Letter to the Editor

Abstract

In his review of my book Labor Pioneers: Economy, Labor, and Migration in Filipino-Danish Relations 1950–2015, Frank Caestecker misguides the reader in the first sentence. He states, “Filipino migration to Denmark (and Europe) can be split into two different flows: labor migration and marriage migration” (Labor 18:1). That may be the reviewer's analytical position, but it is not mine. In the book I argue explicitly against this categorization. Those who came in 1960–73 called themselves the Filipino Pioneers, and the majority carried or obtained shortly after arrival work and residence permits tied to their own person—not to an employer or spouse. From 1974, when Danish authorities implemented a so-called immigration stop, it became increasingly difficult for Philippine citizens to migrate in the same way. The easiest way to gain legal access to the Danish labor market became to marry someone with Danish citizenship or permanent residence. Does that make the post-1974 arrivals marriage migrants?In my view, that term obscures realities. Labor Pioneers shows that most post-1974 arrivals, just like the Pioneers, came in the search of a more prosperous and secure life for themselves—and often their (extended) families. Many found work in the same workplaces as the Pioneers. In the 1990s, a new legal opportunity to enter Denmark without having to marry opened to Filipinas/os: the au pair scheme, where young people live and work in a private household doing “chores” in exchange for accommodation and an “allowance.” Many of these migrants continued to move from one temporary permit to another in several European countries, but some married in Denmark, which was one of the few ways they could prolong their legal stay. Does that make them marriage migrants?The reviewer goes on to say that “the marriage migrant is only mentioned when these mostly female partners of Danish citizens become active on the labor market and interact with Filipino labor migrants.” This implies that there are Filipina “marriage migrants” who do not “become active on the labor market.” In my experience—having interviewed dozens of migrants from various arrival periods, having done participant observation and collected vast numbers of empirical materials from individuals and organizations—few, if any, migrants come without a plan to work and earn. What structurally changed over time were not the motivations for migrating (even if every individual has their own story) but the conditions for entering, residing, and working legally in Denmark. The implications of this reconfiguration of labor migration are explored in my book from various perspectives, one of them being life stories—which the reviewer finds much too detailed.The lack of appreciation for details is also reflected in the facts that the reviewer gets wrong. To take but two examples, Caestecker states that forty-nine Filipinas were recruited in 1973 to a Danish hotel “through a state agency.” They were not, for the simple reason that this agency was only established a year later. Most of “the 49ers” had been recommended by Filipina/o workers already residing in Denmark and working at other hotels in town. However, a couple had been referred by Philippine labor officials, and a woman from Department of Labor escorted the group to Copenhagen, leading me to investigate state involvement in labor export prior to the establishment of Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB; precursor to Philippine Overseas Employment Administration). I unravel this part of the story through both oral history and archival studies using materials in the Philippines and Denmark that to my knowledge have not been explored before. This apparently escaped the reviewer, who claims that my “empirical material is mainly based on oral sources.” The reviewer also states that after 1975, “labor migration from the Philippines did not resume until the late 1990s.” This is of course wrong, and an entire chapter describes specifically how migration continued despite the formal ban (including how the OEDB continued to deploy workers to Denmark).The reviewer ends by regretting that I did not make a comparative European study rather than focusing on “the Danish case,” thus ignoring extensive references to other Nordic countries and the European context more broadly. It is not, however, a comparative study, which I do not disagree might be interesting and useful. What I disagree with is the reviewer's idea that a study paying equal attention to all parts of Europe could be completed with “little additional effort.” In 1975, Europe was the destination of one in every four temporary Filipino migrants, and today it is home to around a million Filipinos. Labor Pioneers is a small contribution to this enormous—and largely unexplored—field. May ample future efforts be put into excavating this rich part of labor and migration history.