The overseas sacrifice: caregivers who immigrate to the U.S. work long hours for little pay, but help keep their home country's economy afloat

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Content THE OVERSEAS SACRIFICE: CAREGIVERS WHO IMMIGRATE TO THE U.S. WORK LONG HOURS FOR LITTLE PAY, BUT HELP KEEP THEIR HOME COUNTRY’S ECONOMY AFLOAT by Daryl Jay Paranada A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (JOURNALISM) May 2008 Copyright 2008 Daryl Jay Paranada ii Table of Contents Abstract iii Main Body 1 Bibliography 22 iii Abstract Nearly 10 million Filipinos live or work in countries other than the Philippines. In fact, so many Filipinos leave their homeland to find work that they are their country’s biggest export and even have their own acronym – OFWs, Overseas Filipino Workers. They leave the Philippines in hopes of making better money, but oftentimes work the low-wage jobs requiring minimum skills and little experience, like caregiving. OFWs in the caregiving industry face unique issues. They work long hours, experience discrimination, and face abuse because of their immigrant status. However, Filipinos continue working as caregivers because they need to make money to send back home. The money they remit to their native country amounts to billions of dollars, helping keep the Philippines economy from collapsing. Whether the economic benefits of going abroad to find work are worth the social costs, of leaving children and families behind, is a question many OFWs face. 1 Every night at 7 p.m., Josephine Palmaira travels to Beverly Hills for a 12-hour overnight shift to take care of a patient recovering from hip replacement surgery. The drive down the pristine streets to her 85-year-old client’s mansion is a world away from where she is originally from and what she comes home to after work. Palmaira, 49, grew up in the Philippines, but left the archipelago country in 1987 in search of higher wages. She embarked on a journey that took her from Asia to the Middle East to America, from a nurse to a caregiver, from united family to separation. After Palmaira’s shift ends at 7 a.m., she travels to her one-bedroom apartment near downtown Los Angeles, takes her son to school, then comes home to sleep. She shares the bedroom with her security guard husband and their 14-year-old autistic son. Another Filipino family of three resides in the living room. They live this way so Palmaira can send thousands of dollars each month to her two eldest children, who live in the Philippines. She hasn’t seen either one since 2006. Palmaira is just like millions of other Filipinos who choose to leave their homeland in search of better lives. In 2006 alone, the total number of Filipinos working abroad hit a historic high of more than 1 million, and that number is increasing, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. In fact, so many Filipinos travel abroad to make more money they even have their own acronym: OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers). More than 8.2 million Filipinos lived or worked abroad in nearly 200 countries as of December 2006, with 3.7 million residing in the United States, according to the POEA. Of the 92 million people who live in the Philippines, a staggering 12 percent go abroad to work or live. 2 The remittances OFWs send back home play a significant role in the Philippines’ economy. According to the Philippines government, the remittances they received in 2006 totaled $12.7 billion, helping boost an economy many say would collapse without the help of OFWs. World Bank statistics show that the Philippines is the fourth highest recipient of foreign remittances, behind India, China and Mexico. Those remittances accounted for 13 percent of the Philippines’ gross domestic product in 2006, by far the highest amount of the four countries. Going abroad to work has become such an engrained part of Philippine culture that an entire industry has been born out of the OFW experience. Many licensed agencies recruit Filipinos to work abroad, filtering down to even the most rural parts of the country. Illegal recruiters try to entice potential OFWs through the Internet and other means in an effort to make a quick buck. There is even an Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to protect the rights of OFWs. In the United States, many Filipinos find the easiest way to find steady employment is through the often difficult and thankless job of caregiving. Although she has worked as a caregiver for the past two years, Palmira previously worked as a nurse specializing in the treatment of kidney stones for 25 years in the United Arab Emirates. She lived in a furnished four-bedroom house that was paid for by the government, employed a housemaid, and traveled as the royal family’s personal nurse to places like the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany. She also gave birth to three children in the Middle Eastern country. Despite her high salary, Palmaira