Community Meeting (April 18): Community engagement through comics (Althea Balmes)

Presenter: Althea Balmes

Video Recording

• Komik (comics)

• long history of komiks in the Philippines

  • first known comic was by Jose Rizal, Philippine national hero, about a monkey and turtle (Si Pagong at Si Matsing) and has become folklore

  • https://sirmykel.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/jose-rizal-ang-pagong-at-ang-matsing.pdf

• many American influences on the comics

  • partially due to American GIs who came to the Philippines

  • made stories that by nature of the situation in the politics and economy of the Philippines, it has always been a political act — celebrating the culture and telling their stories but also criticising foreign powers

• Kwentong Bayan: Labour of Love

  • literal translation: community stories

  • tell stories and have political awareness

  • tell stories about caregivers in a way that hasn't been told before

  • empowering caregiver workers in Canada

  • had to learn the ins and outs of the caregiver program

    • had to challenge assumptions and biases about the program and migrant workers

  • gathering of elders

    • meet with caregivers and allies who will provide support and guidance on how these stories are told

    • collaborate on stories being told through our lived experiences and perspectives

    • reciprocal relationships, invited to and participating in each other's events

    • it's not just about the subject or the researcher, but building a community with different types of people, also crossing intergenerational boundaries

    • learn about issues that matter to them and to the community and the reasons why they matter – and when we can, help out

  • workshops and clinics

    • workshop covered
      
      

      • why should they support refugees

      • why is their situation as migrant workers different from someone who is coming as a refugee

    • clinics

      • tax clinic

      • self defence class

        • in partnership with Combat Science: Warrior Arts of Asia

        • useful for caregivers who live with their employer and who's home/work becomes a dangerous place

    • lots of power in learning about how they build community

  • Advocacy and Leadership training at George Brown

    • for caregivers

    • helping caregivers transition to another job/career

    • caregivers have a hard time getting education or getting Canadian credentials

    • practical and theoretical curriculum

  • Community presentations

    • fun community events

      • June 12 is Philippine independence day

        • takes place in Earl Bales Park

        • one activity is street theatre where they'll put on a skit that covers an issue that a caregivers may face

          • e.g. a caregiver who paid an agency to come to Canada but had no job when they came

    • Marching in the Pride parade

    • Labour+Love: A Celebration of Caregivers

      • provided another opportunity for caregivers to perform their street theatre to cover issues they face

  • learning community history to tell the stories in the comics

    • learn the stories, reflect, and collaborate on them

    • understand that they aren't from the caregivers perspectives, but from the perspective of someone who has inside and outside perspectives about the caregiver program and the Filipino community

    • weave facts into narrative and reflect on the consequences of leaving the country

    • have learned a lot of history about caregivers in canada. This is shared through their comics.

    • One of the their comics on the history of caregivers was turned into wall murals displayed at various galleries

  • poster included in http://graphichistorycollective.com/projects/remember-resist-redraw

    • http://graphichistorycollective.com/project/poster-3-caregiving-work-canada

  • Contributed to "Drawn to Change Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggles"

    • make history accessible, make worker's movements are more accessible to the public

    • http://graphichistorycollective.com/books/drawn-to-change/kwentong-bayan-labour-of-love

  • Balakbayan exhibit at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre in Hamilton

    • https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/kwentongbalikbayan/

    • also providing workshops for caregivers

    • there's always a community engagement presentation or aspect to it

    • at A Space Gallery, it became a community hub for those who wanted to use the space to hold their own events during the reception

  • Part of her job as an illustrator is to show all the emotions that one would feel as the mother/caregiver or her child, and to represent all of the different actors in these stories

  • Part of their work as storytelling is not judging people of their privilege, and sometimes it is hard to not have a moralistic story being told; there has to be a holistic understanding of the community

  • Main work is to celebrate this Filipino-Canadian culture because of their situation here, that different things can happen in a racialised community but talk about why that happens with compassion and empathy; it is not just about statistis or the difficulties or struggles that the individual characters face, it's about everything else about it that influences it