supermarket that sells, right. Everyday there are limited stocks of rice so I wanted to buy [them] all. But my husband says, “No, it’s not only you who are eating. There are others out there too. Don’t do that.” And I'm like, “No! No!”— Dhy: We are like that in the Philippines. Malou: Yeah! But I was thinking, “It’s not only myself, I have a kid”, right? Person 1: And they are very calm, especially during the earthquake. In Philippines when you open the convenience store everyone rushes in. Anna: Why do you think it is different? Person 1: Actually in the Philippines it is like, we are very panicky. Person 2: Maybe because they know that the buildings here are earthquake proof Amy: Yeah, unlike in the Philippines.
21 Person 1: Actually, here they are all trained [to know] what to do in case there is an emergency. In the Philippines we don't know how to evacuate. Malou: Lack of information [in the Philippines]. Here everything— Naomi: Is set.
The main argument in this passage is that the dignity of the Japanese reaction to the earthquake, compared to the panic in the Filipino reaction has a direct connection with the fact that, one, there is more information in Japan than in the Philippines about what to do during a natural disaster and, two, the Japanese have been able to afford to build infrastructure that insures some level of safety in the event of an earthquake. Malou and Naomi make it clear that the Japanese reaction to the earthquake was indicative of a higher level of humanity that Japanese have attained. Moreover, the ‘panicky nature’ of Filipinos during natural disasters is reminiscent of one of the defining characteristics of diffusionism in which the periphery is rationally or psychologically empty (Blaut 1987: 32). For the women from the focus group, the benefit is that they could adopt this missing rational component from their husbands. The Filipinas in the two previous examples categorize Japanese behaviors as linked to their modern and developed circumstances and thus superior to possible and actual Filipino reactions in the same contexts. However, for the women speaking, there is a possibility to claim these modern identities of being dignified and morally upright: by living with and among Japanese people. However, for other Filipinos and other Asians –for example working class Filipino, Korean or Chinese immigrants –the ability to claim these modern identities is denied by the women. They are de facto, less modern. The women from the focus group are claiming agency, but in doing so they apply discriminatory categories that dispossess others of the same right. Though I have highlighted above how the women I interviewed view modernity in a positive light, it is not always viewed in this way. Despite the advantages of having more financial security, good infrastructure, and what they perceived to be a heightened sense of morality, there were also disadvantages that my informants mentioned. This duality in perceptions hints at the importance of ambivalence as a space in which an ethical relation can be initiated. In other instances recognizing disadvantages serve as ways in which Filipinas identify the positive qualities they bring to the society they find themselves living in. In other words, they
22 are able to identify concrete ways in which they act as agents of change—in many cases positive change—in their host society. A less positive aspect of Japanese modernity that many of the married Filipinas I interviewed stressed was a sober and somber home life and how family members often focus too much on financial issues. Maki and Carla are two such women who describe the typical Japanese husband as one that comes home late and “the only thing they say when they come in the house is meshi –food –they need food, ofuro –the bath. After eating they go to take a bath and then neru –sleep. That’s the only conversation they have.” As Filipina wives and mothers, however, Maki and Carla bring a different –and in their opinion much needed –element to the household. “Maki jokes around with them,” Carla says, “I think that’s very very important in the family. Because it’s not like Japanese joke on their own…We are noisy because we are happy and we talk very loud and happy and everything. They don't like it. But I think they really appreciate it sometimes.” In this way, Maki and Carla are able to point out the ways in which they make positive contributions to family life and, to generalize a bit, to Japanese society as a whole. At the same time that recognizing the disadvantages of living in a developed country allows women to claim agency, framing Japan as the “Philippines of Tomorrow” takes agency away from Filipinos. If one sees oneself as living in a country of ‘the future’ –living a more ‘civilized’ life –then there may be a feeling of accomplishment that comes with that. However, if one finds oneself –a product of an underdeveloped country, a country of the past –living in ‘the future’, there may be insurmountable obstacles to claiming a coeval identity for the individual in question. This is because the process of othering becomes not just one of distinguishing between civilized and uncivilized characteristics, but one that places you perpetually in the past. Amy, for example, describes her childhood as “primitive living”. This mentality also adheres to the main argument of diffusionism which holds that the “permanent center is always more advanced than the other parts of the region (or of the world) as it is always emitting innovations that are adopted only later elsewhere” (Blaut 1987: 31). In other words, the Philippines will always be in the yesterday and Japan will always be the Philippines of tomorrow. On the other hand, women are also able to identify problematic aspects of modernity or ‘the modern lifestyle’ that they can improve and in this way they can assert themselves as equals in a modern world. I have already hinted at the problematic aspects that women identify in this section. In
23 the next section I elaborate on these further by examining statements from Filipinos in which they assert Japan’s lack of modernity.
Japan as an antithesis to the West Due to Philippines colonization and the resulting western influences that have permeated throughout Philippines culture, many Filipinas I met in Japan made the claim that Japan was non-western, or at least not as western as the Philippines. Most often these claims were made on the basis of English being the non-official second language of the Philippines as well as that Filipinos had inherited Christianity and, as a result, a more righteous moral code. In this section I discuss general moral decay that is seen by Filipinos as indicative of Japan’s antithetical relationship with the west. The claim to being more western or modern is, I argue, a manner in which Filipinas are able to appraise the ‘value’ they bring to Japanese society. In other words, the fact that they can draw on their western religion and its morals as a symbol of their modernity is seen as an attempt to even the playing field –a field in which Filipinos have historically been seen as impoverished and ‘third world’. One way in which Filipinas assert equal or even superior levels of modernity is by focusing on social ills that many attribute to the lack of a Christian value system. Here I focus on the ways in which Filipinos perceive Japanese attitudes toward family as well as the ways in which Filipinas understand the role they play in changing these attitudes. Western and modern men, they conclude, are better marriage partners. Since many of the women I spoke to are married to Japanese men, their perceptions of family life featured heavily. As I touched upon already, Filipinas often find that the ‘typical’ Japanese attitude towards family is problematic. The Filipinas I talked to describe this attitude as indifferent. Many women had faced difficulties in the beginning of their marriage because their husbands were working non-stop. This was, they explain, partly due to the bubble economy in the 1980s. Helen explains what she perceives to be the Filipino orientation towards family and compares it to the Japanese orientation.
I’d rather it to be in a Filipino way, like with values. Because we have this sort of saying like, “It’s okay, [if] we are not rich. We can even have salt with rice and be at peace with each other than having much work and having much more money but we don't have time for our family.” And we [prefer that to] end[ing] up like, you know
24 getting drunk when we are tired. Eat out and stay late out. And stay home and feel lonely and watch TV because we don't have a family! And you know, what matters is—in short it’s like we cannot serve two masters. “Why you work hard?” “Because I want more money” “And if you have more money what are you going to do? You have no time! You have no time because you are all for the money.” And if it’s balanced: time to work, time to rest, and time with the family, it’s healthy! And you have the relationship. And [workaholic Japanese] don't have it.
According to Helen then, Filipinos will sacrifice material luxury to be able to spend time with their family. Moreover, she seems to imply that the Japanese attitude towards work is flawed in that it leads to alcoholism, loneliness, and ‘staying out’. While Helen links a family oriented attitude to something that is inherently Filipino, Mhy discusses the family orientation of Filipinos in terms of a characteristic that is shared –and thus legitimized –or even influenced by the west.
In the Philippines as well as the western [world] you have extended family. So you get used to big family reunions. They don't do that [in Japan]. They don't have reunions here. I am very thankful that we are influenced by the western but I am also thankful that Filipinos have this very flexible [attitude] because we have been colonized by so many countries. [From the] Spaniards we learned the Roman- Catholic religion. We had the freedom when the Americans came. And it’s part of our history. It's a big thing with us.
This passage makes it clear that western influence on Filipino culture is important for Mhy in that several key aspects of Filipino identity were imported from the west. The way Mhy understands the relationship between Filipinos and the western world is reflective of the classical diffusionist notion that “some places are permanent, natural centers of creativity and invention” while other places, such as the Philippines or Japan merely imitate and adopt the inventions of these natural centers (Blaut 1987: 30). Though Japan has succeeded in developing a formidable economy and state apparatus, the “Japanese continue to inhabit an “amphibious” space of not-West, but North where the majority Japanese are often symbolically not quite “modern” in the global hierarchy”, (Suzuki 2004: 497). Thus, on a deeper level the Japanese have not adopted western ideals to the extent that Filipinos have. On the one hand, the lack of western ideals in Japan creates difficulties for Filipinos like Mhy who are used to the
25 ‘western’ and Filipino way of things. On the other hand the more western origin of Mhy as a Filipino affords her cultural capital in an environment where Filipinos have been classically characterized as backwards (Tyner 1996; Anderson 1999). For many of the happily married women, their husbands are exceptions to the typical Japanese man. To prove the men’s exception women often cite international business experience, fluency in languages such as English or German, and western descent as proof of their husband’s modernity. Aaliyah, a Born Again Japanese- Filipina woman describes her father as the cosmopolitan Japanese man
My dad’s really a gentleman. Even my mom [who is divorced from him] would say that. He's really different. Because he's lived all over the world. He speaks German. So he's actually—my mom said he's more Filipino than Japanese. I see that whenever we go out. Because most Japanese dads, they don't really hold their daughters outside, like in public…[but] my dad does that. So I'm like, “Oh yeah. He's really different.” Which is a good thing.
From this passage it becomes clear that Aaliyah associates being gentlemanly and loving towards children as uncharacteristic of typical Japanese fathers. In fact, the reason why Aaliyah’s dad is different is because he is a modern world traveller who speaks German (and English) and has lived in other countries. Moreover, this sense of cosmopolitanism is something that Aaliyah and her mother link to notions of ‘Filipinoness’. Ultimately then, they associate Filipinos as being more western and modern while Japan and Japanese people are seen as more traditional and insular. Another characteristic of Japanese husbands that are exceptional is the way they understand Filipino attitudes towards abortion. In the focus group, Naomi proudly explains that her “husband always says to other Japanese that Filipinas, because we are very religious, don't allow abortion or suicide.” The typical Japanese attitude towards abortion, as other women describe, is that if the pregnancy is an accident, abortion is the solution. The fact that Naomi’s husband shares this with other Japanese people proves his enlightenment on the issue, no doubt a result of him converting to Born Again Christianity. Other women add anecdotes about how they persuaded Japanese colleagues not to get an abortion and showed them that their pregnancies were “actually a blessing.” Ultimately the women from the focus group conclude that conversations between Filipinas and other Japanese actors about
26 abortion are “a good influence”. This is another way in which women are able to see themselves as agents of change in their host country. They are adding a moral component to a society that is often focused too much on financial matters.