decided to leave the UAE for the United States in 3 2006 because she couldn’t afford college there for her children and the country did not have enough resources to support her autistic son. She also wanted more privacy and stability. Palmaira says she did not have the freedom to communicate because the government screened all of her phone calls and that the country favors younger workers over elders. “In the United Arab Emirates, the university is very expensive so I have to send my children back home to the Philippines,” Palmaira says quietly. “It’s very hard for me now.” She desperately wishes that her family could be together. “We are not used to be away from each other, but we made a lot of sacrifices for them to finish their university,” says Palmaira, who tries to speak with her children daily. “The lifestyle in UAE is very far from what we have now here so this is now more of the sacrifice.” On the Web, hundreds of sites are dedicated to helping Filipinos like Palmaira who intend to or currently work abroad. These include OFW-Connect, an information hub for Filipinos working or thinking about going overseas, and Filipino Nannies, a site dedicated to helping North Americans find someone to take care of their children. In 2006, Yahoo! even launched Pinoy Connect, a web site aimed at helping OFWs keep in touch with their families back home. Though Palmaira is a low-paid caregiver, the $12 hourly wage she earns is enough for her to hire a caretaker for her two daughters in the Philippines. It is a stunning phenomenon, one where Filipinos who want to provide for their families must leave their country in order to do so. They leave with degrees earned from studying at Filipino 4 universities, but often find themselves having to work lower-skilled jobs that are in demand. Though Filipinos are stereotypically viewed as nurses, most of the jobs that are available for migrant workers are in domestic labor or the service sector, like caregiving. “I don’t want to be a caregiver for the rest of my life because I am a nurse,” says Palmaira, who entered the industry because of the large network of Filipino caregivers already working in the Los Angeles metropolis. “My work as a caregiver is not very hard, but hardship is that you are away from your family.” The funds Palmaira and other OFWs send back home are badly needed by the people and country. An estimated 13.5 percent of the population lives in poverty, says the World Bank. Remittances routed through banks hit an all-time high in 2007, with $14.4 billion accounting for 10 percent of the country’s economy, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philippine Central Bank. The remittances have become so important to the country that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has referred to overseas workers as “Filipino investors.” Former President Fidel Ramos has even called OFWs “bagong bayani” (Tagalog for “new heroes”) because they account for such a substantial amount of the economy. “The remittances are tremendous. In fact, it’s the pillar of the Philippines economy,” says Dr. Rica Llorente, a professor at California State University, East Bay. “Without the remittances from the overseas workers, the economy will collapse and that is a fact that you read in a lot of the literature.” Filipinos who continue to live in their homeland benefit from the money sent back by OFWs. A 2007 Consumer Expectations Survey by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas shows 5 that families who received remittances spent most of their money on food and other household items. Other byproducts and benefits of the OFW remittances include newly paved roads, the creation of entire neighborhoods, and the ability of families to purchase goods and real estate despite the economic downturn in the Philippines. “In some ways there are positive economic developments,” says Llorente. “For instance, entire villages in the Philippines or barrios have witnessed construction of houses or maybe new businesses because of these remittances because there’s so much money coming back in.” Money sent back home by Palmaira allowed her children to attend private universities, buy necessities, and live in their own house in Manila. The remittances show no signs of slowing down either. World Bank estimates that the Philippines received $17 billion in remittances last year and the Trade Union Congress believes that it is expected to reach $21.4 billion in the next three years. The business of remitting has become so big that Pilipino Workers’ Center (PWC), a Los-Angeles based organization that fights for workers rights, has even led a boycott against Western Union, a company that charges the most amount for sending money back home. Despite the obvious economic benefits, some wonder whether the Philippine government has become too reliant on the help of Filipinos willing to go abroad to boost its economy. “It’s creating a culture of dependence and it is sucking