"I’m saying that a large part of the reason why my country is in the shitty state that it’s in is because the USA exploited us for its own means. The playing field was never, ever even. It still isn’t. Cursory reading on the history of Filipino migration to the United States will show you that.
So, yes. It’s the epitome of arrogance, entitlement, and hypocrisy to see white people outraged at Tizon’s piece, and crashing into the conversation like they have some sort of moral ascendancy on the matter. They focus on the horrifying events (because they WERE horrifying, I’ll get to that), and not on the fact that Tizon’s work was also a story of immigration, of dying/surviving/dying/surviving in the West, countries that are more often than not complicit in the formation of the systems of abuse and exploitation that they are running from...
Tizon’s piece is powerful because it is honest. He was complicit in a terrible practice, and he wrote all about it. He’s not a hero, but he also does not deserve the vitriol that is writing itself out over social media. The only thing I got from the piece was the story of a man struggling with abuse happening under his roof, tangled up in the complex dynamics of an immigrant family. Could he have done more? Maybe. But do all the shoulda-woulda-coulda of Tizon really contribute anything to this conversation?"
This 1000% isn't my conversation, so I'm not posting this to "take a side" but I appreciated something about the way this author contextualized the story.
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