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    They Say Filipina Is Another Name

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    Charry Ferolino
    The document discusses two Filipina women working as maids in Hong Kong who encounter the author and her colleague on their day off. One of the maids describes facing abuse from her previous employer and another maid who committed suicide. The author bonds with one of the maids by braiding her hair, seeing her as a sister. The maids then take the author and her colleague to meet with others, where they share a meal and exchange news and letters from home.

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    They Say Filipina Is Another Name

    Uploaded by

    Charry Ferolino
    4K views2 pages
    The document discusses two Filipina women working as maids in Hong Kong who encounter the author and her colleague on their day off. One of the maids describes facing abuse from her previous employer and another maid who committed suicide. The author bonds with one of the maids by braiding her hair, seeing her as a sister. The maids then take the author and her colleague to meet with others, where they share a meal and exchange news and letters from home.

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    THEY SAY FILIPINA IS ANOTHER NAME

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    The document discusses two Filipina women working as maids in Hong Kong who encounter the author and her colleague on their day off. One of the maids describes facing abuse from her previous employer and another maid who committed suicide. The author bonds with one of the maids by braiding her hair, seeing her as a sister. The maids then take the author and her colleague to meet with others, where they share a meal and exchange news and letters from home.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    4K views2 pages

    They Say Filipina Is Another Name

    Uploaded by

    Charry Ferolino
    The document discusses two Filipina women working as maids in Hong Kong who encounter the author and her colleague on their day off. One of the maids describes facing abuse from her previous employer and another maid who committed suicide. The author bonds with one of the maids by braiding her hair, seeing her as a sister. The maids then take the author and her colleague to meet with others, where they share a meal and exchange news and letters from home.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    THEY SAY FILIPINA IS ANOTHER NAME

         FOR MAID
    by Luisa A. Igloria
    Our Overseas Contract Workers are the new heroes
    of the Philippines --Fidel V. Ramos

    In Hong Kong last summer


    my office mate and I took
    turns, smiling for pictures
    in front of "The Court of Final
    Appeal," as a joke, or maybe
    in a kind of atonement--because
    two women boarding the same
    ferry we took that morning said,
    in the dialect they were sure
    we would recognize, Is it
    your day off too?

    One of them had a quick, nervous way


    of smiling, as if ready to take it back
    if we had turned on them with
    indignation. The other was clearly
    ready to challenge, if the well-
    intentioned expression of solidarity
    were read otherwise. It was a day
    filled with rainclouds, a sky
    the color of aluminum, the dull
    sheen on the inside of an old
    rice cooker.

    Yes, we smiled, it's our day, off


    too. Is your amo kind? ventured the younger
    of the two, shyly. Yes, we said, thinking of the air-
    conditioned offices and computers we had left behind
    for two weeks of r & r, as we leant back on the green
    railing. The boat punched forward, toward the red
    and yellow buildings, the rickshaws lined up
    in the shade.

    Mine too, she said; now. But the first one…


    and her voice trailed like a scarf over the water,
    hesitating. We had to force our way in,
    said her friend, picking up the thread. I called
    the center, you know, the one near the church?
    Migrante. She was this close to being raped.
    Did you hear about the last one? The one
    who threw herself off the hospital roof?
    Instead of an autopsy they scraped
    her insides clean, stuffed her
    with cotton. Now no one can
    prove anything.

    If the body can keep secrets, what can it tell


    of them? The body as a scroll: what calligraphy,
    what message, did that woman's family unwrap
    when they received her body aerogrammed
    in a bronze casket? For so many dollars,
    you can get your name carved
    in ideographs on an inked stamp
    that is also called a chop.

    The shy one asks me to braid her hair.


    She calls me ate, older sister. She shows me
    the scar on her left leg from shimmying
    down a mango tree in their old backyard
    at home. She has just turned nineteen,
    and her smile can still be
    warm as a ripe mango.

    I run my fingers through the ink of her hair,


    dividing into three sections. What was loose
    and rippling in the wind, she has let me gather
    in my hand. I braid, picking up the faint scent
    of coconut oil; yeasty, warm, like good bread,
    rising. She could be my daughter, my niece,
    my cousin, my best friend.

    Our new friends take us to the Central Station


    where they will share a picnic meal
    with others: garlic pork and rice, sour
    broth, rice cakes, meat stewed in blood
    gravy. They will talk, exchange
    numbers, letters, news of better
    openings, the meanings of insults
    in a foreign language; pictures of grade
    school children proudly stepping up
    to receive medals on closing
    day at school. Their hands
    the size of their sleeping
    quarters.

    Even on their day off, the army


    ponders the different ways
    to share strength in the many
    lands of the enemy, abroad
    where they are known

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