Degrees of Difference: Catholic v. Born Again Partially due to class and religious differences, Catholics and Born Again informants had different foci in their perceptions of Japanese society. While Catholics more often framed their perceptions of Japan on moral terms, Born Again Christians focused more on Japan’s economic stability and standard of living for its inhabitants. When Born Again Christians did voice concern about negative aspects of Japanese society it was almost always in terms of how difficult it was to evangelize Japanese people. For example, Avic expressed disappointment with the dearth of Japanese and linked this to general material wealth in Japan. Ultimately “they just don’t care” about the gospel, she says. “Because they don’t need anything. Most Japanese have money. Most Japanese are happy. Most Japanese are nice people. So it’s as if they don’t need anything.” This is even true among Japanese Born Agains who, as Pastor Glen informed me, are often insufficiently evangelistic in that they are reluctant to leave the country to go on missions. Thus, the focus here seems to be on their identification or lack of identification to a Christian religion rather than on actual moral or immoral behavior. Catholics, on the other hand, often cited specific aspects of Japanese society that they considered immoral –the Japanese attitude towards abortion that was mentioned above is a good example of this. Other social ills that Catholics in particular focused on in Japan were the nightlife industry, and crime and sexual violence associated with it. In one focus group I conducted with Catholic women, for example, the participants –aided by Sister Edita –explained the widespread and frequent occurrence of rape that happens, not just to Filipinas but to other foreigners as well. Sister Edita explained the prevalence of rape in Japan in terms of the yakuza controlled nightlife industry and the lack of a moral system. “If you measure wealth in economic terms,” she says, “then Japan is a very rich country. But I measure wealth on moral terms.” On moral terms, she concludes, Japan is “poor”. Of the Philippines and its moral system, she says that the Spanish brought them “morality and religion” and before that they were animists. Thus Philippine morality is a legacy of western
27 influence. The Japanese, according to her, having no such influence are lacking a Christian, and thus western, moral system.
Ambivalence Classifying levels of modernity in Japan as compared to the Philippines is not as straightforward as I have presented it so far. In this section I explore the grey areas in which individuals have conflicting perceptions about Japan’s modernity or lack there of. Along similar lines of Pratt, I contend that this ambivalence is a state to be valued because it “unfixes the identity of the one who enunciates the stereotype and allows us to explore the complexities of the process of stereotyping” (1997: 167). I add to this by arguing that this uncertainty solicits the beginnings of an ethical relation in that it “allow[s the] self to be challenged by the Other” (Edgar & Sedgwick 2002: 137). Applying a western standard is an attempt to dominate the Other instead of acknowledging his/her perpetual exteriority. However, what those who are dominating fail to realize is that ‘my subjectivity’ can only exist because of the alterity inherent in the Other’s existence. Aaliyah and Eleanor’s comments about Japanese family values are one example of this. By insinuating that Japanese father’s have less love for their children or that Japanese men are lonely alcoholics because they fail to prioritize family life, Aaliyah and Eleanor assert a level of superiority and control over ‘typical’ Japanese men. Instead of acknowledging alternate ways in which Japanese men exhibit affection and dedication to their families, the women emphasize Japanese men’s failure to value family and link this to their failure to adopt western values. In making these claims, Aaliyah and Eleanor deny the exteriority of the Other –in this case Japanese men –and in doing so their own subjectivities are diminished. If, as Levinas suggests, one can only find oneself as a reflection of the Other, denying the validity of that Other’s (exterior) existence is an act of violence against the self. This is especially true in the case of Filipinas who apply a standard that has been by Spanish and American colonizers to subjugate Filipinos. When the Other’s existence is granted validity and exteriority is acknowledged it is often in moments of ambivalence. Olive, a Catholic Filipina, expresses ambivalence about other religions. On the one hand she feels that Catholicism is the right religion for her and other religions
28 such as Born Again Christianity are “brainwashing” their adherents. She catches herself after using the word brainwashing, quickly laughs it off and corrects herself by employing the more neutral word, “teaching”. Though Olive has these perceptions about Born Again Christianity she is also open to people of other religions, both western and non-western.
Olive: Ah, it’s like a Japanese. Some of the Japanese don't have religion. Deb: Because they don't raise as [religious]. Anna: Yeah, upbringing. It influences a lot. Olive: But for me it’s natural to communicate with other religions also. My husband is a…Buddhism. Hahaha. Anna: What do you think of Buddhism? Olive: Uhh…it’s more on same direction, but different teaching. Hahaha. That's the way—the way they learn how to be with God is just only different, maybe. So at my age now I know how to handle—and I know what I'm believing. I think any Catholic, any religion, it’s only one God. The earth is round, it’s not a straight. So if you talk here one word, but its round and everybody is saying a different explanation. Anna: Ah, so everybody is trying to get to the same…truth Olive: I think. It's the same center. It's the same God. But different explanations.
In this passage Olive removes herself from discussing her perceptions in terms of western standards. Though she ultimately believes that Catholicism is the best religion for her family, she acknowledges that it is not the only right way. Though at first glance her comments about everything being one God can be interpreted as reducing religious experiences to a monotheistic standard, in her own way she is also acknowledging the primacy of the metaphysical desire that Levinas contends all people share. In this way, she does allow herself to be challenged by the Other. She does this by expressing understanding towards religions with “different explanations”. Olive also indicates that this is an understanding she has learned and developed throughout her life. “At my age now,” she says, “I know how to handle”. She knows how to balance her own belief system with the belief systems of others. Thus, the development of an ethical gaze toward the Other is also something that may be dependent on age, maturity, and life cycle phase, a point that Father Resty makes. Once women reach mid-life their children are adults and they have more time to reflect and live what he calls the “interior life” –a time in which they want to learn
29 more about their faith and improve themselves. This time of reflection perhaps also helps women develop their ethical orientation towards the Other. Perhaps living this “interior life” makes one realize the prime importance of the Other. Illich sums up Levinas in the following way: “Central to what I find in the face of the other is my subjectivity: ‘I’ cannot be except as a gift in and from the face of the other” (1998: 17). This is one realization that can be reached when one embraces ambivalence. In another example of ambivalence, Anabel removes herself from a western/non-western binary by claiming that Japan has modernized from within while her friend and colleague Neri argues that Japan has modernized due to foreign influence.
Neri:. Before the housewives [were] only saying, “Yes, Okay yes. I’ll stay at home” But now… probably it [changed] because of the foreigners. When they opened the country for foreigners. Probably, 10 years ago. I cannot say exactly but when they opened their country to the foreigners, and you [started to] find some English [written in train stations]— Anabel: Well maybe, even if there is no English they will change. There is always a change. Neri: And lots of Japanese also got married to foreigners. That is the beginning. So there are lots of foreigner housewives. Anabel: Maybe it’s not because foreigners are coming to Japan and they changed their [Japanese] culture. I think it changed itself. The country itself changed itself. Anna: So you don't think its necessarily from outside— Anabel: No, they changed themselves
By asserting that Japanese have the ability to change themselves, Anabel acknowledges the ability of Japanese individuals –in this case Japanese women –to improve their circumstances and act as agents of change in the social realities they find themselves in. This is another example of how women move away from the western/non-western dichotomy and express ambivalence. In doing this the women create space in which one can recognize the exteriority of the Other as one who is different but equally deserving of respect.
30 Conclusion Understandings of Japanese modernity discussed in this chapter have important implications for the way migrants perceive each other and negotiate these perceptions. For example, notions of superior levels of humanity and dignity that were discussed here are also echoed in terms of class in the perceptions Filipinos have of each other. Filipinas’ perceptions of Japanese modernity are contradictory. On one hand many Filipinas I spoke to contend that Japan is more modern on an infrastructural and economic level and associate this modernity with a superior level of humanity. On the other hand, some informants highlighted Japan’s lack of Christian moral system as indicative of Japan’s lack of modernity. Previous literature has highlighted how the claims made by Filipinas to modernity help them achieve a coeval status with their Japanese contemporaries (Faier 2007; Suzuki 2004). In some cases, Filipinas’ historical connection with western colonialism has proved to even give them a self-perceived edge of superiority over Japanese individuals (Suzuki 2004: 498). Though, in the eyes of the women speaking, this brings status to Filipinas as a marginalized group in Japanese society, there are negative consequences that adhering to a modern or western standard results in. Other scholars in the field have yet to touch upon these negative consequences. Using Levinas’ theory of the ethical relation, I contend that employing an arbitrary standard to measure worth has negative consequences for all parties involved. If one participates in a categorization that disgraces the face of the other, one’s own sense of self is marred at the same time. Eleanor and Aaliyah’s comments regarding Japanese men for example, legitimate the same type of discriminatory attitude that informs images of Filipinas in Japan as licentious women or cheap labor. Though claiming modern identities superior to those of Japanese may seem like it is evening the playing field, they also lower it in a way that deprives all individuals of the dignity they deserve. Levinas argues that one’s own subjectivity can only be found in the face to face encounter –when the self is open to being challenged by the exteriority of the Other. He proves this by implicating the metaphysical desire to find something greater than the self, through, for example, religion art, or science. The ability to define oneself then, is quite limited. It is the Other who defines the self and, more specifically, the relation with the Other that defines oneself. An ethical relation
31 is thus instrumental in developing a self that does not suffer from marginalization by the Other. However, to conclude that individuals should always strive towards an ethical relation would be idealistic and impractical. Moreover, assertions of modernity on the part of marginalized Filipinas in Japan has indeed created more equality in, for example, marriages (Faier 2007; Faier 2008; Suzuki 2003; Suzuki 2004). This should not be overlooked or written off as meaningless. Though an ethical relation is a worthy goal, my use of it here is only to examine the inequalities intrinsic to notions of modernity and how these affect Filipinas as migrants and with a history of marginalization. The next chapter looks at perceptions of Filipinas held by Japanese actors. Perceptions emanating from the host society are key to understanding the development of perceptions migrants have of their host society and of fellow migrants. By examining these perceptions I provide contextual knowledge for understanding both how Filipinos perceive Japanese society as well as how they perceive each other in the migration context.
32 Beyond the Entertainer
Japanese perceptions of Filipinas In this chapter I explore common perceptions of Filipinos in Japanese society. First I discuss the immigration policy in Japan and how it plays a key role in legitimizing negative perceptions and treatment of Filipinos in Japanese society. Following the discussion on immigration I present three different images or characters ascribed Filipina migrants in Japanese society. The first image is that of the Filipina entertainer. Though migration for the purposes of entertainment has, for the most part, come to an end it still has a lasting impact on the way Filipinas are perceived. Industries of care work such as entertainment place Filipina women in subservient and marginalized positions (Parreñas 2008: 37). Currently in Japan there is a push to attract Filipinas as care workers in nursing homes. As Lopez notes, this trend reflects the “wider ramifications of a discourse that recommodifies women perceived to have been entertainers, now shedding one image for another” (2012: 263). Thus, the entertainment image that fixes Filipina identities as ones that are based on affective labor and subservience reinforces the new images that are now being attached to Filipinas. This is as true for the entertainer as it is for the other two images I discuss in this chapter: the religious Filipina and dedicated homemaker and the hard worker. Japanese perceptions of Filipinas have a bidirectional influence on both how Filipinas perceive Japan and how Filipinas perceive each other in the migration context. Common perceptions of Filipinos in Japan that are shared by many Japanese actors tend to reduce them to static and fixed characters that not only mask diversity but also attenuate agency. To explore these perceptions I use secondary literature as well as interviews with Japanese Born Again Christians. In addition, I supplement this with interviews from Filipinos themselves regarding treatment they have received, perhaps as a result of these perceptions. The three Japanese women that I interviewed were not at all ‘typically’ Japanese in that they are all Born Again Christians. Nevertheless, as Japanese people they are familiar with mainstream perceptions of Filipinas. Moreover, since they are Christians and have more contact with Filipinas than the average Japanese person would, they also offer a unique perspective. The Japanese women who’s voices are highlighted in this section are: Sayo, 24 years old, Megumi, 37 years old, and Naoko 44 years old. All three women have
33 graduate degrees, Naoko and Megumi from western universities, and are working in professional fields. Naoko is married to a Japanese man who is also a Christian and the other two women are single. All three women come from upper-middle class backgrounds.