out the motivation to work for many recipients of these remittances,” says Llorente, who only foresees the trend continuing. “There is a great demand in the industrial cities for domestic workers. This 6 demand can be met by the labor force of the Philippines.” For people in the Philippines, going overseas to find work is becoming less of a way to make better money and more of a harsh reality. Life cannot be sustained in the Philippines on the jobs and salaries that are available there. Though she worked as a Registered Nurse in the Philippines for two years, Palmaira says she earned better money working in UAE and even more working as a caregiver in Los Angeles. For people like her, leaving the Philippines is not only feasible and beneficial, but also ultimately necessary. “I don’t say I like it here [in America] but I need to work to send my children money to go to school,” says Palmaira. “Actually, there’s no place like home.” When Green Pastures Turn Brown For Palmaira’s friends, the Chavez family, home is a two-bedroom apartment, nestled within a tiny enclave in the Western shadow of downtown Los Angeles. Their apartment is filled with little reminders of the Philippines. From the rice bags lying on the kitchen floor to the tsinelas (Tagalog for “slippers”) near the front door, from the little figurines on the coffee table to the jumble of rugs that cover the reddish-brown carpet, it is overflowing with memories from home. Inside the apartment, on the kitchen table, a bowl filled with beefsteak rests. The whiff of something fried blows through the kitchen. This apartment, with its clutter and charming details, is the home of a three-person family. Because of fears of deportation, 7 they asked that their names be changed. The family’s caretaker is 56-year-old “Belinda Chavez.” She sits at her kitchen table dressed in a long yellow T-shirt, black capris and house slippers. Her short, dark brown hair is peppered with grey, and her small, red eyes make it look like she is squinting. “You eat,” she says, pushing the bowl of beefsteak forward. Her slow movement and heavy breathing betray a woman who has seen a lot of hard days, but her hearty laugh and sweet-natured personality show why she is so good at taking care of others. At $750 a month, this is the only apartment she can afford on her salary. A caregiver, Belinda is the sole source of income for her family because her undocumented husband and son cannot find steady jobs. Born into a poor family of nine, Chavez earned a customs administration degree from Philippines Maritime College. She opened her own business shortly thereafter, but moved to Texas in 1996, after her importing and exporting business folded due to the bad economy in the Philippines. When she migrated, Chavez left her 17-year-old son and husband, a customs broker, back home in the Philippines. “Filipinos have very close family ties and being away from them for the first time, it was really hard to go,” says Chavez, her squinty eyes cast downward. “I’m trying to see if there is some future in [America]. I was not able to be so lucky in that place.” In Texas, Chavez worked on a food trailer owned by her sister. Together, they traveled to different festivals and carnivals, selling food, balloons and other celebratory items. “I am forced to assist her because I am staying there and nobody’s going to help her,” 8 says Chavez. “I also need money because I have to send something to the Philippines.” For nine months, Chavez woke up early, helped prepare food, and put her warm smile on display in hopes of making enough money to support herself and her family in the Philippines. On a good day, she would earn up to $300, and send half her earnings to her husband and son each month. Fed up with the demanding and grueling work in the food trailer, Chavez finally decided to leave Texas and move back to the Philippines after less than a year. “The truth is it looks like there’s no challenge for me and I won’t be able to live with that kind of money that I’m producing at that time,” says Chavez, shaking her head at what she calls her stagnant period. “When you are in the Philippines, it’s always assumed that there’s greener pastures in the U.S., but as far as what I experienced in the U.S. at that time, it’s not really hard work.” For two years, Chavez worked with companies as a broker before deciding to try her luck in America again. In 2000, she packed up her bags for Inglewood, Calif., where she moved in with her aunt, who loaned her money to find a job. Determined, Chavez sought work that would be more satisfying and economically productive than toiling away in a trailer. After contacting old friends, she found a job that she knew she could succeed at – caregiving. Many of Chavez’s friends already had jobs as caregivers, so they introduced her to several agencies and put in a good word for her. Eventually, Chavez was able to land a job with one of those agencies. “If you happen to take care of