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Serious America BULL SHIT claimed they FREED all the Salves is A BIG LIE!

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https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/the-enslaved-woman-they-called-lola/527532/




The Enslaved Woman They Called Lola


Enslavement is a process, not an identity. The use of the word “slave” obscures that fact.
The Atlantic

Vann R. Newkirk II May 20, 2017 Business

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This article is part of a series of responses to Alex Tizon’s Atlantic article “My Family’s Slave.” The full series can be found here.

Eudocia Tomas Pulido’s 2011 obituary in the Seattle Times is now a curious artifact of the cruelest irony. Six years before Alex Tizon wrote about Pulido in The Atlantic as “a slave in my family’s household,” he urged the Times, where he had previously worked, to write a tribute to her life. The task fell to Susan Kelleher, who based the obituary on Tizon’s recollection and saw in his account “remarkable aspects to her life that I thought would be worth sharing.” That account, which painted Pulido as a free woman, was of course a lie. But the foundation of the most beautiful of lies is often the ugliest of truths.

“A devotion so rare that even those closest to her still struggle to comprehend it” is how Kelleher described the woman the family called “Lola” in that obituary.* Alex Tizon’s struggle for comprehension did not end with Pulido’s death. Rather, it’s clear from his recent Atlantic story that even in revealing the depths of his lie, Tizon was still grappling to understand it.

Near the end of his story, Tizon describes his efforts to liberate Pulido after his mother’s death and atone for the pain she endured while raising him. He gives her a $200 weekly “allowance,” helps her travel back to their native Philippines, and attempts to steer her away from a life of domestic servitude. But Tizon’s well-intended efforts to unbreak Pulido are mostly thwarted by her inability to stop cooking, cleaning, and caring. “She didn’t know any other way to be,” Tizon laments.
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My Family’s Slave

The sad truth is that he could never fully release her, try as he might. Although my ability to understand the Filipino katulong structure that Tizon describes is clouded by my own cultural and familial context of American slavery, one thing is clear to me about all systems of bondage: Emancipation is a process. Enslaved people are not so much set free as they are made free, a long and hard process of reconciliation and reparation that can span years, if not generations, if not centuries. Power, wealth, and labor transferred from one person to another are not so easily reconciled, and most often simply aren’t.

One of the tragic consequences of slavery is that it makes both enslaved people and those who exploit them unfree in a way, and unable to simply extricate themselves from the consequences of servitude. Tizon may have done all he could for Pulido, but he couldn’t change the fact that her vitality—at one point in the story she literally chews his food when he is ill as a child—and forced labor were part of the fuel for his life and work. His successful career—which included a Pulitzer prize—came out of a childhood nurtured by her love and care and a life at least partially enabled by her labor.

My main point of contention with Tizon’s article, and perhaps with our own editorial choices, is that the deep power dynamics of slavery are not always clearly articulated. The first clue is the use of the word “slave” to refer to Pulido, even in the title “My Family’s Slave.” My guess is that Tizon chose “slave” both because it is provocative and because he wanted to invoke the searing reality of American slavery. In doing so, he chose not to hide from an awful truth. His use of the word also undercuts the often pedantic debate over just how unfree labor has to be in order to be called slavery. That instinct works for those purposes, but I find that it also obscures just how Pulido’s enslavement came to be. “And then I had a slave,” Tizon writes when she comes to live with him as a seemingly free woman. But how?

The debate over the terminology of slavery has too long a history to be litigated here, but “enslaved person” has begun to supplant “slave” in scholarly circles (including by the curators of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History) as a way to “carry them forward as people, not the property that they were in that time,” according to writer Andi Cumbo-Floyd.

I prefer “enslaved person” not just because of that nod to humanization, but because of its closer proximity to the verb “enslave.” Especially in Pulido’s case—absent the generational and legal context of African American slavery—slavery is not a fixed state. Enslavement is not a single action, either. Rather, like emancipation, enslavement is a process. Slaves are made over decades by the process of enslavement, they are broken and bent, their persons warped against their wills. Calling Pulido a “slave” obscures the work that individuals did to assign that status.

