Chronicles of Migration (Part II): A Sweetheart, a Tired Heart

When you’ve toiled at the same factory for 5 years, and suddenly get fired by the new and biased line manager over a small mistake, you are hit with a wave of disillusion and plunged into a fresh state of uncertainty. Being unemployed in a foreign country where you’re meant to be earning to support family back home, whilst carrying the risk of deportation, puts one in a vulnerable and highly stressful situation. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s then the emotional turmoil you face from a relationship you’re desperately holding onto, with a future that yet again, bodes uncertain. When you initially meet Darna (all names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals), you would not have expected her to be carrying such burdens.

In light of the sustained attention given to mental health and wellbeing in 2019, it is important to highlight groups who are pushed into situations of great precarity and anxiety, but who are rarely acknowledged to be needing support in mental health. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), and migrant workers generally, are one such group, whose wellbeing is frequently compromised by working and living conditions in their host country, feelings of displacement and discrimination when adapting to a foreign culture, and separation from family and friends, to name but a few factors. Studies have shown that some OFWs experience critical mental and physical health challenges, with limited options for health care and social support. What’s worse is that such experiences are more often than not, shaped by larger structural forces over which they have little control.

I remember vividly that Darna greeted me with a friendly smile as I awkwardly stood in the shelter’s office area on my first visit. This was one of the shelters for displaced migrant workers run by Serve the People Association (SPA), the NGO who work to protect and lobby for migrant workers’ rights in Taiwan. She naturally stood out with her dyed hair and tattoos, one which resembled a samurai sword. Darna seemed to effortlessly emanate confidence.

Over the month I spent there, she became one of my closest friends. Darna is bubbly, funny, oftentimes flirtatious, and always the source of life in the room. She got along with other guests and welcomed everyone with open arms and sincerity. The hurdles she’s faced as a migrant factory worker, a single mother, a breadwinner, and a 26-year-old paving her way in life, made me in awe of her sturdy optimism that has shown no signs of relinquishing.

Darna started work in a Taiwanese electronics factory around 5 years ago. She was a good worker, or “why then would [she] have got [her] contract renewed?” Being the middle-child, Darna has an older brother and a younger one aged 17, studying criminology in college (in the Filipino education system, this equates to vocational education or tertiary education for those over 17.) Due to getting pregnant, she did not finish college herself. She became a young mother of two children, who currently live under the care of relatives in the Philippines. Darna and her older brother, who has a family of his own, are the only breadwinners in their family. Therefore, the family’s living expenses and her younger brother’s education mainly rely on her remittances, a hefty responsibility to have. When the stakes are so high, one tends to set aside one’s personal wellbeing, just another thing to be dealt with another time. Darna repeatedly emphasised her family when explaining why she migrated and her motivation to continue working. Her highest priority isn’t necessarily finding employment, that is just a means to her end — her family.

With so many depending on her, Darna’s world was shaken when she was abruptly fired this past July. Her new manager did not get along with her ever since she had made “a small mistake” (when I pressed for details, she was evasive and became slightly emotional — at which point, I stopped dwelling). This bias against her remained until she was dismissed with little reason.

Under such circumstances, jobless and essentially homeless, Darna found herself in this shelter. SPA thankfully was arranging job transfer papers and finding her new employment when I met her. For workers such as Darna, it is not as simple as sending out a CV or scouting online vacancies as many of us do. Job hunting is made doubly hard for migrant workers in Taiwan, due to the country’s brokerage system and migrant workers’ inability to freely transfer jobs without their employers’ approval. Workers trapped in exploitative conditions are thus, unable to easily up and leave. Meanwhile, their dependence on middlemen (mostly manpower agencies) and lack of government to government direct hiring, further take away their autonomy. It is clear that the current labour system is weighed against them.

