Inspired by movies "My Immigrant Heart" and "Fun and Sun"
I went to the Wednesday movie at the UO (ethnic studies dept) and saw a
film about an immigrant worker who goes from Bangladesh to Malaysia in
hopes of making more money, and another one that showed training sessions
at Sun Microsystems in Bangalore, India. The latter was much less
interesting, especially if you've been to several-too-many corporate
training sessions. (These aren't job-skills trainings; they're the kind
that assume that you have to be taught to read your colleagues by
personality categories, and that you want to learn to approach people with
an in-your-face marketer's style, irrespective of your own personality or
the culture that you came from or even the kind of work you are doing (not
everyone deals with customers or the public). The instructor from India
who spoke after the film said that she was watching the faces of the
employees (engineers, programmers) and she was certain that they weren't
buying it--just politely listening because they had to).
The Bangladesh worker in the first movie was literate enough that he had
written for newspapers at home, but I don't think he had been to college.
He was not specific about what kind of work he wanted in Malaysia, just a
better job. He was the sole support for his family (mother and sisters;
father deceased). When he was recruited by a 'friend' who was the
Bangladesh version of a 'coyote', he talked himself into the idea that
because this was a friend he would not be ripping him off. This turned out
to be a vain hope. The coyotes not only take money from the workers for
the journey and profits, but they take the workers papers, rendering them
illegals. In this situation they apparently would have been legal if they
had been allowed to keep their documents--they weren't sneaking across
borders the way people do from Mexico to the U.S., but flew in and went
through customs as a uniformed group. Taking the papers prevents them from
having any standing if they try to complain about the coyotes or their
jobs. It also prevents them from staying in a job more than three months,
or getting anything but bottom-rung unskilled work.
There is always the risk of getting picked up by the Malaysian cops, and
the film ends with that happening to the subject. He is beaten to death in
the jail. (We didn't see the end--the disc malfunctioned and we were
merely told about that.)
All through the film, the worker was sending home letters and tapes to his
family, and those became the basis for the movie along with interviews
with the family members. There is footage from Malaysia, but not of the
victim--the movie was done after he died.
Aside from the coyotes, it's hard to see who benefits from this mess. I
don't think Malaysia has ever had a shortage of people, or that the
standard of living is so high that employers are finding it unsupportable.
It seems to me that there is something beyond economics in the
maltreatment of migrant workers--a sort of institutionalized sadism. There
are always some 'boss' types who relish power over other people way beyond
anything necessary for getting the company's job done. They want to make
people suffer because they can. It doesn't have to be physical
abuse--office social hierarchies can be riddled with it.
KC