Why Are There So Many Filipino Nurses In The U.S.? | AJ+ — Transcript

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1. 0:00immigrants we get the job done or so the
2. 0:02song goes so we all know that when it
3. 0:05comes to labor the United States loves
4. 0:07immigrants and one of the most unique
5. 0:09stories of American immigration and
6. 0:11labor actually comes from the
7. 0:14Philippines in particular it's the story
8. 0:16of Filipino women who became nurses
9. 0:18throughout the country's hospitals hey
10. 0:20guys I'm sana this is AJ plus and this
11. 0:22Sunday I want to talk a bit about why
12. 0:24there are so many Filipino nurses in the
13. 0:26United States and what that says about
14. 0:28the history of Filipino Americans and
15. 0:30Filipino labor okay so you might be
16. 0:39saying so now the u.s. has a lot of
17. 0:42Filipino nurses yep here's what's up
18. 0:44back into other 15 a foreign-born
19. 0:46filipinos made up the fourth largest
20. 0:48group of immigrants in the country and
21. 0:50the majority of Filipinos are in
22. 0:51California where they make up 20% of the
23. 0:53nursing force which is impressive when
24. 0:55you consider that they only make up
25. 0:57about 4% of the state's population now
26. 0:59it's easy to think of the Philippines as
27. 1:01all the way over there and the United
28. 1:04States right over here
29. 1:05but dr. Katherine sneeze a joy who wrote
30. 1:07the book Empire of Care says that
31. 1:09imagining Filipinos as simply foreigners
32. 1:11actually erases a history between the
33. 1:13countries
34. 1:13Filipinos and Tiffany certain groups of
35. 1:17Filipino immigrant workers like in the
36. 1:21grand nurses are not foreigners and the
37. 1:24way we tend to think that foreigners
38. 1:28they actually have historical
39. 1:30interactions with American and that
40. 1:33interaction begins like so many other
41. 1:35immigrant interactions with colonization
42. 1:36the Spanish colonized and ruled the
43. 1:39archipelago we now call the Republic of
44. 1:41the Philippines for a few centuries in
45. 1:431898 the Americans and the Spanish went
46. 1:45to war and it ended with the signing of
47. 1:47the Treaty of Paris as a result the
48. 1:48Americans got a lot of territories from
49. 1:51the Spanish one of which was the
50. 1:52Philippines but the people of the
51. 1:53islands didn't welcome the Americans
52. 1:55they wanted their independence not more
53. 1:57colonizers that resistance led to the
54. 1:59three-year long Philippines American War
55. 2:01from 1899 to 1902 and it was fought
56. 2:04between US forces and Filipino
57. 2:06nationalists and it was a brutal war for
58. 2:08Filipinos it killed 20,000 combatants
59. 2:10and two
60. 2:11hundred thousand civilians as a result
61. 2:13of the violence diseases like cholera
62. 2:14and malaria and even famine when the war
63. 2:17ended the Philippines came under the
64. 2:18colonial control of the United States
65. 2:20and that's when the story of the
66. 2:22Filipino nurses begins like in its other
67. 2:24colonies the United States began the
68. 2:25Americanization of the islands after
69. 2:27setting up a government in the
70. 2:28Philippines
71. 2:29you also had American colonial officials
72. 2:32going to the Philippines and exposing
73. 2:35Filipinos to American culture to the
74. 2:38English language to Americanized
75. 2:41education and this kind of training
76. 2:45influenced so many different groups of
77. 2:48Filipinos to dream about the US and to
78. 2:52desire to migrate their American health
79. 2:54workers in the Philippines needed locals
80. 2:56to deal with the health issues of
81. 2:57Filipinos because malaria and cholera
82. 2:59had killed so many during the war but
83. 3:01they didn't find any nurses trained the
84. 3:04way the Americans had been trained and
85. 3:05so they began recruiting Filipino women
86. 3:07to work as what were called volunteer
87. 3:09auxiliary and contract nurses around the
88. 3:11same time in 1903 President William Taft
89. 3:13passed a law that allowed and funded
90. 3:15certain Filipino students to study in
91. 3:17American colleges and this led to the
92. 3:19first wave of Filipino nurses coming to
93. 3:21the United States and it also led to a
94. 3:23lot of the nurses staying
95. 3:24they even established their presence
96. 3:26with organizations like the Philippine
97. 3:27Nurses Association of New York and the
98. 3:30waves of Filipino nurse migration
99. 3:31continued throughout the 20th century
100. 3:33especially as the United States opened
101. 3:35up its borders a bit more during World
102. 3:37War two more Filipino nurses were
103. 3:39trained to serve in the US military and
104. 3:40during the same time the Philippines
105. 3:42came under Japanese occupation after the
106. 3:44war ended the United States granted the
107. 3:46territory independence in 1946 and two
108. 3:48years later the State Department
109. 3:50introduced the exchange visitor program
110. 3:51a little something created to push back
