Acts of protest often serve as memory checks, summoning responses that plead for a more just society. Protest and memory, a sense of right and wrong, are linked in a collective conscience. A shared sentiment of ethics propels human rights defenders to demand equality. This dynamic, one that seems to echo in modern human experience, remains active with protests against the human rights violations of the current regime of the Philippine dictator Rodrigo Duterte. This repeated tragedy of oppression and injustice rhymes and parallels with my own family's experience in fleeing the Philippines under the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the early 1970s. I still remember the sense of urgency as my parents gathered their lives and abandoned all they knew, bringing my brother and me to an unknown and cold future. Now, our calls for justice, speak of this remembered and shared history of oppression, poverty and migration.
According to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, there are over 10 million Filipino workers in over 200 countries all over the world. Women comprise over half of these overseas workers. Due to severe economic factors in the Philippines and a lack of sustainable policies to employ women, the shortage of opportunities drives women to emigrate. These women work worldwide in the domestic service industry as nannies and maids, and also in the medical profession, many as nurses. There are also a number who leave to become marriage migrants and au pairs. My current work has focused on the issues of these Filipino women, these Filipinas.
I have been photographing a Filipina organization called Gabriela New York, a local branch of Gabriela USA which is a grassroots alliance of women advocating for human rights. Named after Gabriela Silang, an eighteenth century Filipino revolutionary heroine who struggled against Spanish colonization in the Philippines, Gabriela NY works to create community for women of Philippine descent, educating the Filipino diaspora on the struggles of women in the Philippines. Each member of the organization is commonly known as a "Gabriela". Memorializing the heroine is part of each member's identity.the role of memory in shaping these women's multi-layered identities and complex connection to the Philippines.
