Why are there so many Filipino nurses and caregivers working on the front lines?

Owing to a complex history of colonization, cultural propaganda, immigration politics, and global economic forces, the past 70 years has seen an influx of Filipinos moving to the U.S. to work as health care professionals. Although there is less research specific to caregivers and domestic home care aides, these stats about Filipino nurses help illustrate the relationship between Filipinos and the U.S health care system …

• In the U.S., nearly 1 in 3 foreign-born nurses are Filipino. (Migration Policy Institute)

• In Los Angeles County, Filipinos make up nearly 30% of the nursing force. (California Healthcare Foundation)

• An estimated 4% of nurses in the U.S. are Filipino, but as of May 2020, they represented 10% of nurses who died of COVID-19. (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention / ProPublica)

These videos, podcasts and articles help explain the migration of Filipino health care workers to the U.S. over the past half-century.

Why are there so many Filipino nurses in California?
by Catherine Ceniza Choy, for ZOCALO Public Square

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted the Filipino-American nurses who are more likely to work in acute care, medical/surgical, and ICU nursing, placing them directly on the front lines of this global pandemic.

Filipino Nurses ‘Are Literally Dying to Save Americans’
by Charissa Isidro, Daily Beast

A Fifth Of California's Nurses Are Filipino. Their Burden Of The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Fast Emerging
by Josie Huang, LAist

Nursing ranks are filled with Filipino Americans—The pandemic is taking an outsized toll on them
by Usha Lee McFarling, STAT News

Want to dive even deeper? These articles, books, lectures and essays explore statistics, migration histories, and the many challenges faced by Filipino and other immigrant health care and domestic workers in the U.S. and globally …

Immigrant Health-Care Workers in the United States
by Jeanne Batalova, Migration Policy Institute

Caregivers: ‘We need you, but we do not want you’
by Crispin R. Aranda, The Manila Times

Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History
by Catherine Ceniza Choy

Nurses on the Move: Migration and the Global Health Care Economy
by Mireille Kingma

The New Immigrant Workforce: Innovative Models for Labor Organizing
edited by Sarumathi Jayaraman & Immanuel Ness
(see Chapter 7: Center Stage: Domestic Workers Organizing in the Global City, by Ai-Jen Poo & Eric Tang)

Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader
edited by Jean Yu-Wen Shen Wu & Thomas Chen
(see essay: Asian Immigrant Women and Global Restructuring, 1970s–1990s, by Rachel Salazar Parreñas)