Care Amidst Discrimination

Van Cliburn M. Tibus

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be as wary as serpents, and as innocent as doves.”

- Matthew 10:16

Imagine yourself being uprooted from your homeland, separated from your family and community to provide care to foreigners who resent you for being there. You look different and you sound different, yet the other person completely depends on you because you are a nurse or a caregiver. The irony is you left your family and even left your children to the care of your grandparents or other relatives because your professional skills are needed in other countries which pay better than your homeland. Like the Jewish people scattered into a diaspora after they were defeated by the Babylonians, the Filipino people are forced to serve in developed countries out of economic need. This is why there is a diaspora of Filipino nurses and caregivers across the world.

When the global pandemic hit, our people were lauded as heroes and at the same time subject to discrimination, especially when they were working in a foreign land. Yet despite the obstacles facing our people, they were instruments of God reflecting divine love, care, and sacrifice, especially our Filipino nurses in the United States, who were at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic. Faith enabled them to overcome the challenges of racism, anti-vaxxers, discrimination, stress due to mental health, and serious health concerns. The caring spirit of the Filipino for the sick and the elderly embodied the healing characteristics of the Holy Spirit. We will discuss three themes of this journey. First, the diaspora of the Filipino people.

Second, the challenges of the global pandemic brought about by COVID-19. And finally, the resiliency that derives from Filipinos’ Christian faith and reflects the empowering and healing presence of the Holy Spirit.

Diaspora of the Filipinos

The word “diaspora” comes from the biblical experience of the Jewish people when Babylon conquered Judea and displaced the Jews, scattering them across the Babylonian Empire. As globalization became a reality in the modern era, more people began migrating from one country to another. This is how biblical scholars Shively Smith and Zoe Towler understand diaspora:

In its Greek noun form, diaspora means the condition of living as a scattered or dispersed collective group spread widely across a region or regions. Yet diaspora has grown to mean more than simply a state of being spread across a vast territory or having to live “elsewhere” while connected and committed to an original homeland. Diaspora also conveys the experience of managing multiple land and kinship group identities. It is a state or discourse of a people that engages matters related to space, place, time, culture, etiquette, and experiences of being a collective group in lands beyond the lands of their kinspeople or origin.

The experience of the Filipino people falls under this category. The Philippines is currently ranked fifty-second out of sixty-four economies in the world, so many Filipino professionals seek greener pastures abroad, especially in the United States. One of the most lucrative job opportunities is in the field of nursing, where the monthly pay in the U.S. is $6,416 compared to $625 in the Philippines. While technically the Philippines was a former colony of the U.S., after World War II when both Filipino and American forces resisted and drove out the Japanese, the relations between the two countries deepened, and the majority of the Filipinos look up to and even dream of making it big in America. Hence, the field of nursing and a job in the U.S. is a ticket to a better life. According to “Asianews” out of nearly one million nurses in the Philippines, one third work abroad; meanwhile, the Philippines is experiencing a shortfall of some 130,000 nurses, with some nurses taking care of twenty to fifty patients per shift.

Challenges of the pandemic

When the global pandemic hit and the United States was leading the world in terms of cases and even deaths, none were hit harder than Filipino nurses. In a revealing article, Usha Lee McFarling, a national science correspondent for STAT, wrote that Filipino workers were at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. Working without protective equipment, putting in long hours of overtime, and being assigned to extreme medical cases, Filipino nurses took the brunt of the pandemic. Many senior nurses succumbed to the disease when they were only a few years away from retirement. They took on the cases because Filipinos are generally hardworking, follow authority, and would rather obey than complain. Because they tend to agree to take on long hours and just do the job, they are subject to abuse by their fellow workers and even racially discriminated against. Because Filipinos are from Asia and can have Asian features, they were viewed suspiciously by their patients, especially since the virus was believed to have originated in Wuhan, China.

I experienced this studying for my PhD in South Africa and having an Asian appearance; people called me “Chinese” when the pandemic hit. At the height of the pandemic and in isolation far from home, my wife and I managed to have an online Bible study group with fellow Filipinos who found themselves abroad, and most of them were Filipino nurses. Our friends were telling us their stories of being assigned to isolation units, the constant overtime since their fellow nurses did not report for work, and praying every day that they are safe while continuing to perform their duties as nurses. Nurses were looked upon as potential carriers of the virus and every time they come home, their neighbors were wary of them. Even back in the Philippines, worried neighbors and others avoided nurses, and the worries and even suspicion appeared to be worse in foreign countries like the United States, where racial tensions were very strong. Filipino spirituality and Christian faith enabled these Filipino nurses to overcome these circumstances.

