Absence of equal opportunity: Do we have a chance?

Absence of equal opportunity: Do we have a chance?

Dear Professor Kelly,

Your article “Class Struggle: Filipino Immigrants and the Quest for Identity” provoked me. I appreciate your interest in obtaining a response from a Filipino like me as to how I interpret the concept of my de-skilled or de-professionalized status in the Canadian society. I would further say that you want Filipinos like me to assert themselves in the workplace in order to uplift our professional status, and, on the average, be at par relative to immigrants from other countries. I would assume, however, that you are not urging Filipino immigrants to aspire to have a professional status that is at par with Canadian-born workers. Are you?

Let me pose back to you the question that you asked in your article and then add my own question. Your question was: “If you ask to see the manager in a hotel, who will you meet?” My question is: Will you meet a manager who is an immigrant from another country rather than from the Philippines? I would certainly be aghast and disappointed if your data shows that immigrants from other countries are more likely to be managers than Filipinos.

As an immigrant, I think that within the short run it would be foolhardy for me to aspire to have a professional status that is at par with the Canadian-born individual as the odds are certainly not in my favor. Let us not deny the fact that the 2001 census of Statistics Canada reveal “troubling statistics for Canada’s most recent immigrants, who were better educated and yet earning less… and are also failing to make up ground as quickly as they did in the past — leaving them much further behind Canadian-born workers with similar educations after 10 years in the country.” This quote was reported in the National Post March 11, 2003 article entitled “Immigrants Better Educated but Earning Less than a Decade Ago: Lost ground by just about every income measure”.

First of all, a Canadian experience, a Canadian education and a Canadian professional designation are what employers are looking for. But in the long run, if a Filipino immigrant has the money to obtain a Canadian education and professional designation, I would assume that he or she should be expected to be, on the average, at par in the workplace with the Canadian-born individual.

To explain how a Filipino immigrant makes sense of his identity, self-esteem and place in Canadian society, I would hypothesize the following:

• The great majority of Filipino immigrants do not have the said money and, if they have it, they would rather spend it first for the education of their children or to support relatives who are in need back home.

• The foremost interest of a Filipino is the welfare of his or her children and/or family.

• The Filipino is non-assertive verbally but assertive in terms of the results of the hard work he contributes in his job.

Dr. Kelly, I truly appreciate your concern for the plight of the Filipino. However, I would appreciate it more if you, at least, equally provoke Canadian authorities to come up with measures that would make immigrants, who are better educated, to earn more and to be given equal opportunity to uplift themselves so that they are not left much further behind Canadian-born workers. I urge you to do as well the said provocative action because the burden of proving or disproving the Filipino-immigrants’ stereotype and discrimination is not on us, Filipinos, but on those born in Canada.

Bernie Bacosa