Philippine Women Centre of BC
Press Release

Growing local Filipino community to launch ground-breaking exhibit at the Museum of Vancouver

March 23, 2010

 
(VANCOUVER, B.C). – Amidst public debate over the findings of a recently released Statistics Canada survey which projects visible minorities will soon become the ‘visible majority’ by 2031, the local Filipino community is set to launch a ground-breaking exhibit this weekend at the Museum of Vancouver.

“Shattering our (in)visibility/: an exhibit of multi-media work and a public dialogue by and about the Filipino-Canadian community in Vancouver” will open this Saturday, March 27, 2010 at the Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut St., Vancouver, B.C*.

The exhibit launching will feature a free public dialogue at 4:30 p.m. and the exhibit opening and reception at 6:30 p.m. (Reception tickets are $30 or $50 with a guided tour.)

The event is being organized by the Philippine Women Centre of BC (PWC of BC) in collaboration with the Museum of Vancouver.

According to the Statistics Canada Survey, the Filipino population across Canada (currently the fourth largest visible minority group in Canada and the third largest in B.C.) is predicted to double over the next 25 years to between 908,000 to 1.1 million.

The visible minority populations will be concentrated in major urban areas and will be made up of immigrants and the children and grandchildren of immigrants. By 2031, 1 in four Canadians will be foreign-born and 1 in every 3 visible minorities will be Canadian-born.

“As a fast-growing community, this exhibit aims to address the perceived silence and social exclusion of Filipinos in Canada by addressing issues of migration, lack of accreditation, labour, racism and our community’s struggle for genuine settlement and integration and our full entitlement in Canada,” says Denise Valdecantos, Chairperson of the PWC of BC.

The public dialogue will feature a panel presentation with Valdecantos, University of British Columbia professors Geraldine Pratt and Shauna Butterwick (who have conducted collaborative research with PWC of BC about the Filipino-Canadian community), and Cecilia Diocson, founding Chair of the PWC of BC and Executive Director of the National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada.

“It is of vital importance to examine our community’s history as well as our current situation in order to address our economic marginalization,” says Valdecantos.

Since the late 1980s nearly 100,000 Filipino women have come to Canada under Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) performing childcare, elderly care and care of people with disabilities as well as other domestic duties in the private homes of middle and upper-class Canadians. 20 years of community-based research by the PWC of BC and its national affiliates have documented the harsh short and long-term impacts of the LCP on the Filipino community.

Studies have shown that Filipino women in Vancouver make 52% of the median income of other women and Filipino youth have the second-highest drop-out rate of high schools after Aboriginal youth.

“We want to create a dialogue about what role our community can play in shaping Canada’s future,” says Diocson. “There is an urgent need to look beyond the issue of the LCP, as the Filipino community and its needs continue to grow. We need to fialternatives and strategies for development towards our genuine settlement and integration, which include participating in the democratic life of Canada. This full participation, including understanding and engaging in the development of public policy, isnecessary to assert our full entitlement as a community. At the same time, we need to continue to educate, mobilize and organize at the grassroots level,” says Diocson.

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