Care as relational practice: Filipino migrant workers creating communities of care under COVID-19

Women-centred, immigrant support networks have existed for Filipina/o migrants working as home care workers in the United States in what scholars call, ‘communities of care’. These networks have operated on the common experiences of Filipinas/os as migrant parents, low-wage care workers, and racialized immigrants. Under a global health crisis, Filipinas/os are working within an underfunded eldercare industry in the US, and these invisible frontliners at the forefront of assisted living facilities for the elderly demonstrated the plurality of care. We consider the concept of ‘relationality’ in the work of building care among and within Filipina/o migrant communities, while holding in tension the systematic failures of public health, immigration and healthcare in the US. We argue that evaluation of the power relations and inherent purpose of industries like eldercare can illuminate a plurality of care in the lives of Filipina/o home care workers.