First of all, I would like to express our great admiration to the Seattle Sentenaryo ng Bayan for spearheading the organizing of this people’s assembly against the WTO in particular and against imperialist globalization in general. This demonstrates that the anti-imperialist movement is slowly but surely gaining momentum in the belly of the beast. I am definitely sure that this gathering and the subsequent march-rally in the next couple of days would be a far cry from the protests in 1992 that was mounted here in Seattle against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC.
In Canada, there is also a growing groundswell of opposition to imperialist globalization. A large contingent of Canadians mostly from the working class, women and the youth have been coming here in the last few days to lend their direct support and solidarity in the struggle and resistance against the WTO and other imperialist instrumentalities.
A brief look at history
The presence of Filipinos in Canada must be seen within the backdrop of global developments immediately after the end of the second world war over 50 years ago. While the rest of the world lay in ruins as a result of the devastating war, the United States and the former Soviet Union stood as the most powerful nations in the world. As former allies in the war against Nazi Germany and militarist Japan, they faced each other as potential antagonists. The US symbolized the winning side of capitalism while the Soviet Union symbolized rising socialism.
Among the colonies and former colonies, national liberation movements were intensifying. China, Vietnam, Korea and Indonesia were winning their anti-colonial struggles. The rest of the underdeveloped countries were smoldering at various levels of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles.
For the US and its capitalist allies, the immediate task therefore, was to revive global capitalism and to contain or even rollback both socialism and national liberation movements. A relatively stable global environment would have to be established for international capitalism to flourish once more.
To establish the basis for a stable economic environment, the US and its winning capitalist allies held the 1945 Bretton Woods Conference. This led to the creation of global institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF and the General Agreements on Tariff and Trade or GATT (GATT was eventually replaced by the World Trade Organization or the WTO). Together with the Marshall Plan and the US support for economic development of Japan, these global institutions succeeded in restoring and rebuilding the global capitalist system. The first two decades after the second world war was considered the golden age of capitalism.
But this period of relative economic growth and prosperity was occurring only in the advance capitalist countries of the North. The South or Third world countries were experiencing underdevelopment as they continue to become dumping grounds of surplus goods and capital from and suppliers of raw materials and cheap labor for the countries of the North. The centers of capitalism had been successful in passing on their economic problems to the countries of the South.
This was the backdrop of global developments when Filipinos started immigrating into Canada.
The Filipino Canadian Community
The major factor pushing Filipinos to migrate abroad is the continuing social, political and economic crises in the Philippines where 75 to 80 percent of the population live in poverty and deprivation. Historically, this chronic crisis in Philippine society is deeply rooted in the Philippines being a neo-colony of the United States. US imperialism collaborates with local feudal and comprador interests in keeping the country backward, agrarian and without basic industries. Together with the neo-colonial state, they carry out the impositions of global institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and now, the World Trade Organization (WTO) to perpetually keep the Philippines economically backward and as source of cheap labor and raw materials for the global capitalist market. The neo-colonial economy does not and cannot have the capacity to absorb the growing number of people that enters the labor force every year.
This state of chronic crisis has forced millions of Filipinos to seek employment abroad. This is further augmented by the Philippine government’s policy of exporting Filipino labor to reduce unemployment, diffuse social tension and increase foreign earnings to help pay for foreign debts.
This export of Filipino labor was adopted as a matter of state policy during the 1970’s through the Labor Export Program. Today, the Philippines has become one of the top exporters and suppliers of highly skilled but cheap labor in the global labor market. It earns for the Philippine economy over 5 billion USD every year through remittances and government taxes.
Filipino migrants and immigrants are relatively newcomers to Canada. They constitute a young community that is heavily concentrated in major urban centers such as Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal. They began entering Canada in the second half of 1960s as landed immigrants – mostly skilled workers and professionals. As befits its capitalist economy that opens and shuts its immigration doors in accordance with its supply and demand for skilled labor, Canada opened its doors to Filipinos to fill its growing industries and expanding economy during that period.
Since then, the Filipino community continues to grow especially in the 1980s when Filipino women began entering as domestic workers under the Foreign Domestic Workers Movement (FDM) and subsequently, under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). During the last couple of years, the Philippines consistently ranks in the top five sources for immigrants to Canada. Today, there are over 240,000 Filipino migrants and immigrants in Canada. These Filipinos are in their prime productive years – mostly between 25 to 48 years old; their training and education subsidized by the Philippines but utilized by Canada.