old people before, that’s how it is and because I know 9 how to communicate, I know how to cook, I was able to get a job,” says Chavez. Slowly, Chavez was able to build connections with different caregiving agencies, learning through trial and error which were good and which weren’t. Over time, Chavez was able to establish herself as a reliable caregiver, networking to build her portfolio. “I’m just lucky,” she says, smiling in between her heavy breaths. But luck may not have anything to do with it. For people like Chavez and Palmaira, landing a job in caregiving was relatively easy because of the connections that had already been established long before they even came to America. The trend of Filipinos going overseas to work has historical links. It began in the 1970s, when then President Ferdinand Marcos encouraged Filipinos to work overseas, seeing potential to boost the country’s revenues. The Marcos Administration developed a policy to promote and support deployment, creating new offices in the Department of Labor and Employment to oversee the many Filipinos working abroad. “It was implemented by the manpower exchange program in 1974 by Marcos, in which he instituted migration of men to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to solve the domestic labor market problem and the high unemployment rates,” says Rhacel Parrenas, author of Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work, a book published in 2001 about Filipino migrant workers. Parrenas, an Asian American studies professor at the University of California, Davis, says Marcos encouraged Filipinos to go abroad in hopes that they would receive higher wages and acquire new skills, but ironically the opposite happened. Filipinos going abroad were working low-service jobs and countries began to exploit OFWs, giving 10 higher-wage jobs to their own native countrymen. Eventually, the notion of going abroad to find work became more than just a way to provide jobs for people of the Philippines and solve the country’s economical woes, it became a way of life. It became institutionalized. In 1982, the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration was created to ensure that OFWs were taken care of and supported. The administration required OFWs to have POEA approval before being shipped off as contract workers. Under the presidency of Corazon Aquino, who succeeded Marcos, deployment overseas was made more accessible. Regional employment offices were created throughout the Philippines, recruiters aggressively sought more laborers, and marketing strategies were developed to ship Filipinos out of their homeland so they could get jobs quickly and send money right back. Caregivers: The Exploited Minority Chavez and Palmaira are only two women in a long line of Filipinos who have left their home country, broken up their families and worked as caregivers in order to make money so they can remit it back home. According to the POEA, 93.8 percent of the workers deployed to caregiving and caretaking jobs in 2006 were women. They join a workforce that includes Normita Lajo, another caregiver. Lajo sits on the plush brown couches at the Pilipino Workers’ Center, where she is spending a rare day off. Housed above a Latino grocery store, the center’s lime green 11 exterior, blue floor and yellow trim convey a welcoming and happy place. Lajo’s demeanor, forthright and plainspoken, expresses the same emotions. Her droopy eyes and tired appearance say otherwise. Dressed in oversized jeans and a red sweater, Lajo explains why her days are seldom free. A caregiver, Lajo works with an elderly patient for four hours in the morning, picks up her children from school, and heads to her second job where she takes care of developmentally disabled children from 3-10 p.m. daily. Often, she also works on the weekends. “That’s my life right now,” she says, matter-of-factly, noting that without the help of her mother, she wouldn’t be able to afford daycare and would have no way of taking care of her children. “I feel the reality of what I have.” Her reality is strikingly similar to that of many other Filipino migrants. In 2006, according to POEA statistics, more than 144,000 Filipinos deployed abroad worked service jobs, the most of all occupation categories. Of those Filipinos working service jobs, 9.9 percent were caregivers and caretakers, the second highest employment next to domestic helpers and related household workers. Lajo is one of the members of the Pilipino Workers’ Center, an organization that fights to ensure workers receive the correct wages, live and work in decent conditions. The majority of members at PWC are caretakers, and workers at the center consistently hear stories about the struggles Filipino caregivers face. “People do [caregiving] because that’s the job they can find,” says Aquilina Soriano- Versoza, the center’s Executive Director. “When people are hiring Filipinos, they’re 12 associating us with the medical industry and