The Migrant Returns

The Migrant Returns
EXODUS 4: 24-31

The last two people I had helping me care for my disabled wife were from the Philippines. Although both were the wives of students at our seminary, it is no coincidence that both were Filipinas. There are many Filipina caregivers in the United States and Britain; indeed, I have seen advertisements for caregivers in the Middle East and elsewhere that said, “Filipina preferred.” Many such will hope to go “home” one day (our last caregiver found it too cold in Southern California!), and a Filipina student of mine has noted how Moses’ story illumines the stories of Philippine migrants in the West. For them as for Moses, migration means dislocation, invisibility, marginality, and alienation. Although I am also a foreigner, as a Caucasian tenured professor I don’t suffer from those experiences, but I do experience some uncertainty of identity. I am not a U.S. citizen, but I am out of touch with Britain, and if I went back, I would not go back to the same place but to a culture that has changed. I don’t speak like someone from the United States, but back in Britain people would laugh at the way my accent and idioms have been affected by living in the United States. The position of Filipino/a migrants is much trickier. Part of them longs to go home; but there were reasons why they left “home,” and going home means returning to the situation that made them leave—particularly their family’s economic needs...