(Part 10 of the "Filipino Psyche" Series)

T he Migration Policy Institute’s Director of Communications Michelle Mittelstadt sent to this writer research papers from its Transatlantic Council on Migration. It is right and even advisable for Filipino-American thinkers to join and participate in the MPI’s Transatlantic Council on Migration because the Filipino is more European than American.

“Filipinos . . . are the only Latinos in Asia,” as stated in my article, Filipinos Are Indeed the Italians of Asia (Part 8 of the "Filipino Psyche" Series). And here are more reasons why Filipinos should concern themselves with European issues aside from American and Pacific-Rim topics . . .

1.0           The United States – as an anchor of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – has now more-than 4.0 million American citizens of Filipino descent, including ABER Filipinos and contract workers. ABER Filipinos, as I have coined, means the “American-born, -educated and/or –raised Filipinos” and more-often than not, they have Hispanic surnames and they are imbued with a legacy from the Latino countries.

2.0           The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1565 to 1898 and the Spanish viceroy in Mexico City administered the Philippines for more-than two centuries. Mexico of course is part of the transatlantic community of nations and it is expected to become the world’s fifth biggest economy by 2050. Mexico and the Philippines will celebrate the 450th anniversary of their socioeconomic relations on Feb. 13, 2015.

3.0           European countries now employ more-than a million (and counting) Filipino contract workers – from nannies to nurses and other medical workers to seamen. And at the rate Greek and other European shipping firms are hiring Filipino crew members even for their cruise ships, eventually the Mediterranean will become a quasi-Filipino lake, as these Filipino seamen joke. Here is a write up on the first Filipino nurses in the United Kingdom, A Partial History of Filipino Nurses in Europe (and in Arkansas, too)

4.0           Then there are the “EBER Filipinos,” who are the European-born, -educated and/or –raised Filipinos, who are usually the offspring of biracial marriages between Europeans and Filipinos. The five children of the first Miss Universe, Armi Kuusela, of Finland and her Filipino husband, Virgilio Hilario, are examples of the EBER Filipinos AKA “EuroFilipinos.” The three children of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and his Hispano-Filipino first wife, Isabel Preisier (later changed to Preysler) are also EBER Filipinos. And by the way, many Spanish policy-and-decision makers still consider Spain as the mother country of the Philippines and accordingly treat fondly Filipino citizens, some of whom can apply for Spanish dual citizenship. The Kuusela-Hilario and the Preysler-Iglesias stories started more Euro-Filipino marriages in Finland, Spain and other European countries. In Germany, there is an average of 1,000 Filipino-German marriages per year, as told in this article, How Filipino Brides Are Changing the DNA of Several Nationalities and Also the Filipino

E ditor's Notes: Here is a narrative of one of the earliest marriages in Europe between a Filipino and a European bride. While working in the Ministry of Colonies in Madrid, Spain, Isabelo “Don Belong” de los Reyes fell in love with a charming Madrileña, Senorita Maria Angeles Lopez Montero, daughter of a retired Spanish infantry colonel. He married her in 1898. Eventually they settled in Manila, after Don Belong ended his exile in Spain and returned to the Philippines, which was then already an American colony. To read more of Don Belong’s life, please go to Isabelo de los Reyes, Founder of the Philippine Labor Movement, Among Other Titles

5.0           The coming 500th anniversary of the Spanish expedition led by Fernando de Magallanes (Ferdinand Magellan) in 2019-2021 will involve the Philippines. The expedition landed in the Philippine islands of Samar, Leyte and Cebu, where Magellan died in battle. And Magellan’s crew members were said to have come from 18 European countries. The anniversary will reinforce the ties the Philippines has with Europe. This writer has been urging the Philippine government and the Filipino people to prepare for the said 500th anniversary and he has in fact registered the domain name, www.Magellan2021.com.

6.0           There are other contributions made by European nations in the making of the Filipino heritage, parts of which are related in this essay, How Filipinos Reinvented Christmas

N ow, let us get back to the MPI. According to Ms. Michelle Mittelstadt, the world’s major immigrant-sending regions are expected to fare demographically in the next two decades and this has been a focus of the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council on Migration,

particularly with respect to the implications that demographic change could have for Europe and North America.

The Transatlantic Council commissioned research from distinguished academics and researchers around the world to inform its work, and we are now pleased to make those papers public. They are:

• The Demography of China and India: Effects on Migration to High-Income Countries

Michael J. White and Inku Subedi of Brown University map the two countries’ differing age structures and demographic trajectories through 2030, examining the working-age populations of China and India, particularly in the age group most likely to migrate. The paper is available at www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/White-Paper.pdf.

• Emerging Demographic Trends in Asia and the Pacific: Implications for International Migration

Graeme Hugo of the University of Adelaide explores how Asia’s exponential growth of recent decades will not be sustained in the medium to long term amid declining fertility rates – and how Asian destination countries increasingly will be competing with OECD countries for skilled migrants from Asia and the Pacific. The paper is available at www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Hugo-Paper.pdf.

• Demographic Trends in Mexico: The Implications for Skilled Migration

Elena Zúñiga of the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Unidad de Estudios del Desarrollo and independent consultant Miguel Molina examine the growing flow of Mexican professionals heading to the United States – and how projections suggest the demand in Mexico for professionals could outstrip supply after 2025. The paper is available at www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Zuniga-Paper.pdf.

• Charting the Demographic Course across the Mediterranean

Philippe Fargues of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence examines the demographic future for the Middle East and North Africa through 2030 – and notes that the MENA region’s growing supply of young, educated workers is occurring against the backdrop of Europe’s aging population and below-replacement fertility. The paper is available at www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Fargues-Paper.pdf.

• Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa: The Most Demographically Extreme Regions

T he paper by Wolfgang Lutz, Warren Sanderson, Sergei Scherbov, and Samir K.C. of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria examines the world’s two most demographically extreme regions: Sub-Saharan African and Eastern Europe, which are experiencing the fastest rate of growth and most rapid population decline respectively. The paper is available at: www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Lutz-Paper.pdf.

The demographic papers, also available at the Transatlantic Council website: www.migrationpolicy.org/transatlantic,

comprise the first half of the latest Council volume, Talent, Competitiveness and Migration.

URL: http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/bst_engl/hs.xsl/publikationen_94735.htm%20

 
The book, published by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, maps how profound demographic change is likely to affect the size and character of global migration flows; and how governments can shape immigration policy in a world increasingly attuned to the hunt for talent. For more information on the book, please visit here.

URL: http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xchg/bst_engl/hs.xsl/publikationen_94735.htm%20

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