By Teresa Valenton
Though simple in colour, the white walls of Katrina Tan’s Markham, Ont. home have witnessed stories that have decorated her life. The living room couch that was once filled with family members celebrating holidays, sharing conversations and sitting in the mundane, now lies empty. Photos in frames that captured better days sit atop shelves alongside medicine bottles, awards and old family documents. Many pass through the room but can no longer recall the moments of love behind the photographs.
Looking back to her childhood, Katrina explained how her household felt emptier and emptier as each family member moved out one by one. “It all started depleting when my grandpa died, then my mom, sister and grandma went [to the Philippines] for a little bit as well. I stayed back with my dad, both my brothers, [my brother’s girlfriend and daughter] but that’s when it started feeling empty.”
The migration stories of Filipino students at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) include foundations of sacrifice made by their parents to successfully settle in Canada. For Katrina, a first-year environmental and urban sustainability student, her connection to these lived experiences has had a fundamental impact on her upbringing.
“We are OK, even if we’re not professionals working in an office, we gave everything to our kids”
“It was hard, we were far and I wanted to get them here so we could finally be together,” said Ronaldo Tan, Katrina’s father, who first arrived in Canada from the Philippines on April 27, 1992. He spoke with The Eyeopener in Tagalog and his responses have been translated into English.
Often in search of greater opportunities outside their home countries, many immigrants in Canada have turned to the Family Reunification Program, a government initiative allowing Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor certain relatives to immigrate. It has become one of the three pillars of permanent immigration to Canada, alongside economic and refugee protection.
According to the Government of Canada, the program represented 23 per cent of all permanent immigrants to Canada in 2022. Since then, the top three countries of original birth include India, China and the Philippines, representing 70 per cent of newcomers under the program in the same year. The program has become an invaluable opportunity for countless individuals in the Filipino community.
However, the term paghihirap—meaning suffering through labour and hardship in Tagalog—encapsulates the familial costs of leaving their lives behind.
By himself, Ronaldo made his move to Canada to join his mother after she sponsored him, leaving the rest of his family behind in the Philippines. In search of better opportunities for his children, Ronaldo quietly endured personal challenges.
In his experience, Ronaldo was initially hesitant to leave his family back home. “At first, I did not want to leave, I had two children and I was unable to secure a job for six months. I thought to myself that it was no good for me here because I was far away from my family,” he explained.
Upon securing a night job in clothing factories, Ronaldo worked diligently from 1992 up until the company’s closure in 2005. While bearing the responsibilities of fatherhood alongside burdens of migration, the separation from his family remained at the forefront of his aspirations. Despite the distance between them, the Tan family remained connected through long-distance calls and memories that grew further with time.
“Both kids were still young so it was quite hard for me. I could not see them or take care of them and all they had was their mom. The [time zones] were different, I could barely speak to them which made it hard for me,” Ronaldo shared.
Ultimately in 1996, the rest of the Tan family—including Ronaldo’s wife and a son and daughter*—were finally able to reunite with him after obtaining permanent residency. His wife, Alicia Tan, had to face a different set of challenges as a mother of two children. Once she arrived in Canada, her experiences vastly differed as her immediate family was back home in the Philippines.
“I’ve quietly taken on my family’s hardships while growing up knowing about them which was the most Filipino I felt”
Now in a foreign country, Alicia saved money for calling cards and stayed on standby for times to speak to her parents. Over many conversations of reassurance, Alicia checked in on her family back home with a goal of providing the Tan family with more opportunities. As each day blended into one another, she found herself working tirelessly to both support her then-family-of-four in Canada while also sending some money back home.
“[Here in Canada] you have to work hard. Six days a week you have to work—you have to pay for everything, rent, food, apartment, transportation,” said Alicia. “You need the car to drop the kids off to school and buy whatever they need to support them.”
Alicia reminisced on the simplicity of life back home, recalling slow mornings with full Filipino breakfast spreads on the table as families gathered around to bask in the sun—much different from Canada’s cold winters. Despite an underlying desire to return back home, Alicia pointed out that she and her husband’s work and efforts have been worth it.
“I had to sacrifice everything for myself, not to see my parents and siblings and to stay here in Canada to raise my family. I had to work hard for them,” she said. “I’m happy to live here. We are OK, even if we’re not professionals working in an office, we gave everything to our kids.”
