Paglalakbay: Pinoy Migrants in the UK
LONDON – The European Network of Filipino Diaspora (ENFiD), held its general assembly in London recently. Comprising members from 30 organizations, ENFiD-UK aims to connect Filipinos together in the UK.
Its members are part of the estimated 300,000 comprising the Filipino community in the country. But how did the community start in the UK?
In the mid-1800s during Spanish rule and before national hero Dr. Jose Rizal was born, Filipino sailors travelled to the city of Liverpool on board ships laden with cargo and mail from England’s colonies.
At the time, the port of Liverpool was famous because ships from the British empire docked there bringing not just cargo but also slaves. It was the nearest dock for ships travelling from and to America. It was in Liverpool where Rizal disembarked when he arrived from New York aboard the ‘City of Rome’ in 1888.
According to 19th century census records, many Filipinos were residing in boarding houses located in Greetham Street and Upper Frederick Street near the port, and this area became the centre of the Filipino community here and was referred to as “Little Manilla”.
These boarding houses were managed by other Filipinos, one of whom was Eustaquio dela Cruz of 19 Greetham Street. He was apparently born in Cebu, 45 years of age, had a wife and seven children all of whom were named in the census. Twenty-four sailors were recorded as boarding with them at the time.
Nearby, on Upper Frederick Street, there would have been a row of boarding houses where many other Filipino sailors were billeted. The list showed their birth place as “Manilla”.
This is where I believe the Filipino community started in the UK. They have descendants who still continue to reside near the port. But they do not see themselves as Filipinos, but in fact they are very much white Britons. However, although British in appearance and outlook, they know that they have Filipino ancestors and I hope that one day they will want to see where they came from.
From Liverpool, we know that the Filcom spread and many transferred to the capital, London. One of the names I saw was that of Mariana Cruz, born in ‘Manilla’ in the 1830s and was then residing in 1861 in Stepney Green, in East London.
We have barely scratched the surface of the history of the Filipino community in the UK. But I am confident that if we trawl through the census records of old, we would be able to trace what happened to them.
Since then, Filipinos started coming to the UK in big numbers from the 1970s mainly due to the new policy of the Philippine government of exporting Filipino labor overseas, particularly to Europe and the Middle East, because of the perceived benefits to the economy.
This was assisted by the poverty of Filipinos at the time who thought that going abroad would improve their lives as well as of their families. Aside from this, the Marcos regime’s stranglehold on democracy pushed many Filipinos to go abroad to be free.
Their departure started the first wave of so called Overseas Contract Workers or OCWs, which became Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs. Now they are simply called overseas Filipinos since many of those who came abroad became residents and citizens of other countries.
What challenges did they face on leaving the country? What was the Filcom then, and what is their situation now. And where are Filipinos headed in this country?
Let us look at the story of one of the first Filipinos here.
Noli Ramos was one of the first Filipino migrants who entered the UK in 1972. He worked in the hospitality industry as a waiter at the Grand Metropolitan Hotel under the work permit system. After four years, he acquired Indefinite Leave to Remain and promptly changed his career, went into sales and then ran his own petrol station.
Ramos now works as Staff Security at Richmond University which he likes because it fits his lifestyle and age. But once he retires, Ramos plans to finish his legal studies in order to become an employment law adviser and to help the Filcom.
He came abroad to evade the Marcos Regime and to look for a better life. At first, he was a waiter but soon got promoted to bar manager. Despite this, he still suffered discrimination from white employees.
He sold sets of Encyclopedia Britannica but even here, the color of his skin mattered. When they went to a client and they saw he was brown, the chance to sell was about 25 percent. On the other hand, when they went to a Filipino client, they made a sale 75 percent of the time. On discrimination, Ramos was realistic, “Of course, you have to accept that. It’s a fact that there is prejudice in the country. You should not moan about that, because that is a fact of life here.”
The Filcom was tiny in the 1970s, and parties became an important part of Filipino social life and networking. During those years, Filipinos from the countryside loved hearing about Filipinos from London and vice versa. There were lots of nurses in the countryside in those days, said Ramos, and they helped each other.
After two years of being single, he married his girlfriend in London and soon they were blessed with offsprings. As immigrants, bringing up their children became a big challenge as they wanted them to integrate into British society. He remembered what his social worker said when the children were still young: “If I were you, I should not [speak to them in Filipino] because they will be alienated in school. You should speak to them in English, so when they go to school, they could easily adapt.”
Ramos is active in Filcom groups, and he believes that the Filcom is important to life abroad. Once you are in a foreign land, he said, you feel at home and relaxed by being with your compatriots. He started with an organization called Maharlika, followed by Aguman Kapampangan. He is now active in the Knights of Rizal, promoting the national hero and his beliefs.
This is one of the challenges that Filipinos face in the UK, according to Ramos. Whether we like it or not, they don’t treat us as their equal, as their peers. The only way to be equal with them is to excel through knowledge.
Since then, more and more Filipinos came to the UK and as they grew in number, their talents came out and started to get recognition in various fields.
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This article covers the first part of the episode dubbed as Paglalakbay: Pinoy Migrants in the UK, a Juan EU Konek anniversary special, to be presented by Gene Alcantara.
Juan EU Konek airs every first SUNDAY of the month at 8.35 pm London; 9.35 pm Rome; and 11:35 pm Saudi with replay the following day at 4.05 am Rome, 3.05 am UK and 6.30 am Saudi. It also airs the following Saturday on ABS-CBN News Channel, at 11 pm.