Japanese Immigration System Immigration became an issue in Japan in the late 1980s, when Japan’s burgeoning economy necessitated employing foreign workers. Since then, Japan has become known as one of the most stringent democratic immigration countries in the world. This is due to, among other factors, the prohibition of unskilled immigrant labor, a policy that denies political rights to long-term foreign residents, and the near impossibility of attaining citizenship as a foreigner, even with Japanese descent (Sharpe 2010: 365). In addition to the stringent policies that are directed at all migrants coming to Japan, Filipinos seem to be targeted in particular by additional bureaucratic red tape. Aaliyah, one of my Born Again Christian informants, has lived in Japan for ten years on a descendent visa. Her father is Japanese and her mother –a Filipina –is also of Japanese descent. Until last year, when Aaliyah went to renew her visa she was obligated to submit additional documents that were only required of Philippines and Mexico nationals.
Actually, last year when I renewed my visa they didn't ask me—they used to just ask immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines—to turn in a…police clearance from your country. They used to ask for that every year. And I'm like, “How can I commit a crime there if I'm here? I never went back home.”. But they were like, “No you have to give it to us or else we wont grant your visa extension.” So yeah, last year they didn't ask for that. So it’s good you know? Some things are changing.
The attitude that informs requiring and singling out Filipinos to submit criminal records from their home countries automatically questions levels of criminality present in the Philippines, as compared to immigrants of different nationalities who are not required to submit criminal clearance checks annually. There was also a period in 2007 in which Aaliyah and her mother would be stopped by immigration police on a regular basis because they looked like a gaijin, or foreigner.
34 Aaliyah: There would be times I would be stopped by immigration people and they would say out loud, “Can you show me your gaikokujin12 card? Your gaikokujin card!” And I would be like, “Fine Okay! I'm an outsider I get it! Gaikokujin, haha.” There was a time—I was in college I don't know what year. I think I was in my first year. So that must have been 2007. There was this time when Japan was just so strict with the immigration. I don't know, they had immigration trouble13. They were catching a lot of undocumented people. So they were like—they deployed a lot of immigration officers in civilian clothes. Randomly stopping people. If you are gaikokujin looking they would stop and ask for your card. Or if you have a bicycle and you’re a gaijin, they will ask for the registration because you might have stolen that bike. Haha. Yeah. My mom got stopped—we were crossing off the amount of times. So I was like, “Mom you are winning. You are winning.” Anna: How many times did she get stopped? Aaliyah: She got like 5 times [in] 2006. And [in] 2007 I think she got like 14 [stops] just in our area. And she would just laugh it off. But, you know…
Gaikokujin looking, in the sense that Aaliyah discusses, has a limited application to people who are not just foreign looking, but foreign looking in the way that they may be from countries of the global South. Father Resty also discusses cases of ‘gaikokujin looking’ people being stopped by immigration officers. Due to the frequency of cases he hears in which Filipinos are stopped on the street, Father Resty always brings his visa with him, though lately, he admits random stops have become less common. He also stressed the fact that immigration officers can ask you to show your identification at any moment and if you don’t have it, you will be detained. When I contrast this with my own perception of the likelihood of being asked to show my ID, there is an important difference. As a white American I felt no danger of being asked to show my papers. I never carried my passport with me. There was one instance when I was dropping someone off at the Narita airport and was required to show my ID before exiting the train station and entering the airport terminal. When I explained to the attendant that I was not flying and had forgotten my ID he looked a
12 This term is interchangeable with gaijin, both meaning foreigner. Gaikokujin is slightly more formal. 13 The intense period in which Aaliyah describes immigration officers descending on ‘foreign looking’ residents in Japan came a few years after the United States released a Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) that described Japan as a country in which the “government…does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” (2004: 96). Following this report the Japanese government took a number of steps to combat trafficking (Yokoyama 2010: 31).
35 upset, and frustrated but after contemplating the situation for less than a minute he let me through, no questions asked. Though this example may seem anecdotal I think it speaks to the racialization that occurs in the Japanese immigration system in which ethnic and non-Japanese looking people are perceived to be undocumented and involved in crime or trafficking, while white people of European descent are given the benefit of the doubt. Though several informants including Father Resty and Aaliyah acknowledged that Japanese attitudes toward immigration are changing, the institutional discrimination in the treatment of Aaliyah and her mother legitimizes harmful and inaccurate perceptions of Filipinas in Japan.
Images of Filipinas in Japanese society Just as the Japanese immigration system has changed to be more inclusive of migrants, images of Filipinas that circulate in Japan have also changed since the entertainment heyday of the 1980s. When Filipinas began migrating to Japan for the purposes of working in the entertainment industry, different Japanese actors held varying perceptions of Filipinas. Some NGOs working to stop the migration of Filipina entertainers characterized them as helpless victims, while private recruiters focused on the entertainer as a hero of the family (Tyner 1996: 89). The media on the other hand, has often sensationalized Filipina entertainers as prostitutes and, more generally, as outsiders and aliens (Ibid.). Over time, as Filipinas began to settle in Japan –marrying Japanese men and finding work in increasingly sectors –the entertainer image was joined by an image held by Japanese inlaws of Filipina wives as interested only in money and as threats to Japanese family values (Suzuki 2003; Suzuki 2000). There was also the perception that Filipina wives as mail-order brides who –without having any choice in the matter – were “acquired for the biological, social, and economic reproduction of their husbands’ households and local communities in rural Japan” (Suzuki 2004: 483). More recently Filipinas have been seen employed in other jobs of affective labor as English teachers, domestic workers, and care workers in nursing homes. Though in some sense this represents a new status quo for the characterization of Filipina migrants in Japan, Lopez points out, “discursive categories [regarding Filipina migrants] have redefined how entertainers can become carers -a shift in form but not in substance” (2012: 265). Thus, Filipina care workers are still often pinned as the prostitute, the impoverished hero, and the migrant other. These mainstream depictions overlook the flow of highly skilled and
36 professionalized Filipino migrants into the country. In this section I discuss three discursive images of Filipinas that I encountered during fieldwork: the entertainer, the pious homemaker, and the hard worker.
The Entertainer As the youngest of the three Japanese women I interviewed, Sayo never mentioned the entertainment image. Megumi and Naoko, however did touch upon this image and the implications that it had for general perceptions of Filipinos. This age difference suggests that the legacy of the Filipina entertainer is perhaps being replaced by different legacies and different images. I discuss two more recent images in the following sections. However, before I move on, the entertainer image does deserve some attention. Advertisements soliciting Filipinas to work as entertainers are still posted outside of clubs and the entertainment industry in Japan is still a highly visible social reality. The following two images in Figure 2 were taken in Asakusa outside of a club that employs only Filipina entertainers. Megumi and Naoko both describe general perceptions of Filipinas in terms of entertainment. They also both discuss certain derogatory words that have been used to refer to Filipina entertainers. Naoko explained the term japayuki and its current prevalence in Japan.
It means girls coming to Japan, but has a bit of a derogatory [connotation]. I'm not sure whether it’s all in Japanese or whether it’s some in katakana. ‘Japa’ means Japan. Yuki is heading for, going to. And not as nurse or anything. Nowadays you see people from The Philippines working in the IT industry or nursing. But this word means entertainer, prostitute. But then—I don't hear it anymore, very much. I don't see it in the media. And uh... [But I did hear it before.] Because I remember this word. The image of Filipina.
The usage of the term japayuki to refer to Filipinas has been well-documented in the scholarly community (Mackie 1998; Tyner 1996: 86; Suzuki 2011; Suzuki 2000: 431). A Japanese documentary maker coined the term japayuki and used it to critique the political and economic situations in which entertainment and hostess work occurred (Suzuki 2011: 442). However, in the early 1980s “the depiction of numerous scenes in sex joints throughout Japan, especially at strip theaters where dancers allow[ed]
37 members of the audience to penetrate their bodies, [resulted in the] popularization of the term japayuki as inextricably tied to prostitution” (Ibid.).
Figure 2: (left) Eterna I, Philippine Club reads the sign accompanied by a Philippine Flag. (right) Help wanted sign looking for ‘arubaito’ (part-time) Filipina talents. Photos by Anna Shaw
In recent years, however, Naoko notes a decline in the use of the term japayuki due to the fact that Filipinas are increasingly employed in different sectors. She also cites the lack of media coverage. Mackie notes that because of the sexualized and immoral connotations of japayuki, “women who come to work in the entertainment industry are discussed in terms of morality and policing [whereas] male workers in construction and manufacturing are often discussed in terms of labour policy” (1998: 47). This is one concrete example of how sexualized terms disadvantage the women they are applied to. The labor that women in entertainment are performing is not legitimized through adequate labor policies that protect entertainers from exploitation. One example of this is the failure of anti-trafficking efforts to protect vulnerable female migrants from exploitation (Parreñas 2006: 173). The discussion of female migrants in terms of their moral components and value systems is something that also occurs when locating Filipinas as pious homemakers.
The Pious Homemaker Filipinas members of the religious communities I researched are often regarded as the paradigm of devotion to which other Japanese people refer. Father Resty, a Filipino priest who works closely with Japanese parishioners as well as Filipinos describes the impression of Filipinas among the Japanese Catholics he works with.
38 Um, from a…religious perspective… I deal also with Japanese parishioners and they are always amazed of the Filipino. Of course, first, the Filipino is [seen as] a faithful churchgoer. So [they] expect that every Sunday you will see a Filipino. And, you ask [Filipinos] to do something, without complaint they will do it. And the children: uh…a Filipina will always ensure that she brings along her child [to church] while she can. It means when there's no conflict at school. And for me, for them as well, it’s an important indicator that, “Oh, this mother is really serious. She is bringing up her children according to the faith.” So…and…a Filipino, you don't have to tell her or him. If something needs to be done, she will do it voluntarily without having to be told. So in many churches, many Filipinos assume—take responsibility. Even without being asked to do so. So, all these things.
In this passage Father Resty touches upon four perceptions of Filipinas that relate to their image of the good mother and the devout Catholic. First he describes how Filipinas are seen as forbearing. He goes on to discuss their childrearing skills and their devotion to the religion as mothers and as parishioners themselves. Finally, he touches upon the hardworking nature of Filipinos. These qualities constitute the notion of a pious homemaker: a woman who is obedient, hard working, and oriented towards instilling faith in her children. Related to mothering Japanese children, Naoko emphasizes the positive ways in which Filipina mothers have impacted Japanese society.
[Filipina] moms raising kids in Japan. Kids are precious! Haha, you know. We don't really have many kids so they're really contributing. And also they're married to Japanese men and they're part of Japanese society, really.