nursing, even if that may not be the case.” Filipinos have been pushed to become healthcare workers because of their long history in nursing, says Soriano-Versoza. OFWs hoping to find a job are likely to reach out to the extensive network of Filipinos already in the healthcare industry. For new immigrants, one job that is both readily available and does not require a lot of experience is caregiving. “The majority [of Filipinos] coming here come from more professional backgrounds and are not able to get those jobs,” says Soriano-Versoza. “It’s easier to do caregiving.” The perception of Filipinos as health workers, combined with their ability to speak English and a perception that they are generally hardworking, likeable and friendly, are all factors that lead Filipinos to become caregivers. Lajo, 50, says caregiving is the only job that allows her the flexibility to take care of her two daughters, pay the $745 needed to live in a converted garage in Long Beach, and remit money to her family in the Philippines. Caregiving is not something she inherently enjoys. Lajo grew up poor, the eldest of six children born to a housewife and farmer. She left her hometown of Dipolog City, Philippines, with her new husband at the age of 22. They married after she met him for the first time three days earlier. When she speaks of her husband, an engineer, Lajo becomes less affable and willing to share details. In the Philippines, Lajo placed an ad in a newsletter. Shortly thereafter, she began corresponding with her future American husband through letters for more than a year. In the course of writing to him, Lajo improved her English, and her “pen pal” sent 13 thousands of dollars in money to her. One day, he surprised her by showing up at her parents’ house in the Philippines, intent on reclaiming his investment. “I don’t want to get married when I see him in the Philippines. This is like a blackmail to me,” says Lajo, acknowledging that she accepted and used his money, but never expected him to want to marry her. “I’m crying three days because I don’t know what to do. I don’t like him at all.” Ultimately, she became his wife because she had no way to repay him otherwise. In 1988, shortly after getting married, Lajo moved to the United States, where she says she lived like a princess in a four-bedroom house in Corona, Calif. Though she had a relatively easy lifestyle in America, Lajo says she did not love her husband. He died after only a few years of marriage. After burying him, Lajo soon completed her paperwork to become a U.S. citizen, but quickly found herself in desperate need of a job. “How am I going to buy my car? My clothes? My apartment?” says Lajo, describing this time in her life as feeling like the sky had fallen on her, slapping her hands together to reinforce her point. “I have to save myself.” Lajo landed a job caregiving in Beverly Hills thanks to her friends, but still felt depressed and broke. At her lowest point, she was earning only $45 per day as a caregiver. She survived her “extreme hardship,” because she knew about efficiency growing up in a poor family. After spending years bouncing around different jobs and caregiving agencies, Lajo was finally able to land on her feet. She worked as a live-in caretaker, watched over 13 patients in a convalescent home, learned how to drive to make more money, and 14 eventually became a certified home health aide. “I straightened myself out,” says Lajo. “More education, more money.” Eventually, she married another man, had two children and seemed to finally find her feet on solid ground. But on March 3, 2000, her second husband was deported because of problems with his immigration papers. Her appeals to bring him back were denied three times, and he has been banned from entering the United States again until 2010. Her two children have not seen their father since. “When I take them to the park they are crying because their daddy is not with them and they cannot understand what the papers do,” says Lajo, her tiny eyes brimming with tears. “We suffer with the love of their daddy, with two kids, but the immigration doesn’t care.” Faced with being a single mother, in 2001 Lajo began working three jobs to take care of her family and send money to the Philippines so five of her siblings could attend college. Lajo’s mother moved to the Untied States to take care of her grandchildren and help her daughter, who was struggling. Lajo was working so much and getting so little sleep she became anemic. “The doctor told me ‘You have to take off the other job because your anemia is going to become leukemia,’” says Lajo. Despite the doctor’s advice, Lajo continued working three jobs until 2005, when the last of her siblings completed their education. That same year, she ended her marriage, after finding out her husband had been cheating on her in the Philippines. She stopped sending him money, and he stopped trying to contact her and their children. 