Family Reunification in Vancouver: ‘It’s like someone stole my mom’

Family Reunification in Vancouver: ‘It’s like someone stole my mom’

By Cecilia Diocson,
Philippine Women Centre, Vancouver and Dr. Geraldine Pratt,
University of British Columbia

The long separation of Filipino families, regulated by the Canadian government’s Live-in Caregiver Program, creates many difficulties when families reunite in Canada. Documenting these difficulties is the subject of a research collaboration between the Philippine Women Centre in Vancouver and a University of British Columbia researcher, Geraldine Pratt. Twenty-five families have told the story of their difficulties, which include marital breakdown, conflict between children and parents, and children’s poor academic performance in Canada. Comparing high school students in Vancouver who speak Tagalog at home to those who speak Punjabi, Vietnamese, Chinese or English, Filipino students have the lowest grade point averages of all high school graduates, and among the highest drop out rates.

The regulations of the Live-in Caregiver Program contribute directly to this outcome – in two ways. First, the deskilling experienced by many women during the LCP forces them to work many jobs, for many hours during the week. As one of the children interviewed (whose mother works at two jobs during the week and cleans houses on the weekend) put it: “I only see her a couple of hours and then she goes back to sleep. I see her the next morning, and then she goes back to work. It’s like someone stole my mom. That’s what it’s like.” This means that many women who have come through the LCP are little more available to their children in Vancouver than they were in the Philippines, and often children feel a great responsibility to leave school at the first opportunity to get a job in order to supplement their family’s income.

A second factor is the length of separation. Though the regulations of the LCP (which stipulate that 24 months must be completed within the program within a 36 month period) suggest a relatively short period of family separation, in fact the period of separation is much longer: a median of 9 years. The median age of children arriving to reunite with their mothers is 12. Children have told many stories of their separation experience. Jovy, who was left in the care of her father’s siblings at age 3 1/2, and was separated from her mother for 10 years, remembered: “And I don’t remember hearing much from mom or seeing a lot of her since she went abroad…I cannot even remember what she looks like. I remember my dad showing my mother’s picture to me and telling me that that was my mom. I said: that was not my mom. I was thinking at the time that he was introducing another lady and he was trying to brainwash me that the woman in the picture was my mom. That’s why I said: No, that is not my mother.”

The mother of two brothers, Jack and James, left to come to Canada when they were 2 and 7 and it was 7 years before she was able to bring them to Vancouver. Though she visited them for 2 weeks every year, they remember talking on the phone to her as “scary, because you are almost talking to a stranger. And she is asking us all these questions like, ‘How are you?’ I would say, ‘I’m okay.’ It is weird because you cannot see the face…The hardest part is when she comes home [to the Philippines] and leaves again. It is very distressing for us. She visited us, I think, 5 times before she finally sponsored us and got us. We would be scared [during these visits]. We would usually try to avoid her for the first week. It’s just weird for us. We were little when she left, so we don’t fully understand these things.”

Regan’s mother left when he was 6, first to work in Singapore for 2 years and then in Canada for a further 8 years before reunification. He did not see his mother for 5 years when she first left. He remembered his mother leaving: “But when she left I did not see her boarding the plane. My sister [who was then in high school] brought me somewhere because they did not want me seeing her go. They did not want me to know that she left because I was still little at the time. They did not want to see me crying…She did not say that she was leaving. I do not know [what she told me]. And I did not understand it at the time.”

John’s mother left for Hong Kong when he was 3 years old and it was 10 years before they were reunited. When she came home to the Philippines, he remembered: “Once she leaves, they make me sleep first. And when I woke up, she is already gone. Because I won’t let her leave. They would let me sleep before she leaves, and she would leave a recorded tape for a message.” In a later interview, John repeated the memory: “It’s really painful. Someone else raising you when you were a kid. It’s family too [his mother’s sister], but then it’s different not being with your mom. I remember they had to put me to sleep before my mom could leave to go, because they know that I wasn’t going to let her go if I was still awake.”

Feelings of betrayal, of vulnerability to manipulation by a parent, of bewilderment, of not understanding the sudden departure of one’s mother, the repetition of the same memory: these all resonate with standard accounts of trauma. The effects of this trauma–experienced within many families in the Filipino community in Canada–needs to be recognized and factored into ongoing assessments and criticisms of the Live-in Caregiver Program.trauma – experienced within many families in the Filipino community in Canada– needs to be recognized and factored into ongoing assessments and criticisms of the Live-in Caregiver Program.

(Condensed version of a paper presented at the 10th International Metropolis Conference, Toronto,