Naoko’s enthusiasm about Filipina integration into Japanese society as mothers and wives is reflective of the changing ways in which Filipinas are viewed by Japanese actors. This welcoming of Filipinas on the basis of their (literal) reproductive labor represents a positive change from the morally contemptuous stigma attached to Filipina entertainers. However, on the other hand it also reflects how “the institutional utilitarian notion of wives as female functionaries, making them housewives and mothers, has obviated the Filipina wives’ subjective sexualities” (Suzuki 2003: 404). Moreover, Naoko’s sentiment reflects a body politics in which Filipinas are valued primarily for the reproductive functions they perform: childbirth and childrearing.
39 One aspect missing so far from this discussion is the religious Filipina’s relationship with her husband. Many of the married women I interviewed emphasized the pride and satisfaction their husbands get in having religious wives. On a spiritual level, some husbands felt that their wives provided indirect connections to a god they could never know. Helen’s husband, for example, praises her and her friends for being so devout and feels that they, in a sense, connect him to God, protect him in life, and even perhaps save him from being sent to hell. In addition to the spiritual level, husbands also recognize the social and cultural capital of being associated with someone who adheres to a western religion and has clear moral code. Naomi’s husband’s advertisement of her pro-life stance on abortion described in chapter three is one example of this. In addition to the moral code, Christianity’s status as a western religion also means that children raised in the church will be surrounded in an environment where English is commonly used. This is especially true for the Born Again church, where members are mostly upper-middle class, college educated migrants or Japanese nationals who have spent a significant amount of time living abroad, most often in the United States. Helen contends that this English environment is one of the reasons her husband is so supportive of her daughter going to church. Ultimately, Filipinas as devout Christians and dedicated homemakers are appraised positively among Japanese for these traits. Suzuki discusses in great detail the perception of Filipinas as mail-order brides (2004: 483). That stereotype came up only once in my interviews and it had been articulated by an American man, not a Japanese person. Perhaps this signifies, a shift –at least in urban Tokyo –from the idea of mail order bride to the less stigmatizing notion of Filipinas as excellent mothers. However, the positive appraisal of religious Filipina mothers can also lead to detrimental perceptions of non-religious Filipinos. Sayo, for example perceives non- religious Filipinos to be lacking a “sense of hope” and only motivated to come to Japan for financial reasons. According to her these Filipinos are “chotto kowai [a little scary]” and “they feel [agitated] like ‘I have to make money. I have to raise children. I have to do this. I have to do that’”. Thus there is a sense of desperation that Sayo perceives to play a role in their decisions to migrate. A wider reaching consequence of discourses characterizing Filipinas as devout homemakers is that the praise women receive for these traits reinforces an underlying discourse of subservience in which women are rewarded for being deferential and
40 obedient. The emphasis placed on Filipinas as good mothers reinforces a rhetoric that has been used in various domains to explain Filipinas’ natural suitability to work as, for example, entertainers or nurses in elderly homes (Lopez 2012: 260). This discourse of subservience is one manifestation of what Parreñas terms the “force of domesticity…[the] continued relegation of housework to women or the persistence of the ideology of women’s domesticity, in the labor market, the family, and the migrant community, as well as in migration policies and laws” (2008: 9). The religious Filipina homemaker images deals with the force of domesticity in the context of the family and the church. The next and final image is related to perceptions of Filipinas –as a result of this domesticity –in the labor market.
The Hard Worker Another image of Filipinas that presents as praise but also reinforces an underlying discourse of subservience is that of the hardworking Filipino. When I asked Megumi if she knew of stereotypes attributed to Filipinas other than that of the entertainer she referred to the time she spent in California as a graduate student and the reputation of Filipina nurses there as hard workers. This example speaks to a transnational understanding of Filipinos in terms of the labor they provide and the “unequal division of care labor between the global south and the global north” (Parreñas 2008: 41).
Megumi: One [stereotype] is people evaluate [Filipinas] as a good worker because they are very hospitable. However, if I look at it closely, usually they work as a visiting nurse with a very busy schedule. So it’s more um, labor intense. So in that case, that can be quite negative. They do really work—hard worker, however, because it’s kind of cheap… Anna: So you think they probably work harder than American care workers? Megumi: Maybe! Haha. Maybe they are willing to do works that American doesn't want to do. Such as taking care of older adults…
In this passage Megumi expresses ambivalence about whether being seen as a hard worker is, in fact, a desirable image. She also acknowledges the inequality that accompanies female labor migration, or what Parreñas refers to as the “international division of reproductive labor” (Ibid.).
41 Jennifer, a half-Filipino, half-Japanese woman, has worked as an English teacher in Japan for seven years. She is also aware of the stereotype of Filipinas as hard workers and, like Megumi, expresses ambivalence regarding whether the stereotype is as beneficial as it may seem.
Because for Japanese, most of them even my boss was saying that Filipinos are hard workers. And, I don't know if it’s good or bad the way she said it, “They don't complain. They just do everything. Whatever you tell them.” So I think it’s more of the negative side and because of that, even my boss I feel at sometime she abused a lot of Filipino staff. Because we have four Filipinos in all the other schools we are handling and they are all assistant teachers and there are some that she would terminate and then if she needs them again she would ask them to do some work for her. And then they don't complain, so I guess that's why my boss said.
More than being hard workers, this passage seems to emphasize the perception among Japanese that Filipinos don’t complain when they are treated unfairly by employers. As Megumi said above, there is the perception that they are willing to do work that westerners or Japanese are not. Filipinas themselves tend to confirm the reality of this stereotype. Jennifer quotes Avic, a Born Again Filipina I also interviewed, to explain why Filipinas tend not to complain about working conditions.
Avic was like, “You know what, being Filipino and working here –for us it’s an opportunity –but for western countries, for western people who came from develop[ed countries] they’re more like, ‘These are my rights, you're not giving me what I deserve!’ And we are like, ‘Okay, it’s better here than in the Philippines’.
Again, this quote reinforces the international division of labor between the global north and global south in which westerners feel they have more agency to change their environments while Filipinas are often more economically dependent upon keeping their jobs regardless of the working conditions. Because of this financial dependence, the underlying discourse of subservience that accompanies these ‘positive’ images of Filipino immigrants remains dominant in dictating how Filipinos act in unfair labor conditions. Many times, they feel their only option is to ‘endure’.
42 Conclusion Images of Filipinas in mainstream Japanese society both constitute the social realities that Filipinas live in as well as reflect those realities. At their core of many of these images promote and legitimize the subservience and obedience that has come to be expected from Filipinas in the various roles of mother, wife, nurse, entertainer, English teacher, or even IT professional. The immigration system is another realm in which the inferiority of Filipinas and other migrants from the global south has been institutionalized by policies and informal instances of treatment that legitimize the exploitation and criminalization from migrants of these countries. As the needs and prerogatives of the global north change, the roles and categories ascribed to Filipinas are reconstituted and reincorporated into the global/local market (Lopez 2012: 253). In addition to legitimizing exploitative expectations from members of the host society, these images also influence Filipino subjects themselves to shy away from claiming agency and changing the exploitative conditions many find themselves in. This of course is not always what ends up happening and in many cases Filipinas are able to become agents of change in their environments. The ways in which Filipinas are able to successfully negotiate these obstacles is discussed in the final chapter. A final point that I want to restate here is that the images of Filipinas in Japanese society –images that are also often reflected on a transnational level –impact both the ways in which Filipinas perceive their host societies as well as the ways in which they perceive each other in the migration context. This aspect is focused upon in the next chapter.
43 Class Clashes
Filipino’s perceptions of each other While much of the research about Filipinos in Japan focuses on their marginalization by mainstream Japanese society, few scholars (Suzuki, 2000; Suzuki 2003; Tyner 1996; Mackie 1998; Faier 2007) focus on the processes of marginalization that occur among migrant Filipinos in Japan. In this chapter I discuss the ways in which religious Filipinos shape their understanding of themselves in the migration context by creating boundaries based on class that privilege some Filipinas over others. Charlotte, a 39-year-old Filipina married to a Japanese man whispers to me, “In Goodness Tokyo it’s different. But generally, most Filipinas who is living in Japan are not well educated.” Charlotte came to Japan as an entertainer when she was 17 years old. Though she doesn't have a college education it becomes clear after talking to her that she is by no means unintelligent. Yet, she puts herself, as well as ‘most Filipinas in Japan’ in a category that immediately defines them as such. Because of this lack of education, she asserts, Filipinas fail to act appropriately in Japanese society. For example, in the Tokyo metro system there are a plethora of signs and audio announcements that ask travellers to be quiet on the train and refrain from talking on the phone. However, in the case of Filipinos Charlotte asserts, “on the train most talk a lot and loudly. They are talking about stuff [and] they don’t care if it’s on the train or not. I noticed that most Filipinos don't care about what Japanese [people] thinks about them.” Discriminating between proper and improper behavior seems to be the main way through which class distinctions are made among my informants. Women that closely adhere to Japanese and Christian norms and values are more readily accepted in church communities they participate in. Moreover, wealthier and higher educated women are automatically assumed to behave in appropriate ways—perhaps they are even excused for behavior that falls out of the appropriate norms—while working class women who lack education are associated with illegal and illicit activities that bring a bad name to Filipinos in Japan.
44 Class background of respondents None of the working class Filipinos I talked to came from Goodness Tokyo. This church, I was told by a visiting American pastor, has a reputation in the Philippines for attracting the upper classes, and in Japan that reputation seems accurate. The international atmosphere draws people from privileged groups in society who speak English and are well travelled. This is true for most of the Filipinas there as well as most of the Japanese people. In total I interviewed ten Born Again Filipinas. Generally, it is clear that at Goodness Tokyo the Filipina women tend to occupy higher class categories than many Catholic women, a standard measured on the basis of their education, their current occupation, and if applicable, their spouses’ occupations. See Table 3 below for a class overview of all the Filipina Born Again women from this study.
Table 3: Class Status of Filipina Born Again Christians
Born Again Marital14 Current Reason for Level of Husband’s Class Filipinas Status occupation15 Coming16 Education17 Occupation Status18 Aaliyah S EngTeacher J/S B n/a U/M Amy W EngTeacher E/S B n/a U/M Avic M [nj] EngTeacher S G Publisher U/M Charoltte M Housewife E HS Architect U/M Dhy M EngTeacher W B Businessman U/M Eleanor M Book E B Information U/M Factory Technology Grace S Student S B n/a U/M Jennifer S EngTeacher J B n/a U/M Mhy M Housewife E G Entrepreneur U/M Naomi M EngTeacher M B Businessman U/M
14 M=married; S=single; D=divorced; W=widowed; [nj]=not Japanese 15 EngTeacher=English Teacher 16 E=entertainment; J=Japanese heritage; S=student; W=work other than entertainment; M=marriage 17 B=bachelor; G=graduate; HS=high school 18 U/M=upper-middle class; W=working class
45 Among Catholics there are a range of different classes represented. However, the women in leadership positions, formal or informal, tend to be upper class and well educated. Excluding the Filipina Sister, I interviewed thirteen Catholic Filipinas. Seven out of the thirteen are members of the upper-middle class. Of these seven, six are married to Japanese men. Moreover all but one of these women have college educations and are either working in professional fields, or are supported by their husbands’ incomes. Of the six Filipinas that I identify as working class, three have no college education. Moreover, all but one of the women work in low-wage jobs. It is important to note that three of the four women who are not married are also working class, indicating the importance of a spousal income and marriage in class improvement for Filipina migrants. See Table 4 below for an overview of the class status of Catholic Filipina informants.