15 “I’m okay now,” says Lajo. Through the hard way, Lajo learned how to stand on her own, but easily remembers how difficult it was for her as a caregiver. “I was not paid enough, they would hold my wages, lots of money problems at different agencies,” says Lajo. And she’s not alone. PWC’s Executive Director Soriano-Versoza has worked closely with several Filipino immigrant caregivers and says they face several challenges, including isolation, low wages, and a lack of job security. “It’s a very unregulated industry. It’s more one-on-one stuff,” says Soriano-Versoza, who recalls problems involving agencies holding back wages, caregivers working through sickness because of the need to earn money, and Filipinos suffering abuse from their patients. PWC houses the Association of Filipino Workers, a 700-strong membership-based group that offers leadership and workshop training as well as insurance benefits and discounts on remittance programs. Chavez and Lajo are both members. The center offers free case management services for OFWs who experience employment and immigration problems. According to Soriano-Versoza, PWC handles an estimated 350 cases annually and has had a 100 percent success rate. One of the groups PWC works with when they face cases that are too complicated is the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. According to Julie Su, a labor attorney for APALC, some of the legal challenges caregivers face include structural issues, questions of who the employer is, and problems involving the work itself. Su says 16 caregivers do not typically work with others on a day-to-day basis and thus do not have the opportunity to discuss work-related problems, which may inhibit immigrant workers from coming forward if issues arise. “The immigrant work force can feel like this is our lot in life,” says Su. “They may have a lack of knowledge or a desire for shaking things up.” Su and other attorneys are currently working on a case brought to APALC through PWC in 2005 involving 28 workers who allege that the company they worked for did not give them meal or rest breaks. She believes Filipino caregivers are becoming a highly exploited Asian American community because of the sheer number of them who work in the caregiving industry. Yuhngsun Park, another staff attorney at APALC, says home healthcare workers face unique legal challenges because of the nature of their work. Park says many agencies misclassify caregivers as independent contractors, which makes them fall under exemptions and precludes them from earning the minimum wage, which is $8 per hour in California. “They should be considered employees with the full benefits,” says Park. “That makes a huge difference in the rights that the worker has and the likelihood of wage and hour violations to take place.” For caregivers like Chavez, the rules and regulations that govern agencies are reasons why she prefers to work as a private, direct hire. She believes many Filipino caregivers do not complain about abuses they face because of their undocumented status. “With the law, it doesn’t matter whether you have papers or not,” says Chavez. “You 17 are entitled to your money.” Nap Quinto, a 46-year-old Filipino immigrant who worked as a scheduler for a Los Angeles-based caregiving agency, says he experienced firsthand some of the problems facing caretakers. “I think they have problems when it comes to collections,” says Quinto, whose agency held workers’ wages for up to months at a time. “You can’t make promises to your land lord or pay other bills that are scheduled if you aren’t paid on time.” Quinto, 46, moved to the United States in 2000 looking for better opportunities. Although he has a chemical engineering degree from a university in Manila, he was unable to land a job in his field of expertise because of differences in training between the United States and the Philippines. Because of his own struggles, Quinto relates to many caregivers and OFWs. “I went here only for a job, that’s it, period. But to stay here and die here? No way,” says Quinto. “When you are not here, what you know about America is portrayed in the movies, but it’s not really true.” Quinto says that Filipinos were the most requested and most available caregivers at his agency. “Filipinos are compassionate, they’re family-oriented and compared to other races, that’s basically why they lead,” he adds. He believes that as the baby boomer generation grows older, more caregivers will be needed. That is a major reason why Janet Heinritz-Canterbury, a member of the Los Angeles County Public Authority who has worked extensively with California’s In-Home 18 Supportive Services Public Authorities, believes the health care industry needs to be improved. “The reimbursement rates for home care caregivers are terrible,” says Heinritz- Canterbury, whose husband is a caregiver. “The problem is that home care workers are not covered by the general labor protections.” While public home healthcare workers are not apt