Filipinos are among the most highly educated of immigrant groups in Canada, yet their incomes are lower than that of other immigrant groups and those born in Canada. There is extreme degree of occupational segregation: domestic work and childcare for women; cleaning and janitorial services for men. They thus, remain marginalized in Canadian society, primarily segregated as cheap labor in service-sector jobs.
Facing the challenges
As a distinct ethnic minority and newcomers to Canada, the Filipino community today faces several challenges that are similar to other Canadian immigrant communities. While these challenges or problems are generally part of the broader Canadian society, they are experienced more directly by immigrant communities especially those newly arrived and people of color.
As people of color, Filipinos experience and suffer from racism. Instead of being seen as contributing to the Canadian economy and society, Filipinos and other immigrants of color are regarded as causing problems and a threat to the national character of Canada. One scholarly study on the socio-economic attainment of visible minorities found this out. It said that although Filipinos ranked highest in college education among non-white group, they ranked among the lowest in income return. It attributes this disparity to racism.
For the young people and the second generation of Filipinos, the identity problem of being a Filipino and a Canadian confronts their daily experiences in Canada. This is closely related to the problem of racism as this country generally looks at the Caucasian or white Canadian as the true or real Canadian. The rest are hyphenated Canadians or not Canadians at all.
As mainly and mostly immigrant workers, Filipinos suffer from class exploitation. There is the growing realization that Filipinos and other immigrants of color are in Canada as source of cheap labor that helps bring down the general wages of the Canadian working class. This increases profitability for corporations and achieves that competitive edge for Canadian companies in the global marketplace of international capitalism. All this at the expense of the Canadian working class. Thus, immigrants are being used to divide the working class and hide the reality of class exploitation and class struggle in Canada.
Understanding the real Canada
It is this reality of Filipinos and their community in Canada that make Filipino Canadians look deeply into their history of migration and the evolution of the Canadian state and society. There are several points that I would like to raise in terms of our perspective about Canada and how we relate this to our anti-imperialist struggle.
First point. We look at Canada as part of the historic pattern of conquest and colonization of the American continent by Europeans beginning in the 15th century. During that period Western Europe was in the process of breaking out of a dying feudalism and moving towards the early formation of nation-states and a global capitalist order. Conquest, colonization and the institution of racism were integral to this early process of capitalist development called mercantilism.
As forerunner of modern day capitalism, mercantilism pushed Europeans to cross the Atlantic Ocean primarily in search of gold and silver, which had become the main sources of wealth and power for the ruling classes and nations. Together with the exploitation of the European peasantry and the emerging proletariat, colonialism helped lay down the foundation for the eventual rapid growth of capitalism on a worldwide scale.
Hence, today’s globalization or internationalization of capital is nothing but the logical extension of early capitalism.
Second point. The expansion of capitalism in Europe led to the political and economic consolidation of nation-states that needed to strengthen themselves internally to protect their evolving capitalist systems from other competing nation-states.
In Western Europe, this consolidation of nation-states came about at the expense of the local peasants and farmers who were booted out of the land. They were forced to become either workers in growing factories or to join the ranks of the unemployed living in the slums of London, Paris and other urban centers.
In North America, the consolidation of the Canadian nation-state was built on the backs of poor immigrants from various parts of the world mainly from Europe. These immigrants would eventually become the foundation of the Canadian working class in an expanding Canadian capitalist economy. The indigenous or first nations peoples who, historically at that time, had not experienced or been subjected to the competitive culture and political economy of capitalism were systematically destroyed, pushed into the margins, deprived of their lands, and became virtual internal colonies of this emerging Canadian nation-state. Successive immigration with its built-in racism was encouraged to further build and strengthen a Canadian capitalist economy.
Hence, Canada has always been and continues to be part of the development of capitalism.
Third point. Colonialism along with industrialization in the centers of capitalism further intensified the rapid accumulation and expansion of capital and ultimately reached all corners of the world. Huge productive forces and financial institutions were built up with this industrialization. Soon, there would be a merging of industrial capital and bank capital to form giant monopolies and financial oligarchies. This growth reached its peak towards the end of the 19th century and soon began its slide towards a global crisis. Lenin called this highest development of capitalism – imperialism. Today, bourgeois economists call this by various names like "new international economic order," "internationalization of capital" or the misnomer term "globalization."