Table 4: Class Status of Catholic Filipinas
Catholic Marital Current Reason for Level of Husband’s Class Status Filipinas Status occupation Coming Education Occupation Anabel D Interpreter W B n/a U/M Carla M Housewife M G Entrepreneur U/M Debra D [nj] Realtor W B n/a W Dina M EngTeacher M G NGO owner U/M Gena M Housewife M G Entrepreneur U/M Janet W Maid E HS n/a W Joan D Factory E HS n/a W Mae M Waitress S G Salaried W Worker Maki M Housewife E HS Entrepreneur U/M Malou M Housewife W B Businessman U/M Neri M Interpreter S G Businessman U/M Olive M Realtor/ E HS Taxi Driver W Nurse Pam M Babysitter W B Factory W Worker
46 ‘Looseness’ of working class Filipinas In the same focus group as Dhy, her friend Naomi reflected on her own experience among lesser-educated Filipinas. Naomi worked for a brief period in a factory after she first moved to Japan, having free time after her marriage to her Japanese husband. Her reflection indicates that as a highly educated, middle class Filipina she had difficulties adjusting to the factory setting and was not prepared for the assumptions many of her Japanese co-workers had of her.
So you know, factory workers, so many Filipinas. And of course their education is different. Maybe their priorities are different [than mine]. And of course the conversation is different. So, one of the Japanese [workers], she asked me, “When are you going back to the Philippines?” And I told her, “I don't know, maybe [in the] summer or December.” “You're not going back to the Philippines? You don't have a boyfriend back in the Philippines?” “No! I have a husband!” “So you don’t have a boyfriend?” “No, this isn’t me. Every Filipina is different.” They think if you are married to a Japanese then you will also have a boyfriend.
Thus, in the factory Naomi faced discrimination from Japanese co-workers based on the assumption that as a Filipina factory worker she had different priorities relating to her reasons for migration. The assumption that Filipinas tend to be involved in duplicitous sexual affairs has been documented by scholars (Faier 2007; Suzuki 2003). Faier argues that to many Japanese the fact that a Filipina is married to a Japanese man fails to preclude the possibility of her cheating on him because she is often perceived to be interested only in his money (2007: 157). Faier continues her argument by adding that Filipinas’ assertions of romantic love for their Japanese partners is offers a way for them to claim coeval identities (Ibid.). Augmenting Faier’s analysis, I argue that the assumption of Naomi’s extramarital affair denied her that right to assert the romantic love she shares with her husband. This is especially important when, as Faier says, the ability to assert that romantic love is a form of resistance to mainstream Japanese perceptions of Filipinas (Ibid). Moreover, Naomi’s response to this discrimination reveals her dubious opinion of working class Filipinas in that she hints her own exceptionalism to the stereotype that Filipinas that do not share such love with their husbands. By
47 qualifying her statement above in saying that Filipina factory workers might have different priorities, Naomi implies that, while every Filipina is different, lower- educated Filipinas working in factories have a certain reputation as duplicitous wives and licentious women that she will neither deny nor confirm. The distance she puts between herself and the other workers indicates that there is little solidarity between her and the other women she worked with based on their education and ‘priorities’. Her rejection of one stereotype reinforces another. She argues that every Filipino is different with the implication that that working class lower educated Filipinos, in particular, are different in the sense that they may or may not participate in extramarital affairs. However, Naomi—a highly educated Filipina with different priorities—is definitely not involved in such activities. This example can add to Faier’s analysis in its exploration of how certain forms of resistance to this stereotype gives agency to some Filipinas while at the same time marginalizes others. What I have omitted in much of this section is the nexus between notions of lower class Filipina licentiousness and the entertainment legacy of Filipina migration throughout the 80s and 90s. Sexualized depictions of Filipinas are not unique to Japan. According to Change and Groves, “the image of the sexually subservient Filipina is rooted in a long history of colonialism, sexism, and poverty in the Philippines” (2000: 76). Furthermore, this hypersexualized image has important consequences for how Filipinas see each other in the migration context. Entertainment being the primary instigator of Filipina migration to Japan, the hypersexualized image of Filipinas arguably has more relevance in Japan than in any other migration destination. Filipina migrants in Japan, especially devout Christians, resist sexualized stereotypes of Filipinas by encouraging their fellow migrants to adhere to a regime of chastity. My contacts in Tokyo were often preoccupied with creating an image around Filipino migrants, which directly counteracts notions of sexual promiscuity and human trafficking that accompany entertainment. For example, Father Resty, a Catholic priest, says that in church communities, women who work in entertainment are constantly “castigated” by other Filipinas in the church to change their job. Other Filipinas, Father Resty asserts, are afraid that their collective “image [as ‘good immigrants’] is going to go down again because of this,” as the women would say, “[one] stupid Filipina.” Thus, in some senses, the fear of being seen as the ‘bad immigrants’ is what perpetuates the marginalization of Filipinos by Filipinos.
48 Degrees of Difference: Catholic v. Born Again narratives of entertainment Behavior related to entertainment has to do with sexual promiscuity and illegal activities such as drug use or illegal immigration (including human trafficking), but it can also include such innocuous activities as going out for a drink after church or going to do karaoke. The following sections provide an analysis of the different narratives of entertainment that Born Again and Catholic Filipinas provided.
Born Again Narratives In the case of Born Again Christians, many of whom were former entertainers themselves, entertainment was discussed as a phenomenon that used to occur, not one that still does, at least not with Filipinas. Since their entertainment years all the Born Again women have attained a higher class status mostly as a result of their marriage to well-to-do Japanese men but also because they came to Japan with, on average, a higher class background than my Catholic informants. For example, Eleanor claimed that while Filipinas did participate in entertainment, most were not doing “the tricky things”, as in prostitution or drugs. “The worst is…not Filipinos,” she says while pointing at the recorder and covering her mouth out of embarrassment. I prod a bit further and ask what the worst is. “The worst? According to what I’ve heard so far I think the most are,” and then barely audibly she whispers, “the Russians.” It is much easier for Filipinos who were never involved in entertainment to condemn it and label it as something only poor and uneducated women are involved in. As an entertainer for seven years, Eleanor’s personal experience indicates that entertainment is neither morally subversive nor restricted to Filipinas of disadvantaged class and educational backgrounds. Eleanor comes from a middle class background in the Philippines. Her family owns a ramie farm in Mindanao a southern province of the country. In choosing and entertainment career, Eleanor gave up a respectable career as a medical technician in the Philippines. Now that she has left entertainment she is happily married to a Japanese man. Her Japanese is so good that her Japanese friends often forget she is a Filipina. However, the social reality that she is a part of still maintains that entertainers are akin to prostitutes and drug addicts. It is hard to argue otherwise. Eleanor comes to the tentative conclusion that the real ‘horror stories’ involve women from Russia, Taiwan or Korea, but not Filipinas. Thus, while she admits to having qualms about
49 distinguishing between herself and other Filipina entertainers she doesn't seem to have the same problem when it comes to entertainers from other countries. Born Again Christian Filipinas with no entertainment background had less to say about entertainment itself. They were aware of the reputation that Filipinas have in Japan of being known for their sexuality. Like the other Born Again women I talked to, they spoke of entertainment as something that happened in the past. Avic explained a shift in immigration for the purposes of entertainment to immigration for the purposes of technical and professional labor. Similarly, Jennifer, a single parent and English teacher at an elementary school, acknowledged that many Japanese people may “view Filipinos as someone who will have a relationship [with] them. [But] for Japanese, most of them—even my boss was saying that—Filipinos are hard workers”. Thus, for these women the reputations of Filipinos in Japan, positive and negative, have shifted from being focused on entertainment to being more generally focused on labor.
Catholic Narratives Catholic women who had been in entertainment also discussed entertainment in terms of a phenomenon that used to occur, many of them stressing the improved image of Filipinas as hard workers and the fact that most Filipinas who married a Japanese man are highly integrated into Japanese society in terms of language and childrearing capabilities. There was however an interesting contradiction in some of these statements. Olive is a 46 year old former entertainer who is married to a Japanese man and has lived in Japan for 26 years. In my first interview with her she told me that the image of Filipinas had changed from being that of the entertainer to a more respectable image because so many Filipinas had begun to settle in Japan and start families.
Some of the entertainers got married to Japanese and they raised the children in good character, and can communicate with them, can take care of the elders...Also, some of the Filipina here married to Japanese teaches English in school.
50 Thus, nowadays, Filipinas are largely being seen in a different light than that of the entertainer. In my second interview with Olive, she expresses an opposing opinion on the subject of how Filipinas are perceived in Japan.
Filipino men have more advantage…some professions [in Japan] are more on men. With computer engineer, [for example]. They have a good position. They can speak English and Japanese. I think. And…for women, general thinking [of the Japanese is] that we are all working in the club…So, that's the image. So, even though they are not saying that, there is still that impression.
Both of her statements seem true in different ways and in different degrees depending on the situation. Her contradiction reflects two conflicting images of Filipinas in Japan: the Filipina entertainer and the Filipina housewife. It is also important here to highlight Olive’s sensitivity to gender, its interplay with perceptions of Filipinos, and the real life the effects of those perceptions. She points out that Filipino men are more able to enter the skilled job market because they are not stereotyped as working in an industry that has a reputation of being scandalous and sexually solicitous. Moreover, she implicates their knowledge of English and Japanese as cultural capital—cultural capital that Filipinas are less privy to—that better equips them to work in Japan. In contrast to the way Born Again Christians and Catholics with an entertainment background discussed entertainment, some of the Catholic women I talked who had no entertainment background saw it as a current social ill that leads Filipinas to forget their faith and participate in sinful behavior. Aside from having no first hand experience of entertainment these women were, on average, 15 to 20 years older than the Born Again Christian women and were also older than the four Catholic former entertainers I interviewed. As I stated earlier, there is a much wider range of classes represented by Catholic Filipinas than by Born Again Filipinas. This is important to note because of entertainment’s indelible connection to class and education in that entertainers are often perceived to be poor and uneducated. One would think that the wider range of classes represented among Catholic Filipinas would lead to more exposure, more understanding of working class women that have entertainment backgrounds, and thus, more understanding of entertainment itself. This, in fact, is not the case.
51 One of the perceptions I noticed from my Catholic informants is that former entertainers involved in the church had confessed their sins and were living their life in a relatively ‘respectable’ and pious way. The problems that many Catholic women saw had to do with women who were still involved in entertainment. One of the former entertainers I interviewed who is the least active church-goer I spoke to informed me that she has many friends still working in entertainment that don’t go to church. Since most entertainers are not regular church attendees, the women who do go to church regularly and identify with an upper-middle class mindset have little contact and first hand knowledge of Filipina entertainers. Thus, perhaps they are forced to resort to widely circulated stereotypes about the type of woman an entertainer is. On numerous occasions, the nun I spoke to seemed to have the most exaggerated perceptions of entertainment and, more generally, moral decay in Japan of which entertainment is a part. Sister Edita argues that even today many Filipinas are trafficked to Japan as prostitutes. She believes that most trafficked Filipinas marry members of the yakuza and are abused by their husbands. Sister Edita describes trafficking as intergenerational marriage between two consenting adults.
