Giving a Voice to the vast network of Filipino Migrants Worldwide – A book recommendation of “A Good Provider is One Who Leaves” (by Jason DeParle 2020)

 

Jason DeParle’s “A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves” paints a vivid picture of a Filipino migrant family’s journey to the United States, the complications they faced and the often subtle and nuanced adaptations they made as they navigated the ups and downs of global immigration. The story starts with NY Times reporter DeParle’s arrival nearly 30 years ago in Manila where he was interested in reporting on Filippino shantytowns. Looking to rent, DeParle abruptly starts boarding with Tita Comodas, an unwitting Leveriza resident who reluctantly takes DeParle in. DeParle carefully catalogues his surroundings and paints a picture of the living conditions of his new environment: proliferating with rats, wads of newspaper filled with human feces, called “flying saucers,” and higher-end jobs barely paying $2 a day, a little more than the World Bank’s current definition of extreme poverty.

Yet DeParle’s depiction of the immense poverty of Leveriza also reveals persevering hope, determination, resiliency and loyalty to family in the form of its people: living side by side within mere feet of their neighbors, Filipinos raised their families seeking prosperity through schooling and work abroad, many spurred on by faith in the will of God. It is in these circumstances that we meet the main focus of DeParle’s book: Rosalie, a 15 year old schoolgirl, the middle child of Tita’s children, and future Texas nurse and mother. It is through her eyes that we learn about the many migrant journeys of her relatives.

Rosalie and family celebrating Kristine’s 13th birthday party.

The constant tension between hardship and hope is a persistent theme in the journey of the Portuganas, as DeParle chronicles their movement from the Philippines to Saudi Arabia and eventually the United States. Spanning decades and punctuated by state-of-the-art studies on global migration (by Dilip Ratha (World Bank) , Dean Yang (University of Chicago)  and the 2017 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study of the fiscal consequences of immigrants), what doubles as a meticulous scientific investigation into the forces behind immigration showcases at its heart the very human dimension of the migrant story, illuminating often overlooked nuances of Filippino culture.

DeParle painstakingly catalogues the data that help explain the Portuganas’ migration trajectory: Emet makes $50 a month as a pool cleaner in Manila as opposed to $500 a month as a pool cleaner in Dhahran, and Rosalie moves from $110 a month as a Filippino nurse to $375 a month as a nurse in Mecca, and eventually $30 an hour in Galveston, Texas. Rosalie’s visa for travel to the US equaled $190, excluding the friends and family whose visas Rosalie also paid for. Stressing the importance of Filipino workers as an immigrant  group in the United States, DeParle notes that Filippine immigrants rank number 4 in size, trailing behind Mexicans, Indians, and Chinese, respectively. With regard to nursing, foreign born and trained nurses compose a fifth of the workforce in populous states like New York, and in California compose a fourth of the workforce, with more than a third of this group being Filipino.

Origins of foreign nurses working abroad, with the Philippines sending more nurses to work abroad than the next 3 nations combined. Source: OECD Health Statistics 2019, DIOC 2015/16 and LFS 2015/16.

DeParle doesn’t shy away from the national discussion of the financial costs of immigrants, and includes a National Academy study that discusses the economics of immigrants such as Rosalie. An immigrant family lacking high school education could cost federal, state, and local governments $225,000 over 75 years, but a college-educated immigrant like Rosalie could produce a net gain of $504,000 on their own. 

DeParle, however, also captures the cultural motivations that nudge Rosalie’s family along and the importance of networks all over the world. In Mecca, Rosalie befriends her Filippino coworkers and meets her future husband Chris Villanueva during a dinner at a Chinese restaurant. When Rosalie and her family move to Texas, they ecstatically rush to the local Jollibee on its opening day, waiting for hours to get Filipino fast food, to stave off their feelings of homesickness. The importance of video chat is also apparent through Rosalie’s video chats with her children and later on Kristine’s chats with Rowena, Rosalie’s sister and a motherly figure to Kristine. Video calling serves as a vital lifeline between Rosalie’s family in the states to her extended family living in the Philippines. The importance of having a sense of belonging also manifests itself through Rosalie moving into a house adjacent to her Filipina coworkers in a cul-de-sac, creating a sort of Filipino cultural sphere resulting in cultural camaraderie and close friendships. In purchasing homes together, DeParle also shows how the immigrant story in the United States can build up US investment through immigrants contributing to the country through their homes and their taxes.

Houston Jollibee that Rosalie and her family visited.

Obstacles also work against Rosalie and her family in her migration efforts. In attempting to acquire her and her family’s visas, Rosalie had to take nursing tests and English language tests to enter the states multiple times in order to gain her work authorization. The visa queue also resulted in more than 8 years of waiting for Rosalie and her family, during which Rosalie was unable to physically spend time with her children due to her working abroad. Arriving in the US, Rosalie and her family also had to navigate tensions with US natives and other minority groups, such as in Chris’s differences with his coworkers or even dealing with pressures within Galveston’s own Filipino community through the local school’s lemonade fundraising event. Rosalie was also forced to contend with her children’s newfound sense of cultural identity as Americans. 

By the end of the story, the family’s hardships and triumphs create a bittersweet moment of clarity for the reader: in moving her family to the States, Rosalie unintentionally Amercanizes her children, separating them from their Filippino heritage that she treasures greatly, but also cementing their identity as United States citizens. It is with a sense of pride that Rosalie tells DeParle that she’s going to her home, that, “the U.S. is my home.”

In spite of DeParle’s direct involvement at times in helping Rosalie in getting to the United States and protecting her family and interests, which some reviewers have negatively received, I believe DeParle’s genuine concern and work to assist the Portugana’s is a breath of fresh air in a field of study about human beings. That DeParle broke his investigative journalistic distance at times to help the Portuganas is not a lamentable disintegration of the tenants of journalistic investigation, but rather an emblematic and precedential effort demonstrating how journalism can reach beyond its displaced and observant lens to be an empowering human-centric component of learning.

It is a long and arduous and honorable path that Rosalie travels to get her family to where they are. DeParle demonstrates that, in showing the nonlinear path of one Filippino migrant family’s journey to the United States, that the growing global migrant population is not a monolithic story. Immigrants have a significant and diversified impact on the United States and across the world; and they are in no small part a significant driving force in the international field. DeParle’s book shows there is fruitful knowledge to be gained through empathetic investigation, and the story of the Portuganas is an important first step into revealing the rich and relatively unknown story of Filippine immigrants in the United States. 

Authored by Jeffrey Justin Ashbeck (UCSB '18 (philosophy), JD (anticipated) '24) and Cynthia Bansak (Professor of Economics, St. Lawrence University) 

Email contacts: jeff.jash@gmail.com and cbansak@stlawu.edu 

(https://www.clippings.me/users/jeffreyjustinashbeck)

(https://www.stlawu.edu/people/cynthia-bansak)