Immigration: Filipino Community

Time Organizer Dept: Carreon didn't create the work alone; it's part of a Filipino community project known as the Maleta family: maleta is Tagalog for suitcase. "For every Filipino immigrant or overseas worker, it is an important piece of luggage in his or her journey to the outside world to escape the grinding poverty of the Philippines," according to a note accompanying the display, according to Montreal Gazette. One of the cases, for instance, features a mortarboard - to represent the immigrant who was a university graduate in the Philippines but found, on arrival, that his credentials were not recognized here and so now works as a janitor and roderick Carreon works in the stores department at the Jewish General Hospital, the department that receives all the supplies the hospital needs to run, from syringes to paper clips. The former labour organizer for the Quebec Labour Federation is also a full-time organizer in the Filipino community - and his contribution to Galerie 3755, the current staff art exhibition at the Jewish General Hospital, is a grouping of suitcases. Each suitcase is painted with a human face and the suitcases represent a family. The suitcases depict some of the struggles of the Filipino immigrant community in Canada - including its experiences of family separation, deskilling, racism and economic instability, Carreon explained. As reported in the news.
@t jewish general hospital, immigrant community