When there are a group of people who engage in illegal activity—but make it seem legal but it isn’t. They [young girls] are enticed. Marry but don't know the men they marry. They are not paid and the money goes to their recruiters. Many trafficking [in Japan]. Japanese invite young girls to be married to old Japanese. That's trafficking.
For the women in question, there are positive and negative sides to the victim narrative that is voiced by Sister Edita and, I argue, by the Catholic Church in general19. A positive point that came out of this victim narrative is that the Tokyo Dioceses is much more focused than Goodness Tokyo on catering to practical and non-spiritual needs of migrants women. For example, the Catholic Tokyo International Center (CTIC) helps to provide shelters for migrants that are in abusive
19 Robert Zarate, another Filipino clergy member in Japan who uses the victim narrative for Filipina migrants by arguing in a paper that the majority of women who came on an entertainment visa “were not professionals. They were poor. They had to quit school to help alleviate their family’s poverty. They were easy prey to the exploitation of these agencies” (2008: 26).
52 domestic situations, many of which are Filipinas and entertainers or former entertainers. Thus, the Catholic Church in general seem to be more aware of and more involved in preventing exploitation of migrants. However, it is also clear that the victim frame misrepresents the women in question as unaware of the ‘trafficking trap’ they are led into, and unable to determine for themselves what is best for their own safety. On the contrary, Parreñas’ study of Filipina entertainers in Tokyo highlights the fact that many Filipino ‘hostesses’ working in Japan contest the “bases of their identification as trafficked persons... they claim not to be forced into prostitution...[and] they enter Japan knowing that they will engage in hostess work and aware of the illegality of such work for foreigners with the residence status of entertainers” (2006: 148). Other Catholic women have less polarizing perceptions of Filipinas involved in entertainment. One Catholic woman I interviewed, Pam is a ‘night babysitter’ for the children of a Filipino restaurateur. As a result of her work, she spends a lot of time awake in the middle of the night observing events taking place at the restaurant at that time and the types of people involved. Though she is not as stigmatizing of entertainment as Sister Edita she still invokes common stereotypes of the types of women who engage in entertainment.
As of today, I have observed that mostly young Filipinas married to Japanese are working at night. They always do monkey business with their husbands, they are going [out] with other Filipinos…Especially now that I'm babysitting inside the restaurant and these girls are coming…with their boyfriends. Eat[ing] their, morning snacks…Sometimes they work at night they work at pubs and they always use words which are not good. And sometimes they want me to affirm what they are saying what they are talking about and I will say, “No, that's bad!” Haha. And they want me to affirm and I say, “No that's bad, haha. He’ll [God] get angry.” Hahahaha!
Working at night being a euphemism for entertainment and monkey business being a euphemism for adultery, Pam assumes that the women she sees at this restaurant are not only in the entertainment industry but are also married to Japanese men and cheating on their husbands with Filipinos as a result of their employment in the industry. Thus, as Pam understands it, “these [Filipina] women are working at night so they drink, they get hot. And the Japanese men are not so interested in sex. That’s
53 why.” To make the implication clearer, she suggests that as a result of their work in entertainment, Filipina women cannot control their arousal and search for Filipino men that will satisfy them in ways their Japanese husbands cannot or will not. The idea that entertainment work breeds a heightened level of sexual arousal that is further catalyzed by (inevitable) alcohol consumption falls into a discourse surrounding entertainment that characterizes the women involved in hypersexualized manners (Mackie 1998: 46-47). On the other hand, Pam’s explanation of why these women go out with other men after work can understood as her sympathizing with the troubled marital situations many Filipinas, including herself, find themselves in. The moral subversion that my Born Again and Catholic informants speak of when they speak of entertainment is deeply intertwined with notions of class and education. Few people would guess that Eleanor, a happily married, and college- educated woman was once involved in entertainment. Stereotypes of class and entertainment are mutually reinforcing. Economically insecure and uneducated women are associated with work in entertainment or factories while the behavior ascribed to entertainers of being sexually deviant and involved in illegal activity is seen as characteristic of lower class and uneducated individuals. The problems with these perceptions, as I have already pointed out, is that the right to claiming ones own identity is automatically prohibited when a third person begins to write the first person narrative.
Ambivalence towards stereotypes The fact that Eleanor has conflicting opinions about entertainment deserves to be highlighted. Pam, Dhy, and Naomi also expressed ambivalent opinions when it came to their stereotypes of entertainers and lower class, less educated women. For example, though Pam acknowledges that when she sees Filipinas in the restaurant late at night she will chastise them for their lifestyle, as a layperson she also recognizes the importance of including them in church life “so that they will see that they are not outcasts. We need them.” Naomi goes a step further and expresses ambivalence about the treatment of lower class Filipinas as well as, importantly, her own perceptions of them. This is something that Pam doesn't do. Although Naomi finds it difficult to relate to lower class Filipinos because they have different priorities and the talk about different things, she defended women working as maids when a Japanese person insinuated it might be a good line of work for her. Filipina domestic workers “have
54 their own reasons why they are working so hard like that, I really appreciate those women that work so hard for their families.” Ultimately Naomi has two different investments made in her stereotypes of lower class Filipinas. One the one hand she dissociates from them but on the other hand she draws on shared values and defends them as fellow Filipinas.
Conclusion In this chapter I discussed the ways in which Filipinas discriminate between each other in the migration context. Unfortunately, these women’s efforts to distinguish themselves as ‘respectable’ Filipinas has resulted in the further marginalization of men and women that come from the Philippines who do have entertainment backgrounds or are not college educated. However, the women who contribute to this marginalization often express ambivalence in the stereotypes themselves. An awareness of these perceptions among Filipinas is important for understanding processes of migrant community and identity building. In the next chapter I discuss a few of these processes and how individuals navigate them through resistance and/or accommodation.
55 Religion and Resistance The chapters building up to this final chapter highlight the ways in which Japanese and Filipino actors in Tokyo perceive each other. The ways in which the gaze is directed and imposed upon its subjects has concrete effects on how those subjects respond –either by remaining passive subjects or taking action and becoming agents of resistance or accommodation. In some cases these two reactions occur in concert with one another. The ways in which Filipina migrants negotiate the often ostracizing social realities they find themselves in has been well documented in the scholarly community (Constable 1997; Constable 2007; Chang & Groves 2000; Faier 2007; Faier 2008; Gibson, Law & McKay 2001; Suzuki 2000; Suzuki 2003; Suzuki 2004). Little attention, however, has been afforded manifestations of resistance and accommodation within migrant communities and, more specifically, within the religious institutions where migrant communities are fortified and produced. Mateo points out the dearth in scholarly literature that takes as its subject “how a particular group of Filipino migrants in Japan utilizes religion or its ‘ethnic religiosity’ as a powerful tool for adaptive and survival strategies” (2000: 192). This is true for the more thoroughly researched migration destinations for Filipinos as well (Ibid.). Due to their dominant role in the community, religious institutions “have the greatest effect in keeping the immigrant’s personal associations within the boundaries of the ethnic community” (Breton 1964: 2000). As such, this aspect of the migrant experience deserves greater attention, especially among a population as religious as Filipinos. While Mateo restricts himself to an examination of the ways in which Catholic Filipinos use their religious institution as a platform for other non-religious pursuits such as informal job agencies, I discuss the utilization of ethnic religiosity and the resistance/accommodation that occurs within this domain to “bring to light power relations, locate their position, find out their points of application and the methods used.” (Foucault 1982 as quoted in Abu-Lughod 1990: 42). I also broaden my discussion to include Born Again Christian Filipinas as well as Catholic Filipinas. In this chapter I approach religion as an institution in which Filipinos’ perceptions of each other and of their host society are reflected and acted upon. Within this institution, Filipina women are both encouraged and encourage themselves and each other to adhere to regimes of docility and chastity.
56 Simultaneously, however, women participate in overt and covert forms of resistance as attempts to subvert these regimes. By highlighting these forms of resistance I hope to follow in the footsteps of scholars such as Lila Abu-Lughod (1990) and Nicole Constable (2007) and situate Filipinas in a field of power as both subjects and agents of power. In the case of Born Again Christian Filipinos, I demonstrate the shortcomings of approaching religion through an “ethnic lens”. Goodness Tokyo is a case in which only discussing migrants as members of ethnic religious groups neglects other important aspects of religion and its function in the migration context. Juxtaposing the Born Again case with the Catholic case provides interesting insight in which the transnational nature of the Born Again movement impacts ethnic group affiliation.
Religion and Passivity Christian doctrine, as it is taught to the Filipinas involved in my research, encourages women to stay silent in the face of hardship and surrender their fate to God. As Constable points out, there are many instances in which Filipinas “advocate religious solutions to their difficulties as a substitute for attempting to enact change” (2007: 192). For example, one Sunday at the Born Again church Pastor Glen gave a sermon entitled Faith and the Walk of God in which advised congregants on how to best prioritize one’s life in a way that honors God. The message of this sermon was that to show one’s faith in God one must endure. You must “be joyful while you are being floundered” because salvation exists outside of the material realities that so often cause suffering. Women in the church are encouraged to a much greater extent than men to endure. In a separate sermon women were urged to take full responsibility for creating a harmonious atmosphere at home.
Women, if you want to reap peace and communication in your home, then sow them in the home...and don't expect it to come immediately.
Pastor Glen expressed this sentiment again in a personal interview when I asked him how he counseled women whose husbands were non-Christians.
57 Some wives are very pushy. You know, reading the bible to them all the time. That’ll drive any man crazy. But then there are some women that just pray for their husbands. They don't push it. Like one of the ladies in our church, she's always praying for her husband. She never pushes it. She's asked her husband, “Is it okay if I go to church?” And for years, he said no and [she] just never went. And then he said, “Yeah, go to church.” And she went to church and she brought her kids to church. Very happy. Prayed for her husband. Prayed for her husband. And then one day she's sittin’ in her car and she has her iPhone and she's reading it and her husband leans over and he says, “What are you reading?” And she says, “I'm reading the Bible.” And he goes, “Oh!” and he whipped out his iPhone and he put it in front of her and said, “Like this kind?” And he had a Japanese version. And she cried. You know. Because she never told him [to read the Bible]. She had demonstrated. And he had [started reading] the Bible.
The woman in this story is Eleanor, the Filipina who studied medical technology in the Philippines but then decided to pursue a career in entertainment as a singer. What this passage communicates is that women are most persuasive when they refrain from being forceful or passionate about what they believe in –because that would drive any man crazy –and instead opt for a passive approach in which they refrain from actively evangelizing. In my interviews with Filipina women from this church, many expressed agreement with this outlook, though they often admitted that it was difficult and sometimes even not always good to be quiet and submissive. Among Catholics, the imperative that women should submit and endure was expressed in a similar manner. Father Resty discussed with me, the obstacles facing women who are prohibited by their Japanese husbands from attending mass. Some Filipinas, he says, bring a bad name to ‘attending mass’ because they use it as an excuse to have affairs, going to meet with their lovers instead of going to church. That is why some husbands are suspicious of women wanting to go to church.
Father Resty: So I always probe. “So, you might be doing something...” And sometimes they are. So I always say, “Be truthful. Do not do stupid things. And, first, you should fulfill your duties as a wife.” So, if your husband expects you to cook lunch and you are not there for lunch, cook the lunch. Or dinner, or something. And they do that. And once they do that, the husband does not care.
