Obscure objects of desire:

Symbolising ideal Filipino migrant life in New Zealand

Nothing can happen nowhere. This quote from the British novelist Elizabeth Bowen might be a case of stating the obvious but it is always the obvious that gets away with illusory projections of social reality. The choice of locations in John’s testimonial would appear reasonable and logical. The two locations may obviously be the most important places in their lives at the moment and these could be considered as the places where they ‘naturally’ exist. However, any element of a text is a sign, with its own meaning potential that likely fulfils an ideological goal. Taking the setting as focal point, the spaces that figure in John’s video are anything but givens.

They do not just provide a backdrop for the scenes, but were elected to

‘communicate general ideas, to connote discourses – their values, identities and

actions’ (Machin & Mayr, 2012, p. 52). As an outcome of choices that were consciously and actively made by the producers and designers of the text, the elements that make up the video transcend their formalistic function to convey meanings that could potentially reveal the complex and conflicted character of the migrant discourse – whether these were intended or not.

Considering that one of the most prominent elements of the video is the presentation of the Evangelista family being well-settled here in New Zealand, their home in Auckland becomes a focal point of analysis since technically, it is the setting that has the most screen time in the video (71 per cent or more than 2.5 minutes) and conceptually, its potential meaning allows it to go beyond its materiality to become a sign the meaning potential of which encompasses the individual desire for economic mobility, the transnational act of migration, and the national construction of the good life.

Indeed, the ‘house’ for a Filipino is more than just a physical dwelling. It is a dream that engulfs an entire national psyche. Private corporations capitalise on this Filipino fantasy so much so that, Filinvest, one of the biggest real estate development companies in the Philippines, for instance, has as its catchphrase We Build the Filipino Dream.¹⁶ While not the sole property of the Filipino psyche, the currency of this ever-present desire and its cultural implementation in the Filipino experience is notable as it lies in its attachment to the migration phenomenon and its concomitant origination from and impact on the national neoliberal agenda.

In a study of the current real estate boom in the Philippines and its consequent implications for the use of urban space, Ortega (2011) asserts that the flourishing of the housing industry despite recent economic crises is undeniably due to the financial contribution being maintained by overseas workers. The striking proliferation of gated communities is in response to the perceived needs of a market of new economically able individuals and families that gain purchasing advantage through the support of members that toil abroad. As a result, aside from the unceasing residential construction projects brought on by business competition, a new class of Filipino economic subjects is also created whose goals, tastes, and standards in their

16 See the company website http://www.filinvestcity.com/about#

choice of dwelling are at once personal and market-induced. This subjectivity is, of course, tied to the neoliberal glorification of the OFW productive body that is able to occupy transnational labour opportunities as willing national capital.¹⁷

Idioms of the Filipino dream lead us to consider the literature on Philippine migration that, not surprisingly, lists the future of the family and children as one of the major reasons for choosing to work overseas (Añonuevo, 2002). Ironically, the breakdown of the family and its inimical effects on a migrant worker’s children are at the same time cited as some of the most glaring social costs of migration as parents leave their family behind to gain a chance at a better life (Alcid, n.d.;

Alunan-Melgar & Borromeo, 2002; Parreñas, 2005; Reyes, 2008). This is the reason why, even though they rarely uttered lines in the video, the Evangelista children occupy a critical space in the representation of the Filipino migrant’s life in New Zealand.

Felicia and Nico appear 11 times for a total of 61 seconds (roughly a little less than a third of the entire video) either together or with their parents. They appear for the first time when John introduces the family and the rest are scenes inserted to break the monotony of shots (cutaway) as John and Tina talk about their experiences of moving to Auckland. They appear five times on/with a trampoline (almost half the total number of shots where they are depicted), either together or with their parents.

The trampoline, then, must be an object worthy of a special focus due to its curious use in the video (Figure 5.6 shows the trampoline scenes of the two children).

Van Leeuwen (2001) acknowledges the usefulness of Barthes’ second order signification process as a social semiotic tool in investigating representation in images. This approach is premised on the conviction that images possess meanings deeper than what is shown on the surface. This surface that is ‘unproblematic’ and

‘unencoded’ Barthes calls the denotative level while the second layer of meaning, called connotation, is that which contains broader concepts, ideas, values (Van

17 But, as Ortega (2012) adamantly points out in the study, corporate triumph undergirded by idealised bodies of economic men and women – the Overseas Filipinos and Overseas Filipino Workers – comes with the creation of other surplus subjects – the landless farmers, indigenous peoples, and slum dwellers stripped of lands that formerly locate their place.

Leeuwen, 2001, p. 97). The connotative meaning is termed myths as they pertain to the ideological substrate that tends to legitimise the status quo (Barthes, 1972; Van Leeuwen, 2001). Turning to a Barthesian analysis of the formation of myths through the process of secondary signification or connotation, the trampoline in the video ceases to become just a plain depiction of a plaything for the children. It becomes

‘iconic’ as a defining feature of the Kiwi childhood experience. Its absence from the typical Filipino child’s environment, however, holds the key to its usefulness in reading the image as a vehicle that transports ideas of Filipino diasporic desires.