to misclassification, private caregivers work at the will of agencies, who operate in a decentralized manner and sometimes misclassify home health care workers to cut costs, excluding them from receiving the proper benefits entitled to them by state and federal laws. Further confounding the issue is the fact that many caregivers are immigrants of color. “A lot of them aren’t authorized to work and that’s often why they find themselves working in such vulnerable positions,” says Park. Weighing the Costs of Leaving Home For OFWs like Palmaira, Chavez and Lajo, caregiving was the easiest route to making money, but going abroad to work came at a high cost. The millions of migrant workers who choose to travel abroad to earn higher wages must contend with the issue of whether the economic benefits are worth the social costs. “[OFWs] sacrifice a lot. They leave their spouses, they leave their children and then they remit a lot of money back home, but at the expense of their personal interest of their families, their marriage,” says Llorente, the professor who has studied Filipinos in 19 the U.S. “The social cost is very high. The marriages break apart, the children grow up without one or two parents, but that is the tradeoff they have to endure because they are not able to find the same economic developments in the Philippines.” For many parents who want to make more money, becoming OFWs has several unintended consequences. Llorente believes the sacrifices Filipinos make to go abroad is a direct cause for some of the social problems permeating the Philippines. “[Children] are able to buy a lot of commodities, like computers and other technologies, however they grow up without the love and attention of their parents and so a lot of social problems are happening,” says Llorente. “They drop out of school, they turn to drugs. I understand there are a lot of unwanted pregnancies. So the social cost is very high.” During a 2008 seminar at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)- Philippine Institute for Development Seminar Series, the Asia-Pacific Policy Center said that OFWs spend less money and time with their children when they are between the ages of 13 and 16. The neglect of parental guidance can lead to social problems, such as teenagers turning to drugs, engaging in premarital sex, and other delinquent acts. According to UNICEF, approximately 6 million children suffer the consequences of parents going overseas to find jobs. Those parents are forced to leave the rearing of their children to others, and in a family-oriented culture like the Philippines, it can be difficult. Rhacel Parrenas, author of the 2005 book Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes, says that while leaving children behind may be difficult for overseas workers, Filipino families make up for what is missing. 20 “What the book really does is it counters this notion that children inherently suffer if they’re physically apart from their parents,” says Parrenas. “Families are resilient and people are resilient and they adjust.” Parrenas says when mothers and fathers leave, aunts and grandparents raise their family’s children. She believes stereotyping children who are left behind as delinquents is a backlash against migrant women, but recognizes the sacrifices OFWs make does come at a high cost. “It takes a long time to adjust,” says Parrenas. To counterbalance the absence of parents and the changing landscape of the Filipino family, the Department of Social Welfare and Development offers services for returning OFWs and their children. For Belinda Chavez’s son “Ronnie,” hope was the only thing he and other children of OFWs had to cling to when they faced separation from their parents. “I believed one day, coming [to America], we will be together again,” says Chavez, who moved to the United States with his father in 2002 when he was 20 years old to reunite with his mother and forced to assimilate into a new country. “The difference here and there is you can eat what rich people eat. Ten dollars here you can buy a lot of food, but back in the Philippines, ten pesos you can buy one soft drink and probably one piece of bread.” Though the Chavez family is now together, things are still not easy. Both Ronnie and his father are unable to find steady jobs because their immigration papers are in limbo. Because they are unable to work, Belinda is a caregiver for both her patients and 21 her family. Belinda’s husband drives her and Ronnie to wherever they need to go in the family’s only car. He takes Belinda to work on Wilshire Boulevard, where she works with an elderly patient as a private caretaker. Although she has experienced many difficulties, Chavez says her struggles were necessary to provide for her family back home and to purchase the medicines she needed as a diabetic. Her life seems to be slowing down and she no longer has to worry about leaving her family behind or making enough money to make ends meet. For her