58 Anna: Haha, he just needs his food cooked. And what if there's a case where the husband is really limiting? Father Resty: Oh my God! They become crazy. They become this—I don't know if you have seen some people in the church—this, uh, it, there is a physical manifestation. They have been um…‘in detention’ kind of thing, for a long time. And then once the husband dies or they divorce, eventually the physical thing manifests. [He puts his arms out in front of him and looks at them while they are shaking] “What is this?!” Those times that they could not freely worship comes out like, [putting his hands up in the air and washing energy over his head].
In this case, women are urged to sacrifice their desire to attend church for the sake of a husband who may not be okay with having home cooked meals every day. Moreover, the second part of the passage communicates that women who submit to their husbands sacrifice their physical, mental and spiritual health in doing so. In these cases, however, Father Resty acknowledges the husbands’ faults and says that he wishes he could talk to them and challenge their decision to prohibit their wives from going to church. Generally speaking, romanticization of hardship and suffering is evident in both the Catholic and Born Again community. However, among Catholics it presented as more central to notions of a ‘Catholic identity’, perhaps due to the fact that many more Catholics still occupy working class positions in Japanese society. Evidence of this romanticization among Catholics is widespread. For example, every Wednesday during lent the rosary novena that occurred before the mass was replaced by a video of clips taken from Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ that charted the fourteen Stations of the Cross20. During the half hour video, women watching would cry and pass tissues to each other, moved by the reminder of Jesus’ capacity to endure and the sacrifices He made for them. Outside of church services, women tended to explain the conversion of Filipinas to Born Again or Pentecostal churches in terms of the investment and sacrifice required to be a good Catholic. Carla explains the hardships involved in being a Catholic, proudly asserting the superiority of Catholicism on the basis that it requires more of its adherents.
20 The stations chart the journey of Jesus carrying the cross to the site of his crucifixion.
59 You cannot remarry [as a Catholic]. Once you get married you can have an annulment and separate but you are not divorced…You can become a Born Again Christian [and remarry] or, you stay a Christian and follow the rules. Follow what is taught us. They don't want to follow the rules.
Born Again Christians are thus perceived to be lacking the discipline and endurance that is required of good Catholics. A good Catholic is a Catholic that endures the struggles that life presents. In the context of discrimination at work, for example, Mae proudly reported to me that she “endured” the bullying she experienced from her co- workers and manager.
I do the reverse psychology. Even if he/she bullied me, I'm gonna be nice. [i.e. asking,] “Do you want this?” “Do you want some coffee?”
What Mae calls reverse psychology is also reflected in Jesus’ sermon in the Gospel of Matthew in which he says, “whoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”, or as it’s more commonly referred to, “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:38–5:42 KJV). The ultimate message is to endure and pray that God will change the aggressor’s behavior. Instead of putting it in religious terms though, Mae –a psychology graduate –frames her outlook in a scientific way. It is not coincidental, however, that a devout Catholic believes in such a philosophy. The endurance mantra is reflected most clearly in relationships with Japanese people at work or in family life, but it also occurs in relationships between religious Filipinas themselves. Enduring discriminatory treatment by Japanese actors on the basis of nationality or religious orientation is most transparent because these instances involve discrimination based on a group identity. The groupings that exist in Filipina religious communities –such as the ones I described in the previous chapter –are less transparent, as is negotiation of them. Furthermore, the romanticization of hardships based on group association such as being a Filipino or being a Catholic is also much easier to identify. In the next two sections I discuss the ways in which Filipinas – Catholics and Born Again Christians, respectively –negotiate perceptions of Filipinas transmitted within the religious communities they participate in. In the Born Again case, however, negotiation is mostly connected to perceptions unrelated to a Philippine ethnic identity.
60 Negotiation among Catholics Most of the Catholif Filipinas I interviewed were active members of the church community. Several of them were in leadership positions in which they taught Catechism, read passages from the Bible during mass, volunteered as altar servants, gave baptismal seminars, and participated in volunteer and charity work that, while not directly religious in nature, targeted disenfranchised Filipinos in the Tokyo area. To reiterate what I stated in the previous chapter, these women came from a diverse set of class backgrounds ranging from upper-middle class to working class. The women who were upper and middle class were able to invest more of their time in church related activities. In this environment, the main way I was able to learn about rifts and perceptions that Filipinas had of each other was by listening to women gossip to each other. When asked outright about these topics, most women became uncomfortable talking about them. This indicates that most negotiation of perceptions is in fact quite subtle and, to an outsider, hard to identify. Another reason why negotiation in this context is subtle is because Christian doctrine teaches women not to resist. Instead, women must find alternatives and work around adhering to notions of, for example, the good Filipina as well as participating in activities they enjoy but that might be deemed unchristian or unladylike by some of their Catholic peers. In her study of resistance among Bedouin women, Abu-Lughod reports that one “arena for resistance [is] the use of secrets and silences to [the women’s] advantage” (1990: 43). In her case the secrets were being kept from male patriarchs. In the case of the women I interviewed, secrets were being kept from other Catholics. For example, during my interview with Mae she told me that after our interview she was going to a party of a Filipina friend whose son just arrived in Japan. She was keeping it a secret from her entire family except for her husband because she felt like going to the party was a sin. Mae was also afraid that if her daughter knew about it, she would replicate the behavior. Though she did not directly implicate this secret as a secret she was keeping from other Catholic Filipinas, it is clear that it was informed by Catholic notions that a good Filipina wife goes home to her family and not out to drink with her friends. Carla, the leader of the leaders, often makes comments about how she does not understand women who go out for drinks after church. It was never something she was interested in, she says. Though she does not explicitly say that it is improper for
61 Christian women to go out and drink and let loose, the way she expresses her feelings about those types of activities –in tones tinted with disapproval –makes it clear that she finds them less than admirable. Moreover, as I discussed in the previous chapter, there seems to be a close connection drawn between women who stay out late and drink and notions of Filipina entertainers as prostitutes and easy women –notions that many religious Filipinas wish to distance themselves from. Thus, there is a culture at Kyokai in which going out for drinks is illicit, though not forbidden. The level of leadership that women have in the church correlates with their class status and education. Because of her age, her training as a dentist, and her proficiency in English, Carla was named by some of the women I spoke to as their leader and the person to which to refer after Sister Edita. The authority Carla has allows her to discipline and manage other Filipina members of the church. Some women have harder times dealing with this than others. Maki seems to relish Carla’s disciplinarian attitude. “I really like that,” Maki says. “I need that! I really need to know what I'm doing because I don't know that I'm mistaken.” In a conversation with the three of us, Carla gave an example from a recent mass in which Maki interrupted a woman coming back from communion to socialize.
I did not correct [Maki] when we were at the church last week, I saw her go to communion and it’s supposed to be after communion that you sit quietly and, you know, talk to God, say thank you. And all of a sudden she was going to sit down, she was at the projector, remember? And she was going to sit down and suddenly she saw somebody coming from communion and she made kiss kiss on the cheek. They were talking for a while. But the person had just come from communion. They are supposed to retake their seat and be quiet. And also [Maki]. So, I said, “I don’t have to [say something] immediately.” The other night –yesterday –[Maki] said to me, “Mama, did I do something wrong? Tell me.” And I said, “Okay, I’m going to tell you something that you did wrong. Are you okay to listen?” “Okay! Okay,” she said. So I told her about it and she said, “Oh! I forgot,” she said. Because I said, “You are one of the leaders and people are looking at you. So every time they look at you they say, ‘Oh! [Leaders] also make mistakes and they don’t do what they are preaching.’” I said [to Maki], “If you are [acting] like that, I think I should put you at the back.” [Maki] is open so its okay because she doesn’t really feel offended. She just laughs… Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t like being told [what to do] so she will frown and
62 just get quiet but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t take it. She said that she goes home and as she walks she remembers this and says, “Oh, I was really wrong.”
Though she struggles at times, ultimately Maki accepts the rules and regulations that dictate how she should act in church. The position she is in –a position in which she is persuaded to conform to Carla and Sister Edita’s norms as well as general Catholic doctrine –is probably influenced by the fact that Maki is a former entertainer and has no college education. In addition she has difficulty expressing herself in English. On the other hand her status in the community is bolstered by the fact that her Japanese is near native and she is married to a wealthy entrepreneur. She has the freedom to choose to be a church leader because of the latter two circumstances, but is pressured to conform to appropriate behavioral norms due to the former circumstances. Maki’s acceptance of the behavioral norms imposed upon her as well as her performance of these norms –to the best of her ability –bears a likeness to examples of accommodation described by Constable in which, “domestic workers actively discipline themselves and their coworkers” (Constable 2007: 14). Despite Maki’s accommodation in this respect however, she resists expectations of Catholics as docile and homely by participating in youth fashion culture. In the picture below, for example, she is wearing white denim pants with spots of paint, blue leather moccasins, and fake glasses.
Figure 3 : Fashion as resistance to Christian norms of modesty and docility Photo courtesy of Maki Takahashi
63
In addition to participating in youth fashion culture, Maki is also known for wearing what Carla endearingly calls ‘elevator shoes’ –heels that make her look twice her normal height –as well as other accessories such as rings, bracelets, and of course, the rosary. Maki’s performance of youth culture can be conceived of as an “irreverent discourse” through which women oppose –in this case –Christian norms of modesty and domesticity (Abu-Lughod 1990: 45). Another way in which Catholic women negotiate the expectation of their domesticity is by attending and organizing charity events that also serve the purpose of giving them opportunities to openly participate in activities that may be viewed by other church members as improper or unladylike. As Eleanor mentioned, singing in front of men in the entertainment context is suggestive of prostitution or adultery. However, singing at a charity event to raise money for poor children in the Philippines is perfectly acceptable. Moreover, gender segregation in Japan among Filipinos can be bypassed in these environments and women can talk to men without being questioned about their faithfulness to their husbands. Figure 4 on the next page shows, on the left, a poster to advertise a Valentine’s Day benefit concert to help impoverished school children in the Philippines. The faces of different performers are on the poster as well as the events sponsors. On the right is a picture from the actual event. Olive, the woman in red, was one of the event organizers as well as a performer. Her friend and work associate, Deb is standing next to her. According to many Catholics, the outfits they are wearing would not be deemed appropriate for mass. Thus, by participating in charity events and concerts women are able to find socially acceptable ways to juggle both the expectation of their modesty and chastity as well as their desire and right to let loose and dress up. Similar to the forms of resistance documented among Bedouin, Filipina participation in charity events reveals that “one way that power is exercised in relation to women is through a range of prohibitions and restrictions which they both embrace, in their support for the system of sexual segregation [and modesty], and resist” as evidenced by examples such as attending and organizing charity events and concerts (Abu-Lughod 1990: 43).
