Search

Lived experiences of social marginality necessitate tactics that engage varied forms of exploitation, discrimination, and abuse. These include writing testimonial narratives, which Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) use to foreground their many-layered subalternity. Through labor export OFWs have become vulnerable to different kinds of oppression, including psychological trauma. This paper examines letters written by OFWs that have been culled from the archives of Kanlungan Foundation, a non-government organization concerned with the welfare of migrant workers. It analyzes the letters according to a two-pronged concept of resistance--one that fuses the discourse of critique with that of affirmation and hope. More specifically, this paper shows how the letters narrativize OFW experiences of victimization, and how such experiences dialectically create spaces for possible emancipation and fuel the search for collective justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a genre, testimonios or testimonial narratives are not just transgressive of canonical literary aesthetics; they also serve as a tool for otherwise marginalized groups to expose, denounce, and negotiate their experiences of abjection and subordination. These narratives may constitute a counter-hegemonic project, if not an oppositional response, at least, to structures and relations sustained (often brutally) by the apparati of state and capital. In this exploratory paper, I read the letters of abused workers as counter-narratives that rub against mainstream discourse. In particular, I am using as primary materials the letters written by the Filipino workers of a foreign company which has been recognized and endorsed by state officials for its "contribution" to investment and job generation. Occluded, however, are the stories of abuse, exploitation, and repression among the workers, some of whom have met violent deaths in the workplace. These "little stories" become counter-narratives vis-à-vis the positive, celebratory depiction of the company in official discourse, which bleaches the company of allegations concerning its anti-labor practices. The discussion revolves around how the letters as testimonios and as counter-narratives exemplify discourses of resistance and solidarity, foregrounding the workers' denunciation of the abuses committed by and within the company, while also highlighting the workers' collective responses to these abuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]