Tizon chronicles the horror-show elements of this process: the physical abuse Pulido suffers at the hands of Tizon’s father and the inhuman treatment at the hands of his mother, who lets Pulido’s teeth rot out of her head for years rather than sending her to the dentist. But Tizon is less clear about how affection, motherly love, and even attempts to set people free can strengthen the bonds of bondage. Sustained abuse and forced dependency have a way of creating real psychological dependency, and it must be noted that Pulido’s turn as a surrogate mother came in the context of her de facto forced desexualization by the Tizon family: She was not allowed to have a biological family, and confessed to Tizon that she had never had sex. Tizon’s mother’s seeming softening near the end of her life, as well as Pulido’s obvious love and care for Tizon’s children as her grandchildren, are both real instances of compassion and also ways in which Tizon’s family filled the psychological needs and kinship bonds that they prevented Pulido from building on her own.

The Seattle Times obituary proved that in 2011 Tizon could not quite grasp the full gravity of Pulido’s position. Her selflessness is presented as a saintly virtue, not as a possible survival instinct ingrained by abuse. Tizon’s essay in The Atlantic is more self-aware and honest, but still not quite there. Even Tizon’s name for Pulido, Lola, is an assignment (“we called her Lola”) by her enslavers and not an expression of her being—even if it is a familial honorific. Tizon doesn’t know her desires, fears, attachments, or even very much about her own story. He attempts to learn these things, but doesn’t get very far, and we never learn whether the failure is due simply to Pulido’s reticence or to the fact that years of servitude had minimized her story even in her own mind. Tizon’s intentions are noble. But “My Family’s Slave” is not a final story of retribution or atonement, but the first step in a journey of absolution that was tragically cut short.

This is not a damnation of Alex Tizon. His position from birth was impossible. It’s a tragedy that he is not here to respond, learn, grow, and engage with both the criticism and praise his piece inspired. Filipino readers and friends have lauded his bravery for opening a taboo topic, and domestic laborers and victims of human traffickers now have an ear at The Atlantic, and some of their stories are relayed in responses.

But the consequences of human exploitation run much deeper than Tizon appeared to recognize, and perhaps much deeper than our own editorial staff realized. One of the common critiques of “My Family’s Slave” is that it failed to shed much light on the fascinating woman Tizon called “Lola,” and seemed to only view her in the wide angles of Tizon’s arc of redemption. That critique seems somewhat limited to me—Tizon did chronicle his efforts to interview her, and did present some moments when we saw her personality. But perhaps it’s also true that her lack of voice and independence from his story are part of the nature of enslavement. The worst sin of the peculiar institution in any of its worldwide forms is that it erases some lives to nurture others. Tizon’s account does not grasp the extent of Pulido’s erasure, but that inability highlights just how slavery warps both the enslaver and the enslaved. To this writer, that makes “My Family’s Slave” all the more necessary to read, and mourn.
 

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p053p4md?ocid=socialflow_twitter




Lola, the family slave

The late Filipino-American journalist Alex Tizon wrote his final article for the Atlantic magazine about his experience of growing up with a domestic slave called Lola. Lola's life as a slave began in the Philippines where, aged 18, she was given as a gift by Alex's grandfather to his mother. Alex's parents subsequently emigrated to the United States where Lola cooked, cleaned the house and looked after Alex and his siblings - all without pay. Lola's domestic slavery only truly ended at the age of 75, when Alex's mother died. Alex's wife Melissa discusses her late husband's experience of growing up with a slave in the family.

(Photo: Lola with Alex Tizon, his wife Melissa and their daughter. Credit: Maria Tizon Huskey)
Release date:
24 May 2017
Duration:

5 minutes
 

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https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/slavery-today/527412/




Lola Wasn't Alone


Slavery persists in homes across America.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

Ai-jen Poo May 19, 2017 Business

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This article is part of a series of responses to Alex Tizon’s Atlantic article “My Family’s Slave.” The full series can be found here.

There are few subjects more painful than slavery. The word itself conjures images of the most shameful and ugly parts of humanity and our past, histories most would prefer to distance themselves from. This may in part be why, in just two short days, The Atlantic’s article “My Family’s Slave,” by the journalist Alex Tizon about his family’s enslavement of a woman named Eudocia “Lola” Tomas Pulido, has caught the attention of and moved thousands of readers. The title itself is shocking in its admission of slavery tucked right into a modern American home.

The story of Pulido is extraordinary in many ways, especially in terms of the length of her enslavement. But what should be more shocking is that her story is not as rare as one would hope. While slavery today doesn’t include the chains and horrors typically associated with it, it is unmistakably slavery, existing in modern America. In an ordinary American community. In a residential neighborhood. Where neighbors met her.

