The box was the first thing I noticed when I stepped into Hermie Lagpao’s cramped bedroom in her apartment outside Paris. It sat in the center of a room that was cozy by default, because of its size, and made homey by years’ worth of pictures stuck in the edges of the dresser mirror.
Lagpao had spent months, using whatever money she could spare, collecting the food, gadgets, and clothing she now packed carefully into the box. She laid the cereals on top, arranging packets of biscuits and other snacks around them. She stood back to study her handiwork. She had filled every little space in the balikbayan (which literally translates to “return to your country&rdquo
box, which would now travel for at least a month by sea before reaching its destination: her children in the Philippines. “Heavy items like canned goods and shampoo go at the bottom, clothes in the middle, and the most delicate food items go on top so they don’t get crushed,” Lagpao explained.
In the 25 years that Lagpao has been working as a nanny and domestic helper in the French capital, she has packed many of these balikbayan boxes. The care packages have become something of a symbol of the Filipino diaspora as millions of women like Lagpao have gone abroad for work while their children remain at home. As of the latest estimates in 2012, there were more than 10 million Filipino migrant workers around the globe—some 10 percent of the Philippines’ population—making the country one of the world’s largest labor exporters.
[For more of this story, written by Ana P. Santos, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/int...rant-mothers/388457/]
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