Summary of Angela Garbes' Essential Labor

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In 2020, I was a working mother of two, who found herself trapped in a four-month lockdown as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the country. I was both overwhelmed and clinically depressed, but I still needed to get my kids’ needs met.

#2 Women are not innately better at caregiving than men. But what I found most problematic was that I was the one allowing interruption to be habitual.

#3 The Philippines’ first family of balikbayan boxes has a history with the United States that goes back to the colonial era.

#4 The US government allowed a surge of Filipino nurses to migrate to America in the 1970s as part of a larger effort to recruit foreign labor. The nurses, mostly female and brown, provided much-needed labor in American hospitals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350001433

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Insights on Angela Garbes's Essential Labor

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was a writer and mother of two, and during the Covid-19 pandemic, I was locked down with my family. I was overwhelmed and clinically depressed, but I had to get things done.

#2

I have a nice life, but I am an American because of American imperialism. I was introduced to empire in childhood, when I helped my mother pack and label balikbayan boxes for a trip back to the Philippines.

#3

My parents came to America in 1969. They were told that they would work as nurses in the United States and send money home to help their two sisters go to college. However, their decisions were shaped and constrained by centuries of conquest, bloodshed, and American policy.

#4

The U. S. government’s decision to allow an influx of Filipino workers such as my mother conveniently coincided with a nursing shortage in the United States. In the two decades following World War II, the rapid growth of hospitals, higher demand for health-care services, and