In our ongoing series of responses to “My Family’s Slave,” we’ve heard from a number of readers who saw aspects of their own lives in Eudocia “Lola” Pulido’s situation, as well as some who recognized her story in arrangements made by their own families. Another reader, Dina, affirms:
The kind of “slavery” the author narrated is not news to me. Even nowadays, if you are poor here in the Philippines, enslaving oneself in another person or family’s household is very common, especially for poor people from the province who are uneducated and have no other skills but to do household chores. But what would be uncommon in this story is the maltreatment and the lack of remuneration for decades. In the Philippine setting, such practice is so backward and it is shocking to know it happened in the 20th century in an educated family residing in the world of the free.
Lola represents modern-day Filipino slaves—the overseas foreign workers who would work as domestic helpers, mostly in Asian countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Middle East. Some of these women would themselves be mothers sacrificing to leave their small children behind under the care of others (sometimes strangers) so they would be able to give them their basic material needs. Unlike Lola, they are paid but some would experience the same abuse, verbal or physical sometimes both. There could be multiple horror stories published about these women, and it would not be limited to Filipinas only.
Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, told the stories of women enslaved in homes across America in her own essay “Lola Wasn’t Alone.” And Alice Su, who has spent several months reporting on migrant domestic labor in the Middle East, covered several more. From Alice:
Jordan has about 50,000 migrant domestic workers, of whom the largest subgroup are from the Philippines. Lebanon had nearly 170,000 registered domestic migrants in 2016. Most of them—about 105,000—are from Ethiopia, but Filipinas are the second-biggest group, at roughly 18,300.
In Lebanon, migrant domestic workers are specifically excluded from labor laws, which means they have no legal guarantee for basic rights like a minimum wage and maximum work hours or days off, and nowhere to appeal when they are verbally or physically abused. Their work contracts require that they live in their employers’ homes. When abuse happens, they have nowhere to go.
For Ihab, a reader from Lebanon, these articles hit close to home:
Alex Tizon’s essay on Lola was one of the most powerful, personal reads I’ve had in recent memory. I immediately asked the rest of my family to read it—hoping that, like me, they would make the connection between Lola and the domestic workers in our home country of Lebanon. Then, The Atlantic published Alice Su’s piece making that connection explicit.
The problems with Lebanon’s migrant domestic worker industry are well documented, and I wanted to share my personal experiences with it. I wish I could offer more of the victim’s perspective, but can only reflect on my own role and, like Tizon showed, on how cowardice can take over when facing shame in your own family.