Darna herself got fleeced by both her broker and her factory employers. The contract she signed before beginning work had included employee accommodation, meals three times a day (including national holidays) and sick leave. This was far from the truth. Upon reaching her workers’ dormitory, she discovered the factory deducted NT$4000 (around US$130) from their agreed basic salary of NT$23,000 (around US$744). This deduction was on top of the substantial broker fees workers had to pay (in some cases, averaging US$ 3,750 per person). Darna’s room was no bigger than the small living room we sat in, and it accommodated 12 people. Each worker had one bed and one locker. The overpacked room meant the AC was ineffective (workers, might I add, had to pay money additional to what was already deducted, in order for the AC to work). The only area with sockets to charge phones, the primary medium workers rely on to message and video call family were outside of rooms. Not exactly a place to call home, to say the least.

The deadline to find a job before her visa expires was approaching fast. There was still a vision yet to be achieved: the “Migrant Dream” if you will, akin to the classic “American Dream,” stories of those who have ‘made it out there.’ However, Darna hesitated to turn to her uncle and auntie in France, nor her paternal grandmother settled in Japan for assistance. They will be like brokers, she explained. They’ll expect her to repay them for their help, making her indebted despite being kin. Relations will inevitably be strained. Options seemed limited.

One time, I bought cake for shelter guests from a bakery that branded itself as “healthy.” It was only on the bus to the shelter that I read the ingredients, and noticed (too late) that the only sweetener used was honey (and adding insult to injury, an insufficient amount too). The guests were really lovely about it, but undeniably, the cake was quite bland to put it nicely. Darna made light of it, saying, “In the Philippines, we like things very sweet because Filipinos are very sweet,” as she pointed to where her heart is. “In Taiwan, not that sweet, because they are only yi dian dian (a little bit),” she grimaced. I laughed at her subtle dig at locals.

Darna then showed me pictures of the numerous cakes bought by friends during her birthday week last year, cherished moments from a different time captured on camera. It turned out she had cut off ties with those friends from the factory to keep her privacy, knowing her abrupt dismissal would bring unwanted scrutiny. “Doesn’t it get lonely?” I asked. Yes, she replied, but needed to have “peace in herself” first. Darna chose to focus on herself, which was ironically far from selfish. In order to solve personal issues and find a new job, Darna recognised she needed to take a moment for herself, to get back on her feet stronger, out of care for her family. To care for others, she needed to care for herself first.

I could tell she was tired inside. Despite being the one who opened up Bluetooth Karaoke mic nights with unabashedly loud crooning, made all the dirty innuendo-filled jokes, or led group games when I ran out of ideas, all of this was a mask to hide the exhaustion. It was also an anaesthetic — to help herself and her friends cope with precarity, to forget what reality has hit them with. When I tried leading a drama activity, instructing them to improvise on prompts I thought would be relatable and easy, such as“Love”, “Family” and “Home”, Darna and another guest, Luisa, took me aside. “Ma’am, maybe not do drama. Something else fun, like dancing or games. Real-life already has enough drama.” People will be sad, they told me.

‘Malaya’, ‘freedom’ in Tagalog, is a beautifully melancholic song by Moira Dela Torre, which was introduced to me by Darna. Now a regular feature on sad Spotify playlists, the track initially prompted our conversations on the exhaustion in Darna’s personal life. She was having doubts about her relationship with her long-term boyfriend in the Philippines, whom she felt was not invested in her the same way she was in him. “If I make the good decision [breaking up], I’ll be sad; but if I make the bad decision [staying together but continuously having her heart broken], I’ll be happy.” Faced with the cruel irony of life, Darna stood at crossroads in her relationship, uncertain and confused, as was the case for her future in Taiwan at the time.

Despite it all, Darna remained resilient. She confided that in a relationship, she always worked to respect and love the other person, but realised that she needed to do that for herself. A revelation so simple, but nonetheless, powerful. Darna staunchly stated that as a woman, she needs to respect herself, and her focus right now is on her work, her family, and loving herself. Especially after hearing the many cases from the guests of absent male partners and male infidelity, I almost stood up and clapped. Seeing Darna persist amidst all her trials, marching on with determination and optimism, inspired me. She is a living and breathing example of “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And in her own words: “I fight for my rights. Think positive! It’s hard like a mountain, but you climb to the top and you succeed!”