MAIDS, MEDIA, AND MIGRATION: FILIPINO NEWS MEDIA IN MONTRÉAL AND THE TRANSNATIONAL LIVES OF LIVE-IN CAREGIVERS

Abstract

This thesis explores the role of media in the lives of live-in caregivers in Montréal by looking at two Filipino newspapers and mainstream news coverage on Filipinas and the Philippines. While Filipino newspapers elaborate Filipino identity and speak back to stereotypes in mainstream news, their impact is curtailed by limited distribution and content range. Live-in caregivers in Montréal were selected as a special audience group through which to examine media representations of Filipinos because they are ‘othered’ through interlocking processes of gender and race. The live-in caregiver program (LCP), through which they migrate to Canada, lays bare the price that third world women immigrants are asked to pay for citizenship rights in Canada. LCP work is often underpaid, demeaning, and exploitative. Examining the lives and media habits of LCP workers ethnographically breaks new ground in studies of both domestic work and minorities and media in Canada.