Nakikita ba Ninyo Kami?: An Article on the Narrative of Blind Massage Therapists
October 08, 2017
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Updated October 8, 2017
Written by Rose Celine Jimenez, Ren Azrack Escosio, & Company.
Written by Rose Celine Jimenez, Ren Azrack Escosio, & Company.
It is no surprise that everyone of us has experienced “unfair” treatment throughout the stages of our lives. Maybe it was when our parents told us to not talk back when we just wanted to explain. We might also have felt a slight irritation towards our teachers and employers for not considering the state of our oh-so-loaded week of requirements by giving another task to finish. Whatever they were, during those moments, we felt that they were unfair because our voices were not being heard.
Those experiences are important and true for you, for us. They leave this heavy feeling in our chest that we are reminded of when the same experiences come across us again. Remember that feeling as you read through this article. Because that is the kind of feeling some groups in our society constantly experience wherever they go and wherever they are every single day. We are not here to tell you that your/our struggles are not real. They are real and have affected the way we perceive the world. But we are here to tell you that there are also people out there who we may not know but are deprived of the basic rights and privileges that we already possess and constantly enjoy.
One of the observable groups who are not given the microphone to speak for their needs are the disabled. Just this Friday, our group interviewed blind massage therapists in Baguio City, Philippines. We wanted to know and understand in-depth how and where they are placed in the social structure. In respect to these people, we prioritized their perspective to define their identities, capabilities, and struggles as based on the Standpoint theory’s assumption that one’s location in the society (economic class, gender, race, work) affects his/her perception of the world and how s/he understands and interprets it.
“Marginalization has been defined as a complex process of relegating specific groups of people to the lower or outer edge of society” (Sociology Guide). “It effectively pushes these groups of people to the margin of society economically, politically, culturally and socially following the policy of exclusion” (ibid). What is common to the five individuals we interviewed is that they all feel discriminated by the people around them. They felt that people do not trust their skills and capabilities of doing jobs done by sighted people. Society limits them to stay as massage therapists only. In fact, we found out that they were required to have trainings on physical therapy when they were in high school. This can be an implication that at a young age, they were already trained to be a massage therapist because this job is usually done by blind people. Hence, they would think that their future is leaned towards the sphere of physical therapy only. Interviewees also said that they were not able to enter the jobs they wanted because employers think that they are incapable of doing the job.
Photos of our first interview in the massage center located inside Victory Liner in Engineer’s Hill.
Photos of our second interview in a massage center near Igorot Park.
Our group asked them about their experiences in finding jobs other than being a massage therapist. One said, “Actually may times na mahirap talaga. Na-experience ko mag apply sa call center tapos nadiscriminate ka ganun. Yun yung point na imaginin mo 10 telemarketings yung inapplayan tapos madidiscriminate ka because of your disability. Mahirap kasi malaman nila na blind ka, parang pano yung facilities kahit na alam nilang kaya mo naman meron kang gagamitin, ayaw pumayag ng company. May discrimination.” (There are actually times when it gets tough. I experienced applying for jobs at call centers only to be discriminated because of my disability. When they realize that you are blind, they immediately ask you how you will use the facilities, which they will consider a factor for not hiring you even if they know you will do just fine using them. There is discrimination.) She also said that even though she passed all requirements, interviews, or exams, the company she is applying to will still not allow her because of her incapacity to see things. She felt that she cannot do any jobs other than being a massage therapist because people would not allow her to do it even though she strongly believes that she can do the job. The other interviewee said that he did not try to find any other jobs because being a massage therapist is the only job suitable for them, “Hindi kasi.. wala namang inooffer sa amin na ibang trabaho.. kasi hindi naman tumatanggap ang mga [kompanya] ng… ng mga visually-impaired.. kadalasan hindi tumatanggap.. hindi kadalasan eh.. karamihan hindi nag tatanggaap ng mga ganon..” (I didn’t [apply for any other job] because they don’t offer us other kinds of jobs. Companies do not accept the visually-impaired. Sometimes, they do, but more often than not, they don’t.)
Based from the statement of our interviewee, it can be implied that he already accepted the fact that he is stuck of being a massage therapist. We asked him how he felt about it and he said, “Ahh nakakadismaya kasi, kasi sa mga kasama namin na graduate naman ng kurso. Ahh may mga board passers pa. Mostly nakakaexperience ng mga board passers ng education naman ng mga visually-impaired.. hindi sila makapag-apply ng kahit sa.. minsan kahit sa private na eh.. kahit sa SPED man lang sana.. kahit sa gobyerno.. diba may SPED naman ang gobyerno.. hindi nakakapasok ‘yung mga kasama naming mga legible naman na magtrabaho.. kasi parang kumbaga sa discrimination sa trabaho... ang tinitingnang basehan lang ‘yung disability.. kaya parang ang isip nila..inefficient ‘yung pagtatrabaho nila.” (It’s dismaying because we actually have co-workers who graduated. There are also board passers. Most board passers in education who are visually-impaired cannot apply even in a single school or even a private one, even in the SPED section or in government-funded institutions. Doesn’t the government have SPED? My co-workers who are legible can’t get in. There’s discrimination in work. They only look at disabilities as the basis for thinking that we are inefficient.) We can see how these individuals are struggling to meet the requirements of the jobs they wanted but their efforts are still not enough because of the social construct that they cannot do it. Another interviewee said that they were not only discriminated in jobs but also in schools when they were still studying. They have felt discrimination almost everywhere they go.
This marginalized group of people people have aspirations about what they want their future to be, but due to our society’s notion that these people cannot function in “the normal way,” these people have been unable to reach their full potential. Their condition has affected their lives more than necessary. Their disability is only their sight but this has resulted in them being ostracized in a way that limits the way they can move around in our society, both literally and metaphorically. They are being treated as fragile or as incapable of contributing to our industries and this has led to them living a far more limited life in our world. These people are not that different from us as we might think. They want the same things as us. They want to be educated, apply for jobs and succeed in their careers of choice and some lucky few do get educated but findings jobs that will take them is hard because employers do not see them as capable of meeting their demands.
As a group, we’ve realized that helping the marginalized will be a hard thing to do because of the cruel society that we have today. We are so self-centered that we tend to forget that other people also need our help, especially the marginalized. Some of us may think that we can use social media to help the marginalized but spreading awareness through social media is not always effective nor is a miraculous cure-all. The best way to know their condition is to immerse with them. The best way for us to help them is to be open minded to their situation and empathize with them in order for us to determine how we can help.
We don’t need to be disabled to sympathize with those who are. Then again, sympathy is only the first step in bringing those who are marginalized to the fore. What we need to do is to put ourselves into their shoes and start building from that. Only when we realize how oppressed they are and only when we see and challenge our privileges will we fully help raise them up. One of the easiest things we can do to help these people is by raising awareness that contrary to what most people may believe, these people’s blindness do not make them incompetent. There is a stigma that works against these people and what we need to do is to change it. We need to help them break this preconceived notions that blind people are incapable of getting jobs and succeeding in it. Second thing we can do is to demand our own government to raise the quality of special education in our country to widen the job choices that our blind countrymen can pick. To sum it all up, what we need to do to help is to challenge and question the things that we are getting and to extend a hand and take action to bring marginalized individuals out of their shadows and to fully achieve equality amongst men.
References:
“Marginalization and role of civil society,” Sociology Guide, last modified October 8, 2017. http://www.sociologyguide.com/civil-society/marginalization.php.
West, Richard and Lynn Turner. 2010. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. n.p.: McGraw-Hill.
*definition of Standpoint theory
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