Filipino Youth Essay

856 Words2 Pages

This paper shows that the low level of educational outcomes of Filipino youths cannot be accounted solely from their mothers’ migration experiences through the LCP. Other factors such as the modes of incorporation, their family structure, and the way these youth sees themselves as Filipino-Canadian affect their motivation, self-esteem, and aspiration to study in a university and higher education setting. While these youths are the same ones left behind in the Philippines during the period of family separation, they too experience another form of abjection, that of stalling behind at high school and most importantly in university setting. In other words, Filipino youth’s low educational outcomes are due to economic, social, and cultural expectations …show more content…

In fact, what this points us is the need for Filipino community organizations to create youth programs that explore and reconstruct the Filipino identity and their transnational connection to the homeland that will positively engage Filipino youth to gain self-confidence, self-esteem, and educational aspiration. If policies of labour export and the TFWs are there to stay, then at least Filipino organizations can wrestle issues that are manageable to change such as identity issues. In fact, organizations like the Kapisanan Centre for Philippine Arts and Culture in Toronto, Aksyon Ng Ating Kabataan (ANAK, or Filipino Youth in Action) in Winnipeg, and Tuluyan (The Bidge) in Vancouver explore their Filipino identity in Canada through a positive interaction with the Philippines.
I argue, however, that these community organizations also need to help Filipino youth, specially those who immigrated under the sponsorship process, to critically engage themselves to immigration issues, racialization, and marginalization that affect them. They must be able to mould 1st and 2nd generation Filipino Canadians as critical thinkers and offer viable support like mentorship program, for example. These organizations must empower Filipino youth to become community leaders willing to try to change the system that traps the Filipino community in a cycle of low educational attainment and downward …show more content…

Thus, all the explanatory variables described above may or may not play a larger role in the educational outcomes of Filipino youth. More empirical, statistical, and ethnographic studies should be done to examine the validity of all the variables. Variation within provinces/territories also is a limitation of this study. While most, if not all, Filipinos live in major cities, this paper only incorporates findings in Vancouver through Geraldine Pratt’s study, findings in Toronto and the Ontario province through Philip Kelly’s study, and my own ethnographic study of Filipino nursing students in Montreal. Filipino youth social mobility in Winnipeg and Edmonton, other major Canadian cities where Filipino reside, should be

Open Document