Educational Media Reviews Online

Filmmaker Marije Meerman documents the little known practice of domestic worker exportation from the Philippines to Europe, Hong Kong, and other countries desperately in need of cheap labor. Meerman interviews Rhacel Parrenas (Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin), who states that Filipino women employed overseas are stereotyped as the “Mercedes Benz” of the domestic worker class, prized for the belief that Filipino workers are trustworthy, clean, reliable and obedient. The women are a source of affordable labor by those who can pay for it, and Meerman documents the lives of these women through interviews, film footage of their working lives, and interviews with the employers.

What she uncovers is a world of privileged, educated women leaving the care of their children to an educated underclass, costing them very little monetarily. In the words of one employer, talking about her domestic worker, "Thanks to her, I'm very flexible. I'm free." Parrenas comments that the domestic worker becomes a surrogate mother; the substitute for the love and attention the parent is unable, or unwilling, to give. Not necessarily becoming a part of the family, the domestic worker is encouraged to leave her own children back in the Philippines, ironically enough in the care of her own domestic worker. A continuous economic cycle begins, where a domestic worker labors throughout her young, childbearing years until she becomes too old to care for her charges, returns to her home country, the cycle repeating itself all over again as her daughter travels overseas to become the next generation of domestic worker. What is created is a beneficial relationship for both countries economically; cheap, transitory labor for the host country and in return, wages being sent back to the exporting country. Political scientist Alexander Magno (University of the Philippines) calls this overseas transfer, "…the largest source of foreign exchange". He calls these workers a "competitive export product" and the most valuable commodity the Philippines has to offer, the women being treated as national heroes when they return home.

The technical quality of the film is adequate, although the documentary would have been well served by a narrator. Portions are in Dutch and Filipino, with English subtitles, and some of the interviewees switch between languages. An important and timely topic in an age of increasing economic globalization. This film is recommended for a general audience, and would be most useful in an academic library supporting a sociology or cultural studies course examining Southeast Asia and women's labor issues.

2003 Association for Asian Studies Conference Film Festival Award.