Years after Ronaldo and Alicia’s journey to Canada and the initial hardships that came with it, they had their daughter, Katrina.
With a unique experience compared to her parents and siblings—who immigrated across the world together—her upbringing marks a different perspective on the reunification program. Having not personally witnessed their initial struggles, her connection to their stories is shown through the result of her family’s sacrifices.
“This house [in Canada] is the only one that I’ve ever lived in. It’s always been packed so on days where I’m home alone now, it doesn’t necessarily feel right,” Katrina said.
With many having similar stories to the Tans, the Filipino community continues to grow in the Greater Toronto Area through the reunification program. According to a 2021 census by Statistics Canada, there are around 925,000 people in Canada of Filipino ethnic origin.
As the population continues to grow, immigrants have formed communities to take care of each other.
In a scholarly article titled “A Political Economy of Emotions: The Love and Labour of Filipina Migrant Care Workers in Canada,” Dani Magsumbol, a PhD candidate from York University, looked further into the effective relationships between Filipino labour migrants. She argued that although academic literature solely focuses on the employment status of immigrants, it fails to view them as social and political beings.
“My lola was a big factor in my upbringing and filled in what my mom couldn’t do as a maternal figure for me”
Sought to broaden their portrayal, she proposed the perspective that immigrant workers are participative, political beings who seek out and form communities. Within these communities, the phrase utang ng loob—meaning debt of reciprocity—has remained an important concept in Filipino culture.
In an article from Cultural Atlas, writer Chara Scroope said that “the opinions of younger family members” and children’s opinions are considered to be secondary to their superior.” As a result, those requiring old age care are often taken care of by their children or grandchildren.
Though parents have undergone these pressures, the emotional costs of immigrating have trickled down to Filipino TMU students as well.
Jared Baluyot Colo, a third-year business technology student, described his childhood as one shaped by community as he experienced separation from his mother.
At five years old, Colo’s mother immigrated to Canada as their family’s sole breadwinner. “I don’t think I felt very sentient back then but I’ve been reflecting on it,” he said.
Colo said his older sister attended university at the time and his father was not quite present. “I mean I did have other family members such as my lolas [grandmothers] that were there to provide for me in the cases that my dad couldn’t.”
Still surrounded by community and family, he said it did not erase the fact that he went through childhood without his mother. For seven years, Colo and his family only saw her during occasional visits back to the motherland during the holidays. There were ways to communicate online to mitigate the loneliness he felt but it was incomparable to grow along this separation, he said.
“For what it’s worth, I grew up on my mom’s side in their ancestral home. So there were lots of relatives coming by all the time. My lola was a big factor in my upbringing and filled in what my mom couldn’t do as a maternal figure for me,” said Colo.
“This house [in Canada] is the only one that I’ve ever lived in. It’s always been packed so on days where I’m home alone now, it doesn’t necessarily feel right”
He reunited with his mom in Canada in August 2015 and emphasized the concept of paghihirap.
“What I consider paghihirap to be is the isolation of living in an alien country without knowing how to speak English…I know all the stories my mom would tell about being here alone going through job to job,” he elaborated.
He explained that while Filipinos work overseas, their only form of intimacy is cultivated through letters, phone calls or the act of sending money back home for sustenance.
Today, Colo said his relationship with his mother is “back-loaded.” Frequently reminded by others to be grateful for her sacrifices, his own burdens left many questions open.
“I’d be told to be appreciative and grateful, but I didn’t even know what that meant or who this person was supposed to be even though they were supposed to be integral to my life,” said Colo.
Often excluded by the broader Filipino community from direct conversations surrounding immigration, Katrina narrated the aftermath of it all by growing away from struggle. In isolation of her own experiences, she remains thankful to her parents who provided opportunities for her through their hardships. Though she has felt guilt in her journey as a first-generation Filipina—and as a result of the Family Reunification Program—she can sometimes still feel caught between the two countries.
“I’ve quietly taken on my family’s hardships while growing up knowing about them which was the most Filipino I felt,” said Katrina. “Now in university, I have a better understanding for what that identity means apart from that and I’m super proud of it.”
*Correction: A previous version of this story originally stated that Ronaldo Tan had two daughters. The story has now been updated with the correct information. The Eye regrets this error.
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