It is within this context that we look at Canada, its history and its immigration. For us, the evolution of the Canadian state and society is part of the historic global expansion of capitalism starting with the Columbus contact of 1492 and the subsequent conquest and colonization.
Understanding our presence in Canada
It is also within this context that we look at and understand our presence in Canada as Filipino migrants and immigrants. Our coming to Canada is part of the relentless expansion and crisis of the global capitalist economy. The economic and political crisis in the Philippines forces people to leave for abroad. We are part of the hundreds of millions of people all over the world that is being displaced from their land and countries by the continuing division and re-division of various nation-states and neo-colonies for the interest of global capitalism.
Canada needs cheap but highly educated and skilled labor to continuously build its capitalist economy. More importantly, it needs to maintain and sustain this economy in the midst of intensifying global competition for market share and profitability. And to sustain this source of cheap and skilled labor, immigrants who are well educated have to be brought into Canada.
Racism and imperialist globalization as part of Canadian history
To maintain its hegemony, modern capitalism continues to divide the working class and immigrants. In Canada, racism has been and continues to be one of its most effective tools.
Our community’s experience of racism is not altogether different from the experiences of other immigrant communities and people of color. We just happen to be one of the latest communities that are becoming "visible" in Canada. But racism has been and continues to be part of the history and reality of Canadian society. Despite Canada’s claim to multiculturalism and as a country of cultural mosaic, the history of people of color like us is one of racial discrimination, marginalization and resistance against this discrimination and marginalization.
Before the European colonization of Canada, there were several hundreds of thousands of first nations people in Canada. By the time of Confederation in 1867, only around 100,000 were left of them. The Chinese Canadians who suffered the head tax to be able to stay in Canada despite having built the railroad to connect all of Canada would also experience this racism. This was the same racism that the Japanese would experience in internment camps during the Second World War even as they were stripped of their hard-earned property and homes. This was the same racism that saw the Indo-Canadians being sent out to the sea to return to India in the early decades of this century. And just this last couple of months, this same racism was displayed in the destruction of first nations peoples’ lobster traps in Eastern Canada.
For people of color like us, racism is part of the history of Canada that is and will continue to be embedded in our individual and collective memories. This is the history that will continually inform us. Unless we frontally and fully address racism in Canadian society, many, or most of us will continue to feel excluded from mainstream Canada and never be fully integrated in the so-called "Canadian mosaic." The future of our young people and the future of our community are at stake and we must do something about it. But most important, the struggle against racism must be done within the context of our struggle against capitalism and "imperialist globalization." Today’s racism is a concrete and visible aspect of imperialism.
For us in the Filipino community, it is imperative that we continue to struggle and resist against racism and "imperialist globalization." A most important part of this struggle is to know our history of migration and our collective contribution to this history. This history is linked with and part of the struggle of the Filipino people for national liberation against neo-colonialism. Our presence in Canada is essentially due to the crisis of neo-colonialism in the Philippines.
Also, we should be informed of Canada’s history – especially from the perspective of the working people and people of color. This way we will be able to see Canada not only as a country of immigrants and cultural mosaic. Instead, we will also be able to see it as a country where the struggle against racism is, at the same time, a struggle against imperialism. It is a continuing struggle and we do not have to be silenced anymore. And learning the lessons of history also means linking up with other groups and people beyond our community who are also fighting against racism and imperialist globalization. And beyond this solidarity with the Canadian people is our continuing effort to build an international anti-imperialist movement.
It is only by understanding this history that we can continue to understand ourselves and our presence in Canada. In the process, we can then formulate some solutions and actions in our struggle to have control over our individual and collective lives.
In 1997, the People’s Conference Against Imperialist Globalization or PCAIG-2 was hosted in Vancouver. It was a huge international conference and march/rally that was clearly anti-imperialist. It specifically called on the peoples of the United States and Canada "to vigorously arouse, organize and mobilize an ever-increasing number of the people towards building a strong anti-imperialist movement in the belly of the beast." We are happy to note that this people’s assembly and the forthcoming march/rally continues this anti-imperialist tradition of struggle. This helps provide the venue for the process of building the anti-imperialist movement and global solidarity against imperialist globalization.
All success to the People’s Assembly and the coming march/rally !! Long live international solidarity!! Continue building of the anti-imperialist movement!!
Thank you.
November 27, 1999