Last night, The Atlantic published the late Alex Tizon’s riveting and emotional tell-all titled “My Family’s Slave.” It’s safe to say that we’re let with heavy hearts after reading the whole thing.
The essay told the story of Lola Eudocia Pulido—a woman who worked for Alex’s family for 56 years. All throughout, Alex emphasized how mistreated Lola was and called her a “slave” in their household. It also shed a new light on the Filipino notion of katulong.
This garnered several reactions from Filipinos and non-Filipinos. The latter couldn’t help but compare it to black slavery, calling the former “monsters” for allowing something like that to continue.
It’s a far-reaching analogy considering our culture here in the Philippines. While we don’t support how the elder Tizons treated Lola, many children (including myself) grew up with women like her. It’s also a reflection of how Filipino workers like her devote their time and energy to serve different families, be it here or abroad. To point this out, netizens shared other similar stories.
This also gives us Filipinos the opportunity to talk about how we view the humble katulong and kasambahay. In fact, many would also point out that this isn’t a conversation that white Americans should hijack.
Bottomline: both parties think that slavery is horrible. But wiping out cultural context and calling Filipinos ugly names is unnecessary. The point of the essay is to open everyone’s eyes that this can happen regardless of one’s race and social status. This is a problem that us Filipinos need to face and deal with sans the intrusion of foreigners. As history would tell you, the Philippines already dealt with that hundreds of years ago—even until today.
Photo courtesy of The Atlantic
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