111. 3:54against Soviet influence you know bring
112. 3:56more people into the United States and
113. 3:57show them what the capitalist good life
114. 3:59is actually all about because of the
115. 4:01decades-long colonial relationship and
116. 4:03education and English language the
117. 4:05Philippines became a model country for
118. 4:07the program and the nurses led the way
119. 4:09the program was so successful that it
120. 4:11actually encouraged more Filipinos to go
121. 4:13into nursing the number of nurses in the
122. 4:15Philippines jumped over 700 percent from
123. 4:177,000 in 1948 to over 57,000 in 1953 the
124. 4:23program also encouraged
125. 4:24building of more nursing schools in the
126. 4:26Philippines back in 1940 there were only
127. 4:2810 and today 429 that program in
128. 4:31addition to the 1965 Immigration Act
129. 4:33opened up the borders even more for
130. 4:35educated Filipinos and so by 1973 we end
131. 4:38up seeing over 12,000 Filipino nurses
132. 4:41immigrated to the United States but I
133. 4:43gotta mention this it wasn't just
134. 4:44because of American immigration policies
135. 4:46that so many Filipinos were migrating to
136. 4:49the u.s. in the 1970s with President
137. 4:51Ferdinand Marcos who ruled under martial
138. 4:53law a policy of labor export was
139. 4:55introduced the whole idea behind the
140. 4:57export of labor was that Filipinos would
141. 4:59travel abroad on war contracts make
142. 5:01money send it back home and thus help a
143. 5:03struggling economy the government even
144. 5:05created an agency that directly provided
145. 5:07migrant labour to foreign governments
146. 5:09and companies that policy pretty much
147. 5:11made the Philippines one of the top
148. 5:12exporters of labor I mean check this
149. 5:14about 10% of all Filipinos are foreign
150. 5:17workers that's around 10 million people
151. 5:19in around 170 different countries and
152. 5:21did the policy of exporting labor
153. 5:23actually worked for the economy well for
154. 5:24decades the Philippines has been one of
155. 5:26the top five recipients of money
156. 5:28transfers for migrant labor
157. 5:30shoutout to Western Union not sponsored
158. 5:32take for instance how in 2015 over three
159. 5:35million Filipinos left the country to
160. 5:37work abroad they sent back twenty-eight
161. 5:40point five billion dollars which made up
162. 5:42about a tenth of the Philippines total
163. 5:44GDP so exported labor is a big deal for
164. 5:46the Philippines and it really does get
165. 5:48to the heart of the Filipino immigrant
166. 5:50experience whether in a country like
167. 5:52Saudi Arabia or in the United States and
168. 5:54it's equally important to note that
169. 5:55despite the so-called success of the
170. 5:57export of Filipino labor it's come with
171. 5:59a lot of sacrifice struggle and
172. 6:01vulnerability
173. 6:02take for example Filipino nurses here in
174. 6:04the United States who are professionals
175. 6:06but still face discrimination the
176. 6:07vulnerability of being immigrant nurses
177. 6:10can also be connected to being exploited
178. 6:15by being assigned sometimes the most
179. 6:19undesirable kinds of work on the nursing
180. 6:22floor or being assigned on the most
181. 6:25undesirable ship unfortunately they are
182. 6:29not the kind of challenges we
183. 6:31think about in the United States that
184. 6:34these women would have because they are
185. 6:36professional immigrant workers but even
186. 6:39though exported or imported labor is
187. 6:42central to Filipino migration especially
188. 6:44to the United States that's not the only
189. 6:46part of the Filipino immigrant
190. 6:47experience in the United States
191. 6:49Filipinos both citizens and immigrants
192. 6:51have used their experiences to fight for
193. 6:54workers rights in fact one of the
194. 6:55biggest labor movements in the United
195. 6:57States was sparked by Filipino laborers
196. 6:59in 1965 Filipino grape farm workers in
197. 7:02Delano California went on strike against
198. 7:04poor working conditions and low wages
199. 7:06farm workers across the country joined
200. 7:08in on the strike which eventually led to
201. 7:10an international boycott of grapes the
202. 7:12five-year strike ended with a major win
203. 7:14for the farmworkers they got union
204. 7:15contracts that protected them
205. 7:17so Filipinos immigrants and citizens
206. 7:19have been and remained a central part of
207. 7:22the US as social fabric they've not only
208. 7:24provided labor in industries that needed
209. 7:26it the most but at times have also
210. 7:28protected it so we just covered Filipino
211. 7:31nurses in the United States and we've
212. 7:33also talked in the past about Indian
213. 7:35Americans in the motel industry what are
214. 7:37some other communities immigrant
215. 7:39communities that you want us to cover
216. 7:40let us know in the comments and don't
217. 7:42forget to like share and subscribe and
218. 7:44come back next Sunday when we come at
219. 7:46you with another great video