friend, Josephine Palmaira, the worries only continue. She still remits money to her daughters to pay for their education, takes care of her autistic son, and co- exists in a crowded one-bedroom apartment with five other people. For both of them, life appears to be very far removed from the place they grew up, along the tropical shores of the Philippines, where they earned college degrees, but couldn’t subsist on their measly salaries. In America, Palmaira, Chavez and Lajo are all caregivers for their patients, for their families, on this land and overseas in the Philippines. As she sits at her kitchen table, Chavez yawns slightly. Tomorrow, she will start work again, caring for patients, providing for her family. She is a world away from her homeland, where she ate mangos and lumpia, danced in tsinelas, and played with her friends in the heat, mentioning in her charming, forthcoming way that it is too cold in Los Angeles. But she is content. “As long as we live on a day to day basis, it’s okay with us,” says Chavez, her squinty eyes poring forward. “Una una lang,” she adds. We take care of what we need to first. 22 Bibliography Chavez, Belinda. Personal Interview. 19 January 2008. Chavez, Randy. Personal Interview. 21 January 2008. “Consumer Expectations Survey: 2007 Fourth Quarter.” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. 7 Dec. 2007. 1 March 2008. <http://www.bsp.gov.ph/publications/regular_consumer.asp>. Coronel, F.K., and F. Unterreiner. “Increasing the Impact of Remittances on Children’s Rights: Philippines Paper.” UNICEF. Jan. 2007: 6. Edillon, Rosemarie. PIDS-UNICEF Forum Series on Public Policies and the Rights of Children. C.P. Makati City, Philippines. 21 February 2008. Filipino Nannies. 17 February 2008. 14 March 2008. <http://filipinonannies.net/>. Heinritz-Canterbury, Janet. Personal Interview. 1 February 2008. “Overseas Filipino Investors.” Editorial. Philippines Today: Online Edition. 15 Oct-14 Nov 2001. Philippines Today. 28 Mar. 2008. < http://www.philippinestoday.net/October2001/editorial1001.htm>. Lajo, Normita. Personal Interview. 1 February 2008. Llorente, Rica. Phone Interview. 31 January 2008. “OF Remittances Hit US$14.4 Billion in 2007; Exceed Forecast by US$100 Million.” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. 15 Feb. 2008. 1 March 2008. <http://www.bsp.gov.ph/publications/media.asp?id=1757>. OFW-Connect. 17 February 2008. 14 March 2008. <http://www.ofw-connect.com/>. Palmaira, Josephine. Personal Interview. 12 January 2008. Park, Yuhngsun. Phone Interview. 12 February 2008. Parrenas, Rhacel. Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Parrenas, Rhacel. Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005. 23 Philippines. Overseas Employment Administration. Compendium of OFW Statistics. Mandaluyong City: 2006. Pinoy Connect. 17 February 2008. 14 March 2008.<http://pinoyconnect.promos.yahoo.com/>. Quinto, Nap. Personal Interview. 1 February 2008. Soriano-Versoza, Aquilina. Personal Interview. 6 December 2007. Su, Julie. Phone Interview. 31 January 2008. Migration and Remittances Factbook. March 2008. The World Bank. 12 March 2008. <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/Resources/334934- 1199807908806/Philippines.pdf>. The World Factbook: Philippines. 2008. Central Intelligence Agency. 1 March 2008 <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/print/rp.html>.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Nearly 10 million Filipinos live or work in countries other than the Philippines. In fact, so many Filipinos leave their homeland to find work that they are their country' s biggest export and even have their own acronym -- OFWs, Overseas Filipino Workers. They leave the Philippines in hopes of making better money, but oftentimes work the low-wage jobs requiring minimum skills and little experience, like caregiving.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Asset Metadata

Creator Paranada, Daryl Jay (author)

Core Title The overseas sacrifice: caregivers who immigrate to the U.S. work long hours for little pay, but help keep their home country's economy afloat

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Print Journalism)

Publication Date 12/31/2011

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag caregivers,Filipino,OAI-PMH Harvest,OFW,Philippines

Place Name Philippines (countries), USA (countries)

Language English

Advisor Gutierrez, Felix (committee chair), Castaneda, Laura (committee member), Enrile, Annalisa (committee member)

Creator Email paranada@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1152

Unique identifier UC1108222

Identifier etd-Paranada-20080418 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-59420 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1152 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Paranada-20080418.pdf

Dmrecord 59420

Document Type Thesis

Rights Paranada, Daryl Jay

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu