“Dislocations are the challenges that Filipina domestic workers encounter as they navigate through social processes of migration” (Parreñas, 2001:31).
Among the dislocations Parreñas identified, I would like to highlight that of non-belonging and contradictory class mobility arising from the fact that membership of the host society is not always obtainable and many of those who work as domestic workers in these places, although they manage to have a higher economic return, usually find themselves unable to move socially upwards. These dislocations, however, have nuanced expressions in different receiving settings. Whilst membership in the host society and
polity is possible in the United States, it is restricted in the case of Italy.
Filipino migrant workers in Rome, argues Parreñas(2001), position themselves as outsiders and cope with non-belonging by venturing into businesses to hasten the pace with they accumulate capital in order to return to the Philippines whilst Filipino migrant domestic workers in the United States feel unease among middle class Filipinos, who to them are more successful in their career pursuits, and react with defensive behaviour and aspirations by claiming their ‘temporary membership’. In Rome, the businesses into which these migrant workers venture are businesses that make profits out of their own communities by charging fees for job referrals, lending money with exorbitant interest rates, or renting out properties to pay for their own rent, practices that Parreñas suggests (2001)
“instill anomies and aggravate the dislocation of non-belonging”. In Los Angeles, the anomie and non-belonging of Filipino migrant domestic workers are found towards the middle class Filipinos, who become members of the host societies and are doing ‘more respectable’ jobs than they do that they turned to each other for solidarity.
In Hong Kong, membership of the host society is out of reach for migrant workers who enter Hong Kong on visas issued specifically for ‘foreign domestic helpers’ as in March 2013 the Court of Final Appeal ruled that foreign domestic helpers have no right to claim permanent residency, an issue that stirred up emotions in Hong Kong in the years leading up to the final verdict. Non-belonging to the host society is somehow eased by a strong sense of community in the streets of Central on Sundays. They get together in what they call ‘tambayan’ – meaning ‘homebase’ or ‘hangout place’ in Tagalog - on Sundays. Julia, who had been in Hong Kong for two years at the time of interview, explained: “we call it ‘tambayan’, it's a tagalog word where we stay and it seems like our house every Sunday in Central. We eat there (and) we stay there for a long time”.
She continued:
“Every Sunday I use my day off with the organisation… I use my whole day there… And (in) the organisation I find real friends… also in the organisation I found my family. Here in Hong Kong they are the family to me. We struggle; we fight for our rights…”
(Interview by author, 11 August 2013, brackets added by author).
Lucy, who had been in Hong Kong for almost three years at the time of the interview told me about her experience:
“when I was new here, I was not into organisation so I was just popping around and hanging around. I usually went to the IFC (International Financial Centre) and I found the IFC really so amazing, looking over the view of Tsim Sha Tsui (in Kowloon, opposite Central across the Victoria Harbour), during the sunset. I loved walking around because there were a lot of shops…. I have been active in the organisation FMA (Filipino Migrants’ Association) for two years. So I decided to stay here, in Chater Road, which is where we always (hang out). This place, this is our dwelling. It's just like our house. We are just like a family. Although it's just on the street but it's really so amazing that you have a family just on the street, to eat together, to have fun, have meetings, you help other domestic helpers who have got problems …” (Interview, 11 August 2013, brackets added by author.)
When asked to represent what Central meant to them in drawings and words, Andrea, who had worked in Hong Kong for eight years and left a few weeks after the interview, said:
“for almost eight years I worked here in Hong Kong. The first time I went to Central, here in Chater Road I met the
organisation. I draw a house because this is my second family. I consider us as 'second family'. I meet many different people with different personalities. Some is sad, happy,
confusing, afraid. So with these different people that I met I felt comfortable with them, especially we are in one organisation and I saw what are they doing with fellow migrants. And I am going to miss of course eight years… for four years I am a member of the organisation. I will be leaving this and I am going to miss these people” (Interview by author, 11 August 2013).
For these migrant women that I came into contact with through the Mission, the organisations to which they belong are their families in Hong Kong and the members are their ‘second families’. The support and solidarity they find in each other to fight loneliness and homesickness, while managing a transnational family, is evident is Angel’s remarks:
“I felt sad because this was my first time I went here in HK and too far from my family, my husband and my son... But that time I found my family here, we called that the POWER (Pangasinan Organizations for migrants’ Welfare, Empowerment and Rights) family, they are the ones who comfort me during those times…
my saddest day of my life here in Hong Kong. And when I am with them I feel so happy, eating, chatting with them, but still I miss my family, my son and my husband…”(Interview by author, 11 August 2013, brackets added by author).
Facing similar situations, with membership of the host society out of reach, but unlike those migrant domestic workers in Rome who experience dislocation of non-belonging from both the host society and from their own fellow migrants, the Filipino migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong who are active in migrant organisations find solidarity in these organisations.
Some even find that participating in these organisations becomes the solution to the dislocation of contradictory mobility experienced by Filipino migrant domestic workers. Valerie, who was a secondary school teacher and part-time university lecturer before she started working in Hong Kong as a domestic worker, told me about why she had stayed in Hong Kong for 21 years, which turned out to be contrary to her initial plan to work for just one contract.
She said:
“the 2 years became 4 years as I renewed another contract with my employer and the Mission was a big factor in the change of my plan. Because I found that I could also do some work… that I could apply my skills as a teacher, like writing, you know because they needed someone to write, translate the statements into English. At the same time they taught me how to counsel for the cases, so ultimately I made an adjustment, I learnt to accept being a domestic worker and doing something I would
say even more noble than being a teacher, a traditional teacher, later on because for that one I was given training in organising, in teaching the rights… how to empower migrant workers, that’s why I’m still here after so many years” (Interview by author, 23 Oct 2013).
Valerie came to know the Mission because her sister-in-law’s contract was terminated and was referred to the Mission for assistance.
At one stage while I was compiling the statistics for a press release to be issued by the Mission, I raised my concern with Lisa - an intern with whom I worked on the statistics - that many of the cases did not get closed and that we had no idea what happened to some of them. She said that many of the clients did not come back to the Mission with case results. Many of them simply wanted to obtain advice about what to do to claim agency fees they had been charged and they never came back. When another volunteer, Mary, a domestic worker who volunteered at the Mission while her employer was out of town, tried to reach them, many of the phone numbers had stopped working. For many of those who managed to climb the stairs up the hill to the Mission office, many of them did not turn out to be like Valerie or Rose. Not everyone could turn adversity into opportunity to see the world in a different light. Not everyone could afford the resources required to fight back against the very system that oppresses them and puts them in such a vulnerable position in the first place. Many of those who were abused, had their contracts terminated, were underpaid, or were unable to pay the loans demanded by the moneylenders simply went home. Many refused to participate in movements that are perceived to be ‘aggressive’ or
‘anti-government’.
Yet I want to tell the stories of those who fight on – those who despite facing adversities managed to navigate and find ways that they believe might make a difference, not just to themselves, but for the wider community; although in their most vulnerable moments, they also show doubt about how much they can achieve through this. In their eyes I see despair and hope, on their faces both tears and smiles. It is a space of
extreme emotions and intense struggles but through them I see courage and hope. All of these struggles and emotions materialise in the weekly phenomenon of the gatherings in Central, Hong Kong, a space that is built based on the logic of first-world capital and consumption – of international financial corporations and fashion brands - but at the same time a space that allows the circuit of third-world migrants to congregate and gather, carving their very own stories in this landscape. This is a space where the two circuits of globalisation collide and converge and a place that tells stories of courage and hope, a space that transforms the number of cases the Mission handled on a periodic basis into streams of compassionate actions and solidarity on the streets.
2.5 Conclusion:
In this chapter, I started by asking questions about why overqualified Filipino women work as domestic workers in Hong Kong and what their presence says about the racialised and gendered nature of the transnational labour movement for domestic services in the context of globalisation and global cities.
I then discussed the converging of two circuits of globalisation in Hong Kong: the upper circuit of key functions and services in the global cities that offer professional opportunities or service jobs that go along with it to local women on the one hand and the lower circuit of movements of third-world women into the domestic spheres of households left behind by the local women on the other.
The role that the Philippine state’s apparatus of migration in partnership with the private recruitment agencies plays in creating and sustaining the tropes to entice Filipinos to work overseas, awarding them the title of ‘new national heroes’ and marketing them as ‘docile workers’ through a disciplinary mechanism, was also discussed to answer the question of why many overqualified women work as domestic workers in Hong Kong. The
socioeconomic background that works as the pretexts for these tropes and techniques to work was also discussed.
I then moved on to discuss the particular situations that Filipino migrant domestic workers face in Hong Kong and how Hong Kong state’s apparatus of governing ‘Foreign Domestic Helpers’ also contributes to the making of
‘docile’ workers whose labour is needed but not respected. I also focused on the efforts of those Filipino domestic workers who manage to navigate through the webs of bureaucracy and fight for their rights and their conversion into activists in the grassroots organisations in which dislocation of non-belonging and contradictory social mobility are partially managed and mitigated.
This chapter provides the context for further discussion on the tensions between the two experiences of globalisation and how these two experiences collide and converge on the streets of Hong Kong with a focus on Filipino migrant domestic workers who are actively involved in the grassroots organisations.
Chapter 3 Making spaces of the publics: the cultivation