She was enslaved. She lived among us, hidden in plain sight. And there are many more women like her.

How does this happen in America today? Some of this story’s readers have blamed immigrants, claiming that such a practice is un-American. Some have pointed the finger at Tizon’s Asian family, claiming that Filipino culture is at the root of this case of slavery.
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My Family’s Slave

But I can tell you, having worked with domestic workers since the mid-1990s, that extraordinary acts of cruelty are unfortunately not limited to people of any one culture. To the contrary, completely ordinary people can be incredibly cruel when they have a decided power advantage and no checks on their power. There is a known pattern of abuse with foreign diplomats and professionals who import “help” from their home countries, but Americans enslave people too. There is a deep history of these arrangements among families at the U.S.-Mexico border where U.S. citizens regularly exploit the insecure citizenship status of workers by forcing them to clean, cook, and take care of children and elders. And across the country, community organizers have encountered enslaved and exploited domestic workers in city after city.

How can such a thing still happen? The pervasiveness of the problem is in a sense an answer to that question: When there is an extreme power imbalance, people—particularly women—are vulnerable to slavery. In every story I’ve heard from women who have survived these atrocities, there are two commonalities: invisibility and vulnerability.

There are many other examples of stories like Lola’s, stories sensitive enough that the last names of the women who told them have been withheld here. For example, there was Lilly, who was brought to Texas at the age 15 by a couple of American executives at a technology company. They promised her an American education and a path out of poverty for her family in Jamaica, in exchange for working as a live-in nanny for their three children. Instead, as soon as they arrived, they cut off her communication with her family and the outside world. For 15 years, her mobility was restricted. She was not allowed to leave the house unaccompanied or talk to any of the neighbors. And she was never paid.

And there was Karmo, who came from Nepal to a Virginia suburb, also escaping extreme poverty, to work for an Indian diplomat. Upon arrival, she was forced to work from early morning until late at night, isolated and prohibited from talking to other people. Karmo’s passport was confiscated by her employer and she was told she could be picked up by the police if she complained. For both Lilly and Karmo, the extreme economic hardships of their families left them vulnerable to false promises of a better life; once in America, force, fear, and lack of other jobs and options made it hard for them to leave.

Slavery doesn’t just happen in a vacuum, as some perversion from the bigger economic context that people live in. Deep poverty and few options for economic mobility make a person vulnerable to slavery. Language and cultural barriers, and being a woman make a person vulnerable to slavery. Being dependent on an employer for visa access makes a person vulnerable to slavery. Immigration laws that trap a person in the shadows for fear of deportation keep them vulnerable.

The organization I lead, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and our affiliates have found that for women who have survived slavery or trafficking, the single most important factor for enabling women to escape from slavery is knowing that they are not alone and that they will be supported when they do.

If Tizon had known there was an organization of women who shared Lola’s experience and helped her connect to them—and if Lola had known she was not alone, met other women like her, and seen that it was possible to rebuild and live a different life—would her story have ended differently?

The National Domestic Workers Alliance started a campaign with this question in mind. It’s called “Beyond Survival,” and its goal is to support women who have survived extreme abuse by giving them a chance to heal, connect with others like them, and, for those who choose to do so, share their experiences publicly so that others may be encouraged to escape enslavement. Through this campaign and an organization called Adhikaar, Karmo not only found the courage and support to escape, but she now organizes and assists others like her in New York City. Additionally, programs like these can help policy-makers learn how to best address the needs of survivors.

Their stories and Lola’s story remind us that we must take courageous action to end trafficking and slavery. Their resilience brings us face to face with the most painful aspects of humanity, so that we may collectively become more humane.
 

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https://tw.news.yahoo.com/我家養了-個奴隸-普立茲獎得主生前最後告白-揭露美國的菲傭奴隸文化-070000918.html


「我家養了一個奴隸」普立茲獎得主生前最後告白 揭露美國的菲傭奴隸文化
[風傳媒]
王穎芝
風傳媒2017年5月29日 下午6:02
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「洛拉和我們家人一起生活了56年。她一手帶大我和兄弟姐妹,從早到晚做飯、打掃,從來沒有薪水。」

美國《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)6月號封面人物,是一位6年前去世的菲律賓裔美國老婦,這篇故事由普立茲獎得主、資深記者提森(Alex Tizon)撰寫,描述在自家裡幫傭56年的「洛拉」(Lola),如何為了換取溫飽淪為奴隸,甚至跟隨提森一家人遠渡重洋到美國,一生都在工作。
答應當保母 一生都是傭人