Figure 5.6 Screen grab of Felicia and Nico scenes with the trampoline. Each image is numbered according to when they appear in the video.

3

1 2

4

5

These images have been removed by the author of this thesis for copyright reasons.

Objects are frequent carriers of connotation (Van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 97). The trampoline as shown in the video proves this by being a crucial element of the outdoor mise en scène. It is where the Evangelista children manage to show happy, carefree, and active personae. It is also where the whole family is shown to converge, each time displaying smiling and fulfilled faces. As the video is a documentation of an immigrant family’s life in New Zealand, the trampoline has the potential to connote ‘Kiwiness’ in illustrating what childhood is ‘really’ like in the country: it is active, happy, and perhaps, secure, considering the ‘conduciveness’ of the outdoors as space to roam, play, and live as children are supposed to. In direct contrast, Filipinos’ reasons for leaving their country include worries about raising a family in a volatile environment replete with economic and social insecurities. The trampoline as a connotational object is, therefore, a reiteration of the ideal migrant life and the idealised Kiwi life perpetuated by the nation-state through its website presence. This time, however, there is emphasis on the migrant’s children and their future, which expectedly is a good allurement for Filipinos, in particular, who are contemplating moving abroad. Of course, the said opportunity is only open to those who are deemed desirable by neoliberal, human capital standards.

The trampoline is an important object in reading the ideological subtext of the video.

It is a somewhat easy target for close reading due to its distinctive depiction. There are, however, other objects in the text that are not as conspicuously featured, thus, are taken for granted and considered as just a ‘natural’ part of the projected environment. It is actually the case that these objects naturally exist in the locations where the shots of the Evangelistas were taken. Based on this logic, then, they are not to be given any further attention in establishing meanings. However, it is also crucial to remember that the angles of visualisation of the Evangelista home go beyond mere capture of the natural setting. The time it was shot depicts a virtually perpetual brightness of day; the yellowish leaves represent climate quite foreign to the Filipino reality (e.g. autumn foliage); the garden or lawn are iconic to the Filipino imagination of a middle class home; the trampoline is an established carrier of images of the idealised Kiwi childhood experience. These are all products of the design process where semiotic and ideological choices are simultaneously made. But,

is it possible that some objects depicted in the video are free of any other significant meanings aside from their denotative order?

Are the purple flowers in 2:52 that foreground Tina and Felicia as they walk together, or the green leaves in 3:15 foregrounding the family as they gather around the trampoline not carriers of other meanings aside from what they literally depict?

Likewise, are the framed photos in the background at 1:05 as John and Tina share their story supposed to be considered as just ‘naturally’ existing parts of the environment and nothing more?

Referencing Barthes (1986) once again, textual features that seem to resist meanings and appear to limit their presence as just concrete details are indicators of the ‘effect of reality’. As a tool to project an interpersonal metafunction or audience positioning, these seemingly innocuous objects define the naturalistic modality of the Evangelista testimonial and thus, project the material as nothing but what is real. The flowers and leaves in the foreground or the framed photos in the background are just some of the objects that defy signification by refusing to be signs in their denial of any relation to a ‘signified’. Recalling the basic structure of the sign in Saussurean semiotics, the signified is the mental counterpart of the physical signifier; the thing that comes to mind when an object as sign is perceived. In Barthes’ explication of the ‘effect of reality’, the object as sign becomes wanting of a signified, thus, accomplishing an illusion of merely being what is: a given, a natural element of the environment, the real. It is, therefore, crucial to bear in mind that ‘just when these details are reputed to denote the real directly, all they do – without saying so – is to signify it’ (Barthes, 1986, p. 148).

Photographs are good vehicles for this task because images get naturalised instead of appearing concocted (Van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 97). Video recording and documentary films obviously up the ante by incorporating the capture of not just images but also time, thus, evading the temporal flattening in the still image. These various techniques developed in contemporary times to ‘authenticate the ‘real’ all show that the ‘real’ is supposed to be self-sufficient’ in depicting nothing but ‘the having-been-there of things’ in a text (Barthes, 1986, p. 147). Imagine the consequences of this triumph in sign-making. When objects are capable of resisting meanings by denying the reader of possible interpretations outside the realm of the having-been-there, the

ideological pursuit of cementing imaginary relations as the only reality becomes unchallenged in textual production and consumption. As the John Evangelista video allows the audience to see their actual story and actual life in New Zealand, it leads the viewer to forget its naturalising and idealising effect. We fail to realise that, though realistic and based on real life stories, it is a concatenation of various multimodal elements pieced together following conventional rules. The effect of reality is, therefore, one of the text’s most profound ideological achievements.