Indomitable Canadian Filipinos

In the 70- year history of Filipino migration to Canada, their number has increased from 770 in 1964 to about a million in 2021. Yet no book has been written and published in Canada about the Filipino community in its entirety. This book fills that vacuum. The first major wave of primarily professional Filipino immigrants, mostly nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals arrived in the 1960s from the U.S. They came to renew their U.S. visas but decided to stay. They were admitted on Canada’s merit-based point system. The succeeding waves of Filipino immigrants came mainly through the government’s Live-in Caregiver Program, the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and the Family Reunification program where requirements for education and technical skills were less demanding. These immigrant programs, with racist undertone, brought them to Canada mainly to do work that most Canadians did not like to do. They felt they were needed as temporary workers but not as citizens. These immigrants were driven to accept these undesirable jobs to escape from poverty and turmoil back home in the hope of achieving a better future in Canada for their children. They came in the prime of life, trained and competent to take on whatever job they could get to survive. And they toiled away quietly minding their own business, raising their children as best as they could while instilling in them the value of good education. But Filipinos are an indomitable lot and can’t be kept down for long. In the last two decades, a new breed of notable young Filipinos has emerged from the shadows and into the light. This book tells how a million Filipino immigrants turned hardships into opportunities and a better life in Canada for their children. This is their contemporary history. This is not a mere collection of published articles. It is an ongoing narrative, linking chapters from Introduction to Conclusion, by academicians, researchers, journalists and essayists who provide the necessary in-depth theorizing and analyzing of the 70-year history of Filipino immigration to Canada.

In the 70- year history of Filipino migration to Canada, their number has increased from 770 in 1964 to about a million in 2021. Yet no book has been written and published in Canada about the Filipino community in its entirety. This book fills that vacuum. The first major wave of primarily professional Filipino immigrants, mostly nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals arrived in the 1960s from the U.S. They came to renew their U.S. visas but decided to stay. They were admitted on Canada’s merit-based point system. The succeeding waves of Filipino immigrants came mainly through the government’s Live-in Caregiver Program, the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and the Family Reunification program where requirements for education and technical skills were less demanding. These immigrant programs, with racist undertone, brought them to Canada mainly to do work that most Canadians did not like to do. They felt they were needed as temporary workers but not as citizens. These immigrants were driven to accept these undesirable jobs to escape from poverty and turmoil back home in the hope of achieving a better future in Canada for their children. They came in the prime of life, trained and competent to take on whatever job they could get to survive. And they toiled away quietly minding their own business, raising their children as best as they could while instilling in them the value of good education. But Filipinos are an indomitable lot and can’t be kept down for long. In the last two decades, a new breed of notable young Filipinos has emerged from the shadows and into the light. This book tells how a million Filipino immigrants turned hardships into opportunities and a better life in Canada for their children. This is their contemporary history. This is not a mere collection of published articles. It is an ongoing narrative, linking chapters from Introduction to Conclusion, by academicians, researchers, journalists and essayists who provide the necessary in-depth theorizing and analyzing of the 70-year history of Filipino immigration to Canada.

Drawing on archival and ethnographic research in Canada and the Philippines from 1880 to 2017, Bayanihan and Belonging aims to understand the role of religion within present-day Filipino Canadian communities.

The Philippines became Canada's largest source of short- and long-term migrants in 2010, surpassing China and India, both of which are more than ten times larger. The fourth-largest racialized minority group in the country, the Filipino community is frequently understood by such figures as the victimized nanny, the selfless nurse, and the gangster youth. On one hand, these narratives concentrate attention, in narrow and stereotypical ways, on critical issues. On the other, they render other problems facing Filipino communities invisible. This landmark book, the first wide-ranging edited collection on Filipinos in Canada, explores gender, migration and labour, youth spaces and subjectivities, representation and community resistance to certain representations. Looking at these from the vantage points of anthropology, cultural studies, education, geography, history, information science, literature, political science, sociology, and women and gender studies, Filipinos in Canada provides a strong foundation for future work in this area.

The New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls shares the riveting story of an unsung World War II hero who saved countless American lives in the Philippines. When Florence Finch died at the age of 101, few of her Ithaca, NY neighbors knew that this unassuming Filipina native was a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, whose courage and sacrifice were unsurpassed in the Pacific War against Japan. Long accustomed to keeping her secrets close in service of the Allies, she waited fifty years to reveal the story of those dramatic and harrowing days to her own children. Florence was an unlikely warrior. She relied on her own intelligence and fortitude to survive on her own from the age of seven, facing bigotry as a mixed-race mestiza with the dual heritage of her American serviceman father and Filipina mother. As the war drew ever closer to the Philippines, Florence fell in love with a dashing American naval intelligence agent, Charles "Bing" Smith. In the wake of Bing's sudden death in battle, Florence transformed from a mild-mannered young wife into a fervent resistance fighter. She conceived a bold plan to divert tons of precious fuel from the Japanese army, which was then sold on the black market to provide desperately needed medicine and food for hundreds of American POWs. In constant peril of arrest and execution, Florence fought to save others, even as the Japanese police closed in. With a wealth of original sources including taped interviews, personal journals, and unpublished memoirs, The Indomitable Florence Finch unfolds against the Bataan Death March, the fall of Corregidor, and the daily struggle to survive a brutal occupying force. Award-winning military historian and former Congressman Robert J. Mrazek brings to light this long-hidden American patriot. The Indomitable Florence Finch is the story of the transcendent bravery of a woman who belongs in America's pantheon of war heroes.

Stumbling Through Paradise: A Feast of Mercy for Manuel del Mundo follows the journey of one Filipino family, who leave everything behind in order to build a new life for themselves in Canada, and their struggle to find their way. Blocked from finding work in their respective fields despite their qualifications and skills, they must decide between pride and practicality, survival and surrender. The choices and concessions they make will impact their lives, and the lives of their children, in countless ways. And in the end, it will be up to the second and third generations to offer redemption, and help create the paradise their parents had hoped to find. A story of determination and hope, Stumbling Through Paradise showcases the indomitable spirit of those willing to risk everything for the chance of a brighter future, and captures with great clarity, the bonds of familial love and loyalty, which may bend but never truly break.