Review – Beyond greener pastures: exploring contexts surrounding Filipino nurse migration in Canada through oral history

Charlene Ronquillo,a Geertje Boschma, Sabrina T Wonga, and Linda Quiney, “Beyond greener pastures: exploring contexts surrounding Filipino nurse migration in Canada through oral history” Nursing Inquiry 2011; 18(3): 262–27.


Scholarship on Filipino-Canadian history is overwhelmingly represented through the experiences of domestic workers (Live-In Caregivers), underemployed professionals and their children almost always through a Toronto-centric perspective. These authors are rarely ever of Filipino heritage, but quick to underline the economic motivators that urge Filipinos to choose a `better life` in Canada. Exploitation, victimization, deskilling and family separation are prominent themes that describe the Filipino experience in Canada. But, is there something more we’re not discussing? In `Beyond Greener Pastures`, a 2011 article from 3 BC scholars (one  is a Filipina-Canadian nurse), it appears there may be.

Through the oral histories of 9 Filipino nurses from BC and Alberta who migrated from 1974 to 2005, the article investigates non-economic factors that affected their decisions to migrate. Simply, ‘[it] argue[s] that the popularity of immigration for Filipino nurses is not driven solely by economic motives but is also fueled by cultural pressures, the desire for status and an internalized desire to migrate.’ (p.263). Implementing oral history methods, the authors describe how life histories expose the experiences of under-represented communities in Canada albeit through the researcher’s interpretation (and not that of the informant).

They arrive at their thesis by piecing together a range of mentioned motivations to migrate as ‘few interviewees were able to articulate specifically the motivations behind their desire to leave the country’ (p.266). Cultural norms such as ‘obedience and obligation to family’ they argue heavily outweigh ‘the sense of freedom and personal choice in determining career paths’. (p.266) The nursing profession provided informant’s families a sense of prestige, employment and opportunity in the Philippines. They are right to underline that an economic message still resonates in their life histories.

For myself, I feel that I have entered oral history research in the same manner the Filipino author has – in disbelief of the lack of Filipino-Canadian research. She notes that as the sole interviewer, she was able to create an instant connection with her informants. I concur with her goals to create this relationship in research. I am also thrilled that oral histories are being collected and shared among our community in the West. The greater number of stories told will help dispel simplified assumptions of Filipino-Canadian histories across Canada (ie. third-world dissidents, subservient). Instead, the diverse stories across Canada will be told, heard, and drawn into lessons (ie. workers, professionals, children, we are Canadian). The authors urge scholars to consider delving further into this realm of research. I, of course, wish to share in this message.

For students, who wish to reference this work, I would only caution against the article’s over-simplification of the nurse-migration experience from the Philippines. For the 9 informants, the range in time in migration (from 1974 to 2005) I find is too broad. Labour migration policies in the Philippines were hardly stagnant from the time of its inception in the mid 1970s. Its entrenchment into the ‘culture of migration’ (p.266) they mention has much to do with the efforts of several successive Philippine governments, international bodies, and recipient countries (like Canada and its provinces). The article mentions the celebration of nurses specifically as ‘national heroes’ for their efforts to remit funds and thereby replenish depleted coffers (p.267). The bagong bayani (new heroes) slogan actually began in the 1990s by President Fidel Ramos to celebrate all OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) for their contributions to the economy. Nevertheless, we see how nurses and OFWs shift in public perception from being mere migrant workers to new heroes in a matter of decades.

The implications of understanding the ease and incessant ‘need’ to go abroad marks the differing factors informants might have chose to leave. Why family urge their children to study nursing and go abroad, I am sure was not an inherent and timeless cultural motivator, but one that evolved as the Filipino diaspora grew, remittances replenished family bank accounts, and advertisements and nursing schools multiplied (private schools especially) to the point that such desires were inescapable. I feel the authors lumped the experiences of their informants together by omitting any details of the social and political climate found in the differing times of their departure. Perhaps, if this information were made available we would be able to interpret the agency of the informants for ourselves. The choice to obey and support family may be rooted in more than culture.

When we consider future Filipino-Canadian research, I say let’s delve deeper than economic factors and Filipino filial piety too.

See also: 
Charlene Esteban Ronquillo. Immigrant Filipino Nurses in Western Canada: An Exploration of Motivations and Migration experiences through oral history. Thesis for Masters of Science in Nursing. BScN, McGill University, 2007