Decolonizing Industries of Care: Nursing These Wounds
by Joyce Lu
the nurses who have died of the virus in the United States are of Pilipinx ancestry. 3 This critical yet underacknowl- edged population is now the subject of Alleluia Panis’ new site-specific, immersive dance performance, Nurs- ing These Wounds , which premieres at Brava Theater Center Cabaret, Octo- ber 21-30, 2022. Panis is the Artistic Director of KULARTS, a San Fran- cisco-based nonprofit that began as Kulintang Arts, Inc., a performance ensemble founded by Panis, along with Robert L. Henry and Marcella Pabros- Clark in 1985. In 1995, KULARTS shifted to the presenting and educa- tional arts organization it is today, with the explicit mission of engaging the public in contemporary and tribal Pilipinx arts and culture. Panis conceived of Nursing These Wounds as a way to investigate the impact of colonization on Pilipinx health and caregiving through the lens of Pilipinx nursing history. 3 “Sins of Omission: How Government Failures to Track Covid-19 Data Have Led to More Than 3,200 Health Care Worker Deaths and Jeopardize Public Health.” National Nurses United. Mar. 2021 .
“During this pandemic, people are starting to call nurses superheroes. This makes me very uncomfortable. This is our job. We are not heroes.” —-Public Health Nurse, Mylene A. Cahambing, RN, MPH In California, one out of every five registered nurses (RN) is of Pilipinx descent. 1 These nurses are also dispro- portionately represented on the front lines: bedside as well as in intensive care units, emergency rooms, nursing homes and long-term care. 2 This sit- uation has left these nurses more vul- nerable to COVID-19 and explains why, although they make up only four percent of the overall nursing force in the U.S., approximately one third of 1 Spetz, Joanne, Lela Chu, Matthew Jura, and Jacqueline Miller. “California Board of Registered Nursing 2016 Survey of Registered Nurses.” California Board of Registered Nursing. 2 Lagnado, Lucette. “A Sisterhood of Nurses.” Wall Street Journal . Aug. 11 2018. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-sisterhood-of- nurses-1533992461. and “Online Memorial Honors Filipino Health Care Workers Who Have Died Of COVID-19.” NPR . Aug 1 2020. https://www.npr. org/2020/08/01/898099601/online-memorial-honors- filipino-health-care-workers-who-have-died-of-covid-1 .
Americans began establishing nurs- ing schools in the Philippines in the early 1900s, during the U.S. occupa- tion and colonization of these islands. Subsequently, any time the U.S. faced nursing shortages, such as after World War II and right now, Pilipinos answered the call. Although the Phil- ippines gained its “independence” in 1946, like other previously colonized states, it continues to be bound in debt to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other lending institutions to the tune of about $46 billion. This economic bondage is the root of what keeps the export of Pilip- inx labor flowing. 4 “Many of
the Pilipinx nurses in the U.S. and other countries were or could have been doc- tors in the Philippines, but they went into nursing because they could earn substantially more by going abroad than they would have at home as doc- tors or lawyers,” explains Panis. In this context, the nurse who travels over- seas to work becomes a commodity, or product of domestic mass produc- tion, bringing money home to the Phil- ippine banks. 5 Part of what Nursing These Wounds explores is this tension between institutional demands and the agency of the nurses themselves. All of the artists collaborating on Nursing These Wounds are of Pilipinx
4 Choy, Catherine Ceniza. Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History . Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, 88.
5 Choy, 116.
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