NURSES IN THE DIASPORA
March 24, 2021
An online panel on Pilipinx nurses as laborers of the healthcare industry. A discussion on its history, labor organizing, pandemic realities, nursing education, colonialism, racism, and health care inequities.
MODERATOR
Jason Magabo Perez, PhD
PANELISTS
Catherine Ceniza Choy, PhD
Claire Valderama-Wallace, PhD, MPH, RN
David Monkawa
Haniely 'Han Han' Pableo, RN
Ritchel Gazo, RN, MS
ABOUT THE MODERATOR & PANELISTS
Jason Magabo Perez, PhD
Moderator
Jason Magabo Perez, Ph.D., is a writer, performer, teacher, and scholar. Perez is the author of Phenomenology of Superhero (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016) and This is for the mostless (WordTech Editions, 2017). Recipient of an NEA Challenge America Grant, Perez has been a featured performer at notable venues such as National Asian American Theatre Festival, International Conference of the Philippines, La Jolla Playhouse, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions. Perez works as Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University San Marcos, and is the current Artist-in-Residence at Center for Art and Thought (CA+T) and inaugural Community Arts Fellow at Bulosan Center.
Claire Valderama-Wallace, PhD, MPH, RN
Panelist
Claire Valderama-Wallace’s journey has taken her from physiology (UCLA) to public health (George Washington University) to nursing (UCSF and UC Davis) in classrooms, clinical settings, and harm reduction-based organizations. She is also a member of the grassroots Filipino/a/x women's organization, GABRIELA Oakland. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nursing at California State University East Bay, where she teaches Community Health Nursing, Community Engagement, and Epidemiology and Social Inequities. She recently assumed the role of MSN Program Coordinator and is eager to promote nursing leadership focused on serving the people and fighting for health equity. She stands upon the shoulders of ancestors, scholars, students, and kasamas. A vision for anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist nursing education, research, and practice is what guides her pedagogy, service, and scholarship.
Haniely ‘Han Han’ Pableo, RN
Panelist
A Filipina-Canadian artist and operating room nurse at Toronto General Hospital (the 4th best hospital in the world according to Newsweek) specializing in cardiac surgery. During the pandemic, she volunteered to be part of the Emergency Response Intubation Team (ERIT), the team responsible for intubating possible and/or confirmed COVID-19 patients. She is also currently hired as the TAVI (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation) operating room coordinator in the hospital. She was a volunteer disaster relief worker after typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) in 2014 and 2015 with All Hands Volunteers: Project Leyte, an organization promoting community collaboration, cultural exchange and local empowerment.
Music: Han Han can broadly be described as an emcee, using rap and spoken word techniques to deliver her vocals. Her kinetic, high-energy performances offer unique perspectives. Her songs grapple with social issues and her experiences as a woman and an immigrant. Her approach is melodic, and she chooses to sing almost exclusively in Filipino languages — Tagalog and Cebuano — rather than shoehorning her ideas into translation in order to cater to English-speaking audiences. Her songs combine contemporary, 808-hip-hop beats with traditional Filipino rhythms and cadences, yielding fresh sounds that tend to spur dancing wherever they’re heard.
Ritchel Tan Gazo, RN, MS
Panelist
A mother, a performer, an executive director, and a registered nurse.
Ritchel has been a Registered Nurse since 2004, where she graduated with her Bachelors of Nursing from San Francisco State University. In 2008, Ritchel received her Masters in Nursing from UCSF as a Clinical Nurse Specialist: Neonatal. She has worked for Kaiser Permanente for the last 16 years. Her first 11 years was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Kaiser San Francisco. She was a Clinical Staff Nurse III, a relief charge nurse, precepted and trained new hires, a Unit Council member and a team resource/lead. Shortly after the passing of her father who was in hospice care due to pancreatic cancer, Ritchel moved into a new spectrum of her nursing career as an After Hours and Hospice Advice Nurse providing advice care to the geriatric population in Skilled Nursing Facilities and Home Hospice patients.
Ritchel’s nursing career took another turn when she landed the Pediatric and Adult Home Health Nurse/Case Manager position, where she currently has been working the last two years. She cares for premature infants discharged home from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, pediatric oncology and children with complex medical diagnosis.
Catherine Ceniza Choy, PhD
Panelist
Catherine Ceniza Choy is Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. She is the author of the award-winning book, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (2003), which explored how and why the Philippines became the leading exporter of professional nurses to the United States. Catherine’s second book, Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America (2013), unearths the little-known historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United States beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S. military in Asia. She is also the editor of the Brill book series Gendering the Trans-Pacific World. Catherine received her Ph.D. in History from UCLA, and her B.A. in History from Pomona College. The daughter of Filipino immigrants, she was born and raised in New York City. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and their two children.
Editor, Brill Gendering the Trans-Pacific World book series Recent Writing: "Nursing Justice: Filipino Immigrant Nurse Activism in the United States," in Nursing Clio's Beyond Florence essay series, December 3, 2020.
Recent Media Coverage:
Asian American Life, "COVID's Devastating Toll on Filipino Nurses," March 4, 2021.
San Francisco Chronicle, “There’s been a surge of attacks against Asian Americans. Asians in the Bay Area say the hostility isn’t new.” by Janelle Bitker, Photography by Lea Suzuki, Videography by Manjula Varghese and Lea Suzuki, February 25, 2021.
David Monkawa
Panelist
David Monkawa was Assistant National Organizing Director, California Nurse Association/NNU, AFL-CIO (retired). He organized as a “salt” (hired employee with specific purpose to organize non-union shops) in hospitals, warehouse-transport companies, and rubber factories.
He immigrated from Japan to Los Angeles, where he was raised in Crenshaw District and attended Dorsey High School. He attended the California Institute of the Arts due to Tudor Art program for inner city kids, which was a direct beneficiary of the Watts Rebellion. He co-chaired the National Coalition for Redress & Reparations, a Japanese American organization which won individual redress and apology for Japanese Americans thrown into Concentration Camps during World War 2.
Articles:
St. John’s nurses will decide in May whether to unionize
From Medicare-for-All to Med-Equality-for-All