ABSTRACT
The Philippines has one of the world’s largest labour diasporas, with over 6,000 Filipinos leaving their families and country daily to work overseas. This chapter focuses on the possibilities offered by testimonial theatre to place the issue of labour migration more fully in the public eye and were keen to draw on the capacity of live performance to forge and build engaged publics on the issues. Researching through the play was about understanding the mutual processes of constituting migrant labour in Canada, the Philippines and other migration destinations, including the Middle East. Nanay began at a crossroads of intersecting histories; and it was merging of an interdisciplinary exchange of practices, networks and politics. In Canada, complacency around mothers leaving their children at home in the Philippines to care for others in Canada is tied to the temporary worker programme through which these migrants arrive. The Live-in Caregiver Program is directly parasitic on the experience of American colonialism in the Philippines.
