Philippine Asian News Today - Philippine Newspapers

VANCOUVER, BC. –Acclaimed Japanese-Canadian writer Hiromi Goto, the current writer in resi­dence at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, conducted a successful writing workshop ear­lier this month with local Filipino women. “In my 15 years of publishing my writing and sitting on juries, I do not remember seeing the work of a Filipino writer,” said Goto. “That Filipino writers are so under-represented in Canadian literature speaks of a systemic barrier,” she said. “This is my first time to sit down and my first step to becom­ing a good writer,” said Jocelyn Vergabera, member of SIKLAB­BC (Advance and Uphold the Rights of Overseas Filipino Work­ers).

Vergabera, along with many of the participants in the women’s workshop were currently or for­merly live-in caregivers who came to Canada under Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP).“This was an amazing experi­ence, very enriching,” said Glo­ria Remirata, also a member of SIKLAB-BC. “We are de-skilled under the LCP but somehow through workshops like these we feel empowered again and recall when we worked as professionals in the Philippines,” she added. Remirata is a high school teacher from the Philippines who came to Canada under the LCP in 2000.