Halo-Halo, Nostalgia and Navigating Life for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Halo-Halo, Nostalgia and Navigating Life for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Author(s): Simeon S. Magliveras
Subject(s): Geography, Regional studies, Labor relations, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Migration Studies, Socio-Economic Research, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; migration; Filipino workers; OFW; identity; nostalgia; culture;
Summary/Abstract: This chapter gives a snapshot of OFWs' life in Saudi and explores how Filipinos maintain their identity as Filipinos in Saudi Arabia. Saudi is the second most popular destination for Filipino transnationals in the world and OFW's remit almost as much money from Saudi as from the United States. Propelled from one socio-cultural and sensual environment into another, Filipino nationals must navigate personal and family needs, their emotions, and their identities. This chapter explores how OFW's recreate cultural continuity and constitute a sense of self through food-ways related to their sojourn. The chapter concludes that practices and memories are not only fixed, to a sensual experience of the consumption of global Filipino branded fast-food such as Jollibee, or merely by shopping at kabayan sari saris (Filipino markets). The ubiquitous embeddedness into such sights results in cognitive systems where sensual, social environmental spaces for identity exist and are actualized. These practices maintain a sensual romanticized identity with home while at the same time re-enforce their identity as transnationals, players in a global world.

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