When
reading Parreñas’ book on transnational workers from the Philippines, I
was reminded of the Israeli film מדוזות (Jellyfish in English). The
film follows three women living in Israel through a relatively short
time in their lives. One of the women, Joy, is from the Philippines.
She is working as a caretaker for elderly people, despite knowing only a
very small amount of Hebrew. Throughout the course of the film, she is
shown making long-distance telephone calls to her son in the
Philippines while out and about with her clients. For most of the film,
she is working with one client in particular, who has a fraught
relationship with her daughter. Soon after she meets this client (who
says rude things to her in Hebrew that she cannot understand), Joy
realizes that she has lost a picture of her son that she carried in her
wallet, which upsets her greatly. Joy eventually manages to help the
client and her daughter reconcile. She then tries to purchase a toy
boat as a birthday present for her son, only to see that it has already
been bought. After she returns upset to her client’s house, she sees
the boat in a bag and realizes that her client has bought the boat for
her.
I
mention this film to help illustrate the prevalence of gendered notions
of family and work. Joy does not get a job doing something not
requiring Hebrew proficiency, but instead selects a position requiring
her to converse with elderly people who do not speak English well. This
reflects the attitudes toward the kinds of work that are appropriate
for women. A position enabling her to conform more closely to gender
norms is better than one that is simpler in a practical sense. The fact
that this gendered notion is portrayed in a film written and directed
by Israelis indicates a certain level of familiarity with the concept.
Israeli people in the film are not surprised that Joy is Filipino; they
are surprised that she cannot speak Hebrew effectively.
In
addition to Joy’s selection of a caretaking job, her efforts to take
care of her son from a great distance away indicate a desire to keep the
family dynamic as close to the ideal as possible. Despite the fact
that Joy’s son is with relatives in the Philippines, Joy calls him
regularly to converse with him and make sure that he is doing well.
When she discovers that she has lost his picture, her reaction is very
emotional. She is not just upset that she has lost the picture; she is
also upset that she did not notice losing it. This indicates that she
is aware of the irony inherent in working so far away taking care of
unrelated people in order to take care of her son that she cannot take
care of her son in the socially accepted manner.
She
goes to buy the boat because she realizes that she has become so
wrapped up in helping her client reconcile with her daughter that she
neglected her responsibility to her son. She feels so upset when it is
gone because she feels that she has failed in her responsibility to her
son. The boat would be a tangible reminder to everyone involved that
Joy does indeed care about and for her son. The fact that her client
has bought the boat for her also indicates a certain level of shared
ideas of familial responsibility. Her client realizes that Joy needs to
bring her relationship with her son more in line with the social ideas
of familial relationships.
Pratt
and Yeoh’s article provides some helpful ideas about what to do with
the information gained about similarities between Israeli and Filipino
conceptions of familial gender roles. In order to construct a counter
topography, the processes by which these roles are acted out and
subverted need to be explored in more depth. Then the ways those
processes differ based on national context need to be identified and
explored. How might we go about identifying and exploring these
processes? What issues might arise in using the artistic products of
one location to begin exploring the strategies of real people in another
location? How might the processes and ideas identified in the book and
article influence the interpretation of the artistic products?
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