洛拉本名為尤多西婭・湯瑪斯・普里多(Eudocia Tomas Pulido),所有小孩都叫她「洛拉」,是菲律賓他加祿語(Tagalog)的「奶奶」之意。1943年,家境窮困的洛拉遇見提森的外祖父,他問洛拉,願不願意照顧他12歲的女兒換取溫飽,洛拉沒想多少就答應了。
《我家的奴隸》一文,揭露菲律賓奴役家傭的歷史文化。(美聯社)
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《我家的奴隸》一文,揭露菲律賓奴役家傭的歷史文化。(美聯社)

《我家的奴隸》一文,揭露菲律賓奴役家傭的歷史文化。(美聯社)

洛拉從此淪為一名全年無休的家傭。提森的母親長大後嫁到馬尼拉,洛拉也繼續在小家庭內幫傭。1970年代提森父母赴美工作,洛拉原本不願跟隨,但提森父母答應給她豐厚的月薪寄回家鄉,說動她一起前往美國。

早在西班牙帝國殖民菲律賓之前,菲律賓群島上的奴隸制度就已存在,被奴役者通常是俘虜、罪犯或是欠債之人,他們做最粗重的工作,和「主人」全家住在一起,沒有薪水,只能換取三餐溫飽。有錢人奴役窮人,窮人又奴役更窮的人,這種現象至今仍存在菲律賓鄉村。
成為非法移民 30多年無法回鄉

洛拉來到美國,照顧提森和4個兄弟姊妹,包辦所有家事讓提森父母專心工作。但這對夫妻始終沒有按照約定給予薪水。後來提森一家人決心申請成為美國公民,但提森父母為了留下沒有血緣關係的洛拉,竟然讓她成為非法移民,更不允許她回鄉探親。洛拉連親生父母過世都沒能回去探望。

提森回憶,洛拉一人包辦家裡所有工作,不僅如此,提森父母為了移民美國欠下大筆債務,經濟拮据、工作繁忙,經常把氣出在洛拉身上,動則打罵。而洛拉連自己的床都沒有,常常蜷縮在房間一角睡覺,或乾脆睡在還沒疊好的衣服堆裡。
《我家的奴隸》一文,揭露菲律賓奴役家傭的歷史文化。(美聯社)
檢視相片
《我家的奴隸》一文,揭露菲律賓奴役家傭的歷史文化。(美聯社)

《我家的奴隸》一文,揭露菲律賓奴役家傭的歷史文化。(美聯社)

漸漸的,提森意識到洛拉的存在「很尷尬」。他不敢對來玩的同學說實話,也不喜歡爸媽上一秒還十分慈愛,轉過頭就對洛拉大吼大叫。提森和哥哥偷偷討論洛拉的處境,卻想不到有誰過著跟洛拉一樣的生活。

洛拉與母親的關係也不是主奴而已,當提森的父親拋家棄子、不告而別之後,洛拉成為提森母親的精神支柱,常常要安撫她入睡;當母親再嫁的男人出現暴力傾向時,洛拉也勇敢出面阻止。兩人相互依賴,提森都看在眼裡。

某天,洛拉牙齒疼痛難忍,提森的母親還是怕被揭發不願帶她去看醫生(洛拉當然沒有醫療保險),提森終於爆發了:「能不能就這麼一次,把洛拉當人看待,而不是當做奴隸?」

「奴隸?」媽媽說,忖度著這個詞。「一個奴隸?」

多年之後我回想起來,仍像被人在心口打了一拳。憎恨自己的母親是很可悲的,而那天晚上我真的恨我母親。

她的眼神毫無保留地告訴我,她也恨我。

提森寫道,母親嫉恨孩子都站在洛拉那邊,變本加厲使喚她,還不時出言諷刺。提森為了幫助洛拉,試著教洛拉開車,也替她辦了一張提款卡,希望她有一天可以在美國自立,但洛拉與社會隔離太久,嘗試都以失敗收場。

不過,受到孩子影響,提森母親漸漸有了轉變。母親開始對洛拉更好,給她一個房間,幫她作了假牙,兄弟姊妹幫洛拉爭取合法居留權時,母親也積極配合,甚至還曾經帶她一起旅行。

