In a year like no other, immigrant women of all walks of life reflect on the ever-changing meaning of home and belonging
[Opening]
Hello! Welcome to the podcast Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York, a storytelling project from New Women New Yorkers. Real People. Real Lives highlights a diverse picture of immigrant women living in the city. It elevates these narratives, moving beyond statistics and political rhetoric.
In the Summer and Fall of 2020, we interviewed immigrant women of all walks of life. They were selected through an open call or contacted directly, to ensure the participation of women from different backgrounds, and affected by the pandemic in various ways.
The participants talked about their immigrant experience within the backdrop of a year like no other, marked by the pandemic, black lives matter, and the presidential election. Each story you will hear is a unique mix of determination, hope, challenges, and victories – small and big.
Today, meet Potri, a nurse from the Philippines. A member of the Maranao people, a predominantly Muslim indigenous group, she went to nursing school hoping to improve the health and well-being of her people. In the 1990s though, she joined the ranks of Filipino nurses working in the US. After her shift as a nurse, Potri finds time to advocate for the indigenous traditions she left back home through her group.
[Music]
[Potri’s edited interview]
Coming to the US
I didn’t have any intention of coming to the US, I wanted to work with people in the countryside and study indigenous medicine. It was the political condition that drove me away from the Philippines, the Marcos’ regime.
I don’t have any American dream. I came here as a nurse. I’ve been a nurse since 1978 and worked in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and came here in the US so I’m a very seasoned nurse.
We are the number one exporter of nurses in the whole world and the irony, we cannot close our eyes to the irony. What’s that? We are a factory of nurses, just like we are a plantation of United Fruits for banana and pineapple.
Being a nurse abroad is supposed to be celebrated, but it’s not supposed to be celebrated. Being displaced is just to showcase that something is not balanced in the country you came from.
I became the economic source, I don’t want to use that word… I became the ATM, you know ATM? [laughs]. Everybody is asking money from you. It’s not even family, people will ask you….Right now, somebody is asking me that the roof at her house is totally devastated, there’s no place to go. Can you turn your back and this person homeless? At the same time, you are working hard here but you can’t turn your back because you know that landness created great poverty in the Philippines and also your foreign policy has affected so much the situation in the Philippines. I’m part of that cycle: being exported as a nurse when 7 out of 10 Filipinos die without seeing any medical help. The so-called government of the Philippines is not really working for us, the people.
Woman, Indigenous, Muslim
Being a woman is always a struggle. As a woman you have to have a political stance in a society that is very patriarchal and continue work to assert equity.
I grew up in the Maranao people, I’m a Maranao. I grew up among the Maranao and learned all the indigenous legends, epics and myths so I carry that here in the US and my consciousness is still indigenous. At the same time, you know, being a woman is assertion for equity, being indigenous is assertion for equity, being immigrant is assertion for equity, being a colored person is assertion for equity, and being a muslim is assertion for equity. So those are on the top of each other.
Here of course there’s also islamophobia, but the movement here against islamophobia is strong, you have the United Nations, there are muslins coming from all other places, but in the Philippines there is a bias that has been implanted by the Spaniards that we are bad guys.
Life in the pandemic
I work at home actually after all those devastating moments of being a frontliner at the hospital. So now I’m doing work on medical epidemiology, so I’m very much updated on the areas with new onsets.
It was [sighs] an experience that make us humble as a human being and also realizing that the calling of a nurse is beyond physical. It’s like, you are there, and you have to be very steadyfast, very strong spiritually and emotionally. You are caring for patients, these feelings that you are an extension of God’s healing hands. I’m saying that way, but, you know, you have to heal yourself again and again, affirm yourself that you can do it. You yourself are vulnerable to this disease, you can get sick anytime.
The fear is always there but it’s just like a soldier in a war. You know you might die, in a way, but you have to fight, something like that. You know that anytime you get sick and will be one of the patients, like one of those patients you are taking care of. You know that you may or you may not make it also. At the same time, that fear is overcome by the spiritual value: If not you, who? If not you, who was blessed with the knowledge and has the capacity, who will do it? Who will take care of those who are sick? It’s a war zone, where you know you will be hit anytime by the bullet.
I’m afraid of people not wearing masks in the park. I don’t understand using masks like a political tool. Mask is for health. So don’t speak for health if you’re not an expert, that’s all [laughs] Just follow social distancing, follow wearing masks, washing hands, isolating yourself. We just have to remove political definitions of this pandemic, like “Oh covid is easy” and all this. I mean, don’t speak if you don’t have the correct science. Leave to the doctors and to nurses and researchers. Politician has no say. If you wanna talk about the pandemic, then bring experts that has [sic] no bias, no political view, no partisan. Don’t announce as a president that it’s easy to deal with covid. That’s so reckless [laughs]
At home, anywhere
In May 23, 2017, the only Islamic city of Filipino Muslim majority, where I came from, was bombed to the ground and people (…) there so much massacre of indigenous people that’s not even acknowledge.
I really wanted to go home, but how can you go home when you have no more home to go? It was bombed to the ground.
Of course you feel like going home physically, but for me home is a consciousness. You don’t leave home, you carry it with you. That’s what I did, that’s why I created this cultural group, the continuity of being home anywhere.
The culture and tradition I’m bringing here is just to tell the story, how do you call that, to illuminate it. That’s why I call it “Kinding Sindaw”, which means to spark, to light. Through that, we are able to clarify, to change the biases against us Maranao and to show what is our culture and the tradition, that we are not a museum piece that you can just use because we are still alive and if you wanna learn from us, learn from us, don’t just pick a portion of us and create ours, most people who do this, most filipinos, don’t realize that destroys their own heritage. So that’s the purpose of this organization: true art, actually ancestral art, as much as we like to speak to the original version, that’s why we bring here traditions barriers to perform with us and also affect the mind of the people, specially the young, to understand the correct history. Our history is not written, 80% of our history is still oral tradition. Much of our history is written by the colonizer. So that’ s the purpose of the organization: really express through art what is the beauty of the indigenous ancestral art because otherwise it will be forgotten.
As an immigrant, we are here primarily for economic purposes and being an immigrant just surfaces the conditions of our own origin countries. It’s not really compatible with our own dreams [sic] staying back home and being an immigrant is not easy to live away from home and to create another home needs a lot of creativity and ingenuity so what’s important is that we carry that home in our hearts, we carry that consciousness. Here we just have to share our wealth, which means our talents, our ingenuity, our human resources, including the recipes of how you cook our food [laughs]. We just have to become a collective vision of what life is because living in isolation and being individualistic doesn’t really work.
[Closing]
Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast today. This week’s episode was produced by Arielle Kandel and Bruna Shapira and edited by Natalia Rolim. My name is Daniella Golombeski, and I am thrilled to host this podcast.
For more information about Real People. Real Lives. and the full transcript of this episode, head to NY Women Immigrants DOT Org. Next week, you’ll meet Broghanne, an actress and entrepreneur from Scotland.
The 3rd edition of Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York is made possible in part with funding from the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.
. See you next week!