Filipinos make beauty of UAE’S social fabric more phenomenal
Overseas Filipinos know how to preserve their customs and traditions
Eachhashisownnarrative.so,eachpersonsomehow is a treasure that helps humanity grow and improve.
With this, two academicians of different backgrounds and disciplines are working together for an academic research on expatriates, particularly the flourishing Filipino and African communities in the UAE.
Astonished as to the country’s multi-ethnicity, United Arab Emirates University-government and Society associate professor Dr. Anne Louise Bartlet said: “Oten when we hear about the expats, it is with the idea that people just pass through in a few years without leaving any traces behind.”
“But, it is not true here in the UAE. Many have strong ties with the UAE and have renewed their contracts many times, choosing to stay and work for employers here. There are many stories who have contributed to the UAE and who really appreciate the opportunities the UAE has given them, myself included,” she also said.
Bartlet emphasised: “Filipinos are an obvious choice as a migrant group because they are oten seen as model minorities. Today, they make up the social fabric of the country. Neighbourhoods such as Satwa, Al Rigga and Deira have become their home.”
University of New South Wales (Unsw)-school of Humanities & Languages History professor Dr. Mina Roces cited Filipino-americans who aspire to have Ifugao tatoos, learn the Filipino pre-hispanic script Baybayin, and produce Filipino cultural shows.
Two students of hers from Ireland and Singapore had opted to dive deep into studies of the Philippines and the Filipinos because of their nannies.
Roces said: “I think Filipino migrants are important custodians and patrons of Filipino culture even though they are based overseas.”
For background, British Bartlet and Filipino Roces were colleagues at the UNSW in the capital of New South Wales of Sydney in Australia.
Bartlet is a sociologist whose interest in social science took her to Africa through her work for the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees and the World Bank. There, she saw that South Sudanese refugees in the northern parts of the East African state of Kenya “are not a burden, but increased the gross regional product” of their adopted home.
Roces became a historian. It was the influence of her University of Michigan “supervisor” Professor Victor Lieberman who got her a scholarship; even as she is a scion of the affluent and influential Roces clan of the pre-martial Law Manila Times.
Sheisthedaughterofartist-journalist-bookauthor Alfredo Roces. An uncle was Alejandro Roces, the education secretary during the term of President Ramon Magsaysay. Another was the late Joaquin “Chino” Roces, incarcerated during the Martial Law, and among the Asian publishers who set up the Manila-headquartered Press Foundation of Asia, the relocation to Malaysia in the early days of the military rule was stopped by then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., for fear that the move would earn the ire of the other PFA Board in other parts of the globe, relative to the suppression of press freedom.
Like all the other university educators elsewhere in the world, Bartlet and Roces have writen peer-reviewed research papers and academic books, based on their respective specialties.
“We would very much like to document and write about the contributions the Filipinos and Africans have made to the making of a globalised UAE and Dubai,” said Roces, pointing out that migration scholars, including herself, have much to learn because there is “relatively litle atention” given to the Filipinos in Dubai.
Bartlet recalled her overseas experiences in “wealthy countries and in places where people are encountering the very worst that humanity can do. What it has taught me is that we are all the same. Most want the same thing: to send their kids to school, to eat, to grow their families and live with peace and security. Living in a society that is tolerant and diverse in which we try to learn from each other is really important.”