提森的母親1999年過世後,提森把洛拉接來家裡同住,不再要求她任何事情,給她豐厚的薪水,讓閒不下來的洛拉想做什麼就做什麼。洛拉學會了看報紙,在庭院蒔花弄草。洛拉83歲那年,提森終於買了機票,帶洛拉回去菲律賓看看,但故鄉早已人事全非。又過了幾年,86歲的洛拉突然倒在家中,沒有太多痛苦的離世。

Growing up with a domestic slave in America https://t.co/PlQyj2bXAN
— BBC World Service (@bbcworldservice) May 25, 2017

獲得廣大迴響 作者遭批「偽善」

提森的文章發表後被美國網友大量轉發,也擴散到菲律賓社群和其他地區,《大西洋月刊》主動將其譯成中文,又引發更多回響。

許多人讀了提森的文章潸然淚下,但更多網友指出,提森應該可以更積極幫助洛拉,身為曾榮獲普立茲調查報導獎的記者,提森竟然沒有為洛拉爭取更多應有的權益,甚至在文中美化洛拉和母親、和家人的關係,令人難以讚揚該文。

《大西洋月刊》編輯台也收到如雪片飛來的哀悼、同情和憤怒留言,也決定開闢一個留言板,讓網友盡情抒發、互相討論。但編輯台表示,提森答應刊出文章後不久,3月時竟在睡眠中自然過世,享年57歲。他甚至不知道主編已決定將這篇文章當成封面,因此無法回應讀者。

這篇文章激起美國關於種族和奴隸制度的激烈討論,尤其在菲律賓社群裡更是如此。許多菲裔民眾忍不住為提森說話,有學者說,亞洲文化比較不敢忤逆長輩,何況牽涉到奴役和非法移民,自然更難以啟齒。

@seattletimes obit writer angry, in story-behind-story @TheAtlantic piece modern day slave 'Lola'/ 'Eudocia. https://t.co/BXbHSMFFba
— Mei Fong/ (@meifongwriter) May 18, 2017

也有第一代的菲律賓移民指出,「家傭」(katulongs ,即英文的helper)確實存在。一名66歲婦女加拉羅莎(Annie Galarosa)說:「菲律賓沒有社會福利可言......聽起來也許很奇怪,但連窮人都可以有自己的家傭,這是為了生存發展出來的制度。」

但是,第二代以後在美國長大的菲裔年輕人都說,雖然可以理解提森的掙扎,但他們還是無法坐看自己家庭如此奴役另一個人。

這篇文章不只讓人嘆息,也掀起更多人重視問題的意願,菲律賓網路媒體Rappler貼出不少迴響,一名記者布安(Lian Buan)寫道:「提森是菲律賓人,也是記者和移民,下筆時我覺得好像背叛了同胞,」布安寫道:「但是,這種制度仍是我們的共業,我們必須正視。」

「不管是白人黑人還是亞洲人,奴役就是錯的。」

"I am angry that the story ends in Lola's relatives feeling light and ready to eat." #RapplerBlogs https://t.co/krVDzrOd5T
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) May 19, 2017


相關報導
● 歷史上的今天》5月18日──打響北美洲廢奴第一砲!羅德島通過法律廢除終身奴隸制
● 21世紀的奴隸悲歌》北非利比亞人口販子橫行 數百名年輕男子遭受非人折磨
 

frenchbriefs

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nothing wrong what,sinkies have enjoyed this soxiante slave relationship with LKY for more than 40 years,the bonds are nearly unbreakable now.

like the article said,the sustained abuse and the inhumane treatment,and then the affection and motherly love only serves to strengthen the bonds of bondage.and soon after the years go by,the relationship between master and slave is complete,psychological abuse and forced dependency have a way of creating a psychological dependency .sinkies having experienced only one reality,having witnessed only one fatherly love and abuse they do not know of any other.

slaves is merely an identity,enslavement is a process.this can be seen even in today's society,in Singapore's overreliance on maids,domestic workers form the foundation of singapore,unable to form an emotional bond with their children or unable to summon up the energy and mental strength to do so,they pass this responsibility to their maids.having grown up in abusive and highly critical environments during the LKY era,many sinkies are emotionally crippled or damaged,unable to form healthy relationships with other human beings,often using their maids as a substitute,as their object of abuse,for sex and as a childraiser.
 
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Jah_rastafar_I

Alfrescian (Inf)
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Now let's wait for some m&d or shit skin to adopt this into the sg context and find a way to play victim from Chinese while of course a Chinese person could never ever do the same.
 
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