64
Figure 4 : Charity events are one way women negotiate Christian doctrines that impose norms of domesticity and docility photos courtesy of Debra Cabrera and Olive Akatsu
Negotiation among Born Again Christians In general, the Born Again Christian community is composed less on the basis of its nationality and more on the basis of its faith. Moreover, at the Born Again services, in contrast to many of the Catholic masses, Filipinos mixed with Japanese, Americans, Singaporeans, Indonesians and people of other nationalities. The diversity of this group speaks to what Glick Schiller, Çağlar, and Guldbrandsen discuss as the need to examine “nonethnic forms of [migrant] incorporation” such as workplace, neighborhood, and religious organizations” (2006: 612). The result of looking only through the ethnic lens, they argue, is “a contradictory narrative in which those studied speak of their community in Christ and ‘their identity as primarily Christian’ whereas the researchers characterize the believers as African, Nigerian, Ghanaian,” or Filipino (Ibid: 615). To provide an empirical example, Avic, a Born Again Filipina woman who initially migrated to Japan on an academic scholarship, describes raising her daughter in a foreign country. In her discussion it becomes clear that she ultimately relies on the support of her spiritual community in helping her raise her daughter, not on the support of a Filipino community, which in her perception is absent.
65 That's why I bring her to church even if we live so far away Because for me its important that [my daughter has that support]—especially in the absence of a Filipino community. For me, my family is my spiritual family. I have many relatives but growing up I have become more family to my spiritual family rather than to my relatives. Because I don't see them very often. [Because of] the distance. And also because we have different faiths. Like, when I go through some problems in my life I would not run to my aunt. I would run to spiritual mentors who would teach me about what the Lord says. “This is who God says who you are.” And when I feel rejected, they would remind me that, you know, don't feel that way. Like if I go to my relatives, I'm sure they're very well meaning and they’ll give me probably similar advice. But since they don't have the same faith— they're Catholic—it will be different.
For Avic then, and for many of the Filipina women I interviewed at Goodness Tokyo, perceptions related to a Philippine ethnic identity were not central in her daily concerns. For this reason, it is more difficult to speak of Filipinas negotiating perceptions that exist in ‘the Filipino community’. Though after services attendees divided into groups based on nationality and generation, the main tensions –if you can call them that at all –seemed to be between these groups, not within them. Moreover, the perceptions Filipinas at Goodness Tokyo had regarding other Filipinas were often based on religious orientation. For example, all the Born Again women had strong opinions about Catholicism, a belief system that was often painted as a cult of idolatry. Charlotte, for example, discusses her perception of Catholic Filipinas based on her earlier experience as an entertainer. According to Charlotte, the Catholic Filipina entertainers she worked with were more likely to participate in illicit and promiscuous behavior because they lacked a deeper understanding of their spirituality.
Spiritually I have this feeling that there are temptations, you know. I don't know, what it is. But when I'm looking at other ladies that I was working with—I think there’s a lot of problems going on. Like, they focus on the things that is not, you know, not good. How do I say this? Like, they need spiritual understanding. They have the spiritual understanding but—like they are Catholics right? They know what is right and wrong but what’s behind it I think they do not know it. And then I have this prayer request from them. I'm praying for them. I'm praying for like, whenever
66 they have this problem they're always talking to me and then they lay down those problems and then I will pray for those problems.
In terms of negotiating perceptions that exist between members of Goodness Tokyo language seems to be the main issue between Japanese members and international members. Pastor Glen explained the tensions over language in an interview.
It’s always a tension. It’s not a negative tension anymore. It used to be a very negative tension. There was always fighting [about] who’s going to be more dominant, English or Japanese. And I can see the values of both sides. But I've always insisted, hoped, think, prayed, believed that we can be tolerant of each other and still work with each other. And I think only recently, since October [2012], there’s been some kind of break. Japanese people realize that it’s not really a tension. They don't have to force Japanese on us. I think the ladies –the Japanese ladies – went out with the Filipino ladies once, for a wedding bridal shower or something, and they were amazed that the Filipinos were all speaking Japanese. Like, “Wow, they speak really good Japanese.” And I said, “Why didn't you go over and talk to them, find out that they speak Japanese? They're married to Japanese men.” And that was kind of an eye opener for them. “We can sit down and converse with each other.” Because [Filipinos] usually come in[to church] and they hang out with each other and they speak Filipino. Nobody knows that they can speak Japanese, haha! Until—and then you know, I've found that their Japanese is much better than their English.
Though Pastor Glen acknowledges the difficulties that both proponents face, he seems to be placing the burden of responsibility on the Japanese to engage Filipinas in dialogue. At the same time though, he recognizes that Filipinas themselves are not always proactive in trying to bridge language or cultural barriers. Shifting the burden of responsibility, perhaps, signifies an act of resistance to the dominant language and culture as an outsider, Pastor Glen being Hawaiian-American and of Filipino descent. Another way in which some Filipinos resist the dominance of Japanese language is through joking. After service one afternoon we were sitting around a table eating lunch and Pido, Avic’s husband, told a joke about how there were some Japanese people complaining that Filipinos spoke English too much. The Filipinos responded, “Okay you don’t like English. We won’t speak in English anymore.” Then
67 they switched to Tagalog. Everyone around the table started laughing, recognizing the fact that Filipinos are often bilingual or even polyglots while many Japanese people only speak Japanese or have a poor command of English. In this way, Pido’s joke “temporarily reversed the pattern of dominance and subservience” (Constable 1997: 176) between local Japanese and Filipino migrants by highlighting the ability of Filipinos to easily switch between languages that Japanese lack proficiency in. The irony is that –as Pastor Glen pointed out –many Filipinos in Japan speak better Japanese than English. They could have easily switched to Japanese. There is an interesting contradiction in the viewpoints of Filipinos who attend Goodness Tokyo. On the one hand, many identify primarily as Christians –as opposed to Filipinos or Japanese. Yet, on the other hand, group differentiation within the church still occurs, to some extent, based on ethnicity.
Conclusion Christian religious doctrine discourages women from openly resisting disadvantageous situations they may find themselves in. However, in this context women find various ways to negotiate the strict lifestyle within which they are expected to live. Catholic women participate in charity or benefit events that allow them to remain the caring women while also allowing them to step outside norms that dictate dressing modestly. Born Again Christian women have less of an institution to resist. Though they are also encouraged to be modest and passive, church is only one day a week and there are fewer contexts in which women would be directly disciplined or challenged to either resist or accommodate the expectations placed on them. While Born-Again women mostly have to negotiate perceptions and expectations from their Japanese counterparts regarding language and cultural dominance, Catholic Filipinas find themselves in a field of power in which their behavior and style of dress is closely monitored at church. The comparison between these two churches reveals the different terrains of community building that accompany membership in a large institution with little mixing of ethnicity as compared to a much smaller institution in which community building focuses more on religious similarity rather than ethnic similarity. While modes of resistance were similar among both Catholics and Born Again Christians, the scale and context of this resistance differed.
68 Conclusion Contemporary scholarly literature regarding Filipina migrants tends to overemphasize the perceptions and treatment they encounter in their host society while neglecting the perceptions that exist within the migrant communities that they participate in. In this thesis I have emphasized the latter phenomenon. Based on empirical data, I found that perceptions Filipinas have of each other are informed by the reputation they have in Japan as well as the expectations held of them by Christian religious doctrine. The sub-questions I posed were, (1) ‘What are common perceptions of Filipinas in Japanese society?’, (2) ‘How are Filipinas’ perceptions of each other informed by their immigrant status in Japan?’, and (3) ‘How do Filipinas perceive Japanese society?’ Answers to these questions ultimately aided me in answering my main question: ‘How do Filipina migrants in Tokyo perceive each other in relation to Japanese society? What role(s) do religious communities play in the way Filipinas negotiate these perceptions?’ Common perceptions of Filipinas that circulate in Japan inform how Filipinas perceive each other in the migration context. There is a clear link between the image of the Filipina entertainer and the expectations and perceptions that are voiced by different Filipina actors regarding other Filipinas in Japan. Highly educated middle class Filipinas, for example, tend to be wary of working class Filipinas and view them as untrustworthy and/or sexually licentious. These perceptions have a clear link to Japanese characterizations of the Filipina ‘japayuki’. More positive images, such as the hard worker or the homemaker, that Filipinas encourage each other to adhere to also share an underlying discourse with the entertainment image in which Filipinas are seen as subservient. Today, these types of images circulate in Japanese society more commonly than images of Filipinas as entertainers. Pressures that Filipinas face from Japanese society to conform to these images are compounded by Christian religious doctrine that encourages women to submit and endure in the face of hardship. One of the ways in which Filipinas negotiate their immigrant status in Japan is reflected in their discussions of Japanese modernity, or lack thereof. While some Filipinas associate Japan with higher levels of modernity, others make claims to Japan’s lack of modernity and contend that the Philippines is more modern. One the
69 one hand claiming a superior level of modernity is a way for Filipinas to assert agency in a context in which they have been marginalized. On the other hand, by doing this women participate in an activity that legitimizes the same types of blanket statements and value judgments that stereotype Filipinas as prostitutes, and naturally suited caregivers. Thus, though they are in a sense resisting negative stereotypes of them, at the same time they are conforming to the same type of mindset that has historically defined them as inferior. This is a point that has yet to be made by scholars documenting claims of modernity made by Filipina migrants. Other ways in which Filipinas negotiate perceptions and expectations held by the migrant communities they are members of include engaging in irreverent discourse, joking, and participating in youth fashion culture. Since many of these methods are not outright methods of resistance, it becomes clear that many Filipinas resist the perceptions and expectations imposed on them, while at the same time act in complicity with them by, for example, submitting to directives given to them by church leaders. As compared to the Catholic community, however, it is clear that Filipinas in the Born Again community have fewer perceptions imposed on them due to the smaller scale of Goodness Tokyo. Moreover, because Goodness Tokyo members identify more with a transnational religious community, rather than a Filipino ethnic community, there is less pressure to promote and adhere to ‘positive’ images of Filipinas. Processes of migrant community building impose norms and values on the individuals in question. Because Filipinas, and many other migrant groups, faced severe discrimination upon arrival in their host country, it is important to investigate the effects this discrimination has had, not just on individuals, but on the migrant communities they participate in on a daily basis. By focusing on these processes of community building, one acknowledges the diversity in in perceptions and perspectives that emanate from religious communities. Though all Filipinas in Japan must negotiate the entertainment reputation they are associated with, they do this in a diverse set of ways. Studies that focus only on how migrants negotiate perceptions held of them by members of the host society, neglect to realize that negotiating these perceptions often goes hand in hand with negotiating separate yet related perceptions emanating from the Filipina community itself.
70 Acknowledgments First and foremost I would like to thank all the wonderful people in Tokyo who helped me during my fieldwork. The kindess and hospitality I encountered there made me feel welcome and at home in a country I knew little of. Moreover, if it weren’t for the openness of the women and men I interviewed to share with me their experiences in Japan it would not have been possible to write this thesis. In particular I would like to thank Avic and Pido Tatlonghari, Eleanor Omune, Olive Akatsu, Charlotte, Carla, and Maki Takahashi. I would like to thank my supervisor, Rosanne Rutten, whose comments and encouragement have guided me throughout the fieldwork and thesis writing process. I feel very lucky to have had Rosanne as a supervisor. I am also grateful to Tina Harris for the structure she provided in the thesis seminar as well as the tips on how to tame The Beast. Finally, these last few months wouldn’t have been the same without my fellow CASer’s. Thank you guys for the fun times. While I’m at it, I would like to thank my family in friends –mom and Paulina in particular –in the U.S. who have put up with the seven and sometimes fourteen hour time differences and autotuned Skype conversations over the last four years. Also, a big thank you to Eóin.
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