Caring spirit of the Filipino

Now we might say, “Why don’t the Filipino nurses just speak out and demand their right to safety in order to avoid the unnecessary risk of being contaminated?” Of course, they have the choice, yet when it comes to providing care, Filipinos are really selfless. It is in our culture to have a caring spirit. In the Philippines a vitally important character trait is malasakit. As Ferdinand Tablan explains:

[Malasakit] is the virtue of selfless concern for others’ well-being through caring, emotional involvement, compassion, and commitment without demanding anything in return … Thus, Malasakit is often translated as emphatic caring. Although Malasakit comes during times of tragedy, it is also practiced in daily activities. It is all about alleviating pain, even if no successful solution is found to a problem … Malasakit does not involve reciprocity and it can be directed to non-persons (institutions or physical objects) and even to strangers and enemies. It is a virtue that is shown to anyone, including those who do not deserve our caring, and even to those who do not ask to be cared for or be helped.6

Research has shown that when managers and teachers exhibit malasakit to their workers and students, they are effective in their governance as their subordinates show their full support and respect.7 As Tablan says:

Like the parent-image in the family, business leaders are supposed to be nurturing and firm, able to show [solidarity] and Malasakit and at the same time, capable of disciplining members who are stubbornly self-centered and uncooperative. Management should welcome employees when they share family concerns at work. While they are not expected to solve personal problems of their employees, the mere act of listening, coupled with comforting words and expression of empathy, is already an example of Malasakit of managers that employees will deeply appreciate.8

Despite the intense challenges they faced, Filipino nurses were able to show malasakit to the patients. It is interesting because the word “sakit” literally means pain. Putting the word “ma” and “sakit” for the word “malasakit” literally means “shared pain.” Thus malasakit is defined as emphatic caring because we Filipinos “share the pain,” highlighting the communal nature of our identity as a people. This is the reason that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Filipino nurses took on the task of the enormous burden of caring for patients, because it is deeply ingrained into our cultural identity to provide care. I believe this malasakit spirit comes from the caring and healing spirituality of the Holy Spirit. This cultural characteristic is the reason why Christianity took root in the Philippines, because it closely coincides with the “shared pain” or malasakit of Jesus with humanity on the cross. During the pandemic and in the face of racial discrimination, Filipino nurses reflected God’s love to all who desperately needed it.

Conclusion

Matthew 10:16, cited at the beginning of this article, addresses the plight of the Filipino nurses who are being sent out as “sheep in the midst of wolves.” In the face of discrimination and an atmosphere of distrust and bigotry, which was especially powerful in the divisive political sphere of American politics, Filipino nurses and caregivers were sustained and remained faithful to the cultural characteristic of malasakit, the shared pain or empathetic caring that is a reflection of God’s unending love to all of creation. While the pandemic highlights the suffering and brokenness of this world, God continues to send faithful witnesses to remind all of us of the unchanging, divine love which we receive and which we share through Jesus Christ.

NOTES

1. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo9780195393361/obo-9780195393361-0294.xml Accessed in July 15, 2023

2.https://www.bworldonline.com/top-stories/2023/06/20/529563/phlcompetitiveness-ranking-dips-report/#:~:text=In%20its%202023%20World%20 Competitiveness,from%2048th%20in%202022.&text=This%20year%27s%20drop%20marked%20the,in%20the%20Asia%2DPacific%20region. Accessed in July 15, 2023

3. https://yaledailynews.com/sjp/2022/09/12/longer-hours-smaller-numbers-filipino-nursesand-mass-migration/#:~:text=Nurses%20working%20in%20public%20hospitals,Bureau%20of%20 Labor%20and%20Statistics. Accessed in July 15, 2023

4. https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Out-of-nearly-a-million-registered-nurses-in-thePhilippines,-one-third-work-abroad-58601.html#:~:text=The%20Professional%20Regulation%20 Commission%20puts,Singapore%2C%20and%20the%20United%20States. Accessed July 21, 2023.

5. https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/28/coronavirus-taking-outsized-toll-on-filipino-american-nurses/ accessed in July 15, 2023

6. Tablan, F. 2021. “Filipino Virtue Ethics and Meaningful Work,” Humanities Bulletin, 4(1):27.

7. For further discussion look at the studies of Tablan; Peregrina, H. N. 2019. “Malasakit: The Unexamined Pedagogical Practices And Emotional Care Work Of Pin@Y Educators,” Unpublished master’s thesis. San Francisco, California: San Francisco State University.; and Selmer, J. & De Leon, C. 2001. Pinoy-style HRM: Human resource management in the Philippines. Asia Pacific Business Review, 8(1):127-144.

8. Tablan, 37.

Van Cliburn Tibis, PhD, is dean and assistant professor at Silliman University Divinity School in Dumaguete City, Philippines. He earned his PhD in missiology from Stellenbosch University in South Africa in 2022.