Film follows 2 Filipino nurses in Phoenix, explores cultural forces that led them to the field

Filipinos make up about 1% of the American population — but 4% of America’s nursing workforce. And during the pandemic, Filipinos accounted for 30% of COVID-related deaths among nurses.

It’s a stat that got Gayle Tomimbang thinking — and inspired her to make a new documentary about Filipino nurses in Phoenix.

Tomimbang is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary media artist, and she got a city of Phoenix Artists to Work Grant to make the film, called "Duty Free Care."

In it, she profiles two Arizona Filipino nurses — one young and one older, Hannah and Kay. And she explores the cultural forces that draw so many of them into the field. The Show spoke with her more about it.

Full conversation

GAYLE TOMIMBANG: Hannah is my aunt. I would say that she was like the closest nurse in proximity to me. She studied nursing in the Philippines and then eventually immigrated here, like so many nurses. And yeah, she spent some time in New York and then settled down here in Arizona.

LAUREN GILGER: And she has worked in and works in some really high-stress, I think it sounds like, settings in nursing. Like she worked in correctional nursing in the jails during the COVID pandemic, right? She talked about that. She works with behavioral health care, like involuntarily committed patients now. Talk a little bit about some of the things she talked to you about during this interview with her — which were pretty intense.

TOMIMBANG: Yeah, so, like we mentioned, she was a correctional nurse during the pandemic. The conditions in a place like a jail weren't exactly things that, like, people were focusing on too much during the beginning of the pandemic. So she kind of went into how ... sometimes the inmates would be, like, a little bit like aggressive other times, like, you know, it was a matter of like, they're in these cramped spaces. But currently she works in behavioral health. And again, she's dealing with involuntary patients as like a nurse in those settings, like you're the closest person. You're like closest in proximity to these patients that like don't want to be there. ...

Unfortunately, you become like a target of like, their frustrations. And like, it's not even the patient's fault necessarily, it's because of the system in which that both of them are in.

GILGER: Yeah. Talk a little bit about that pipeline from nursing school in the Philippines to becoming a nurse in the U.S. This has existed for a long time, it sounds like.

TOMIMBANG: Yeah. So, America established a lot of Western nursing schools in the Philippines to fill in health care gaps that existed because of different war times. And because of the government wanting the Filipino government wanting like an influx of American dollars to help bolster like the Philippine economy. There was this exchange of, OK, essentially the Philippines is going to export a lot of nurses. And it's going to be known that like its biggest export is nurses.

And there's so many recruitment agencies that kind of facilitate that. And, unfortunately, that also comes with like a lot of dicey practices, I would say. These recruitment agencies will place ... Filipino nurses in workplaces that Western nurses wouldn't necessarily be attracted to or gravitate towards.

GILGER: So tell us about Kay, this younger woman who is a nurse. One of the things I thought that was really interesting about her interview was she talked about her family's role and her decision to become a nurse. And how it was almost expected, but she didn't seem to mind it.

TOMIMBANG: Yeah, so I liked her perspective a lot on it. Because I think a lot of the time, it can be very black and white, where it's like, "No, I don't want to be a nurse. I want to be my own person." Or, "I do want to be a nurse because I respect my family." But for her, it was very much like, "Yeah, I'm interested in these things anyways. I might as well." And she had that family support of both of her parents being nurses.

GILGER: I was interested also in her perspective on some of the incidents that have happened with patients, where it wasn't clear that she would label them as racist. But that other people kind of said that to her and she thought, you know, this does happen a lot.

TOMIMBANG: Yeah, she talked about how she had a patient who couldn't speak too much for themselves. So they had a family member that would be in and out. And essentially, the family member was accusing Kay and some of her other coworkers of not treating her brother very correctly. The nurses noticed a pattern that she would only speak to the Asian nurses like that. I think this is like a prime example of like a microaggression that happens in the workplace. It's very easy to say like, "Oh, like they didn't mean it like that." Like there's a lot of plausible deniability there. But if it's something that you've experienced, it's really easy to tell.

GILGER: I want to talk about Hannah a little bit more. And one of the things that really struck me about your interview with her was where she talks about the rewarding aspects of it. And this is the woman who works, you know, in behavioral health care and with patients who are being held involuntarily. This is hard. And it was amazing because she would say, just a little smile from somebody, and she would feel, like, completely gratified in her work. Which seems like I would need a lot more. ... Talk a little bit about her perspective on the work and just how hard it is.

TOMIMBANG: Hannah talks a lot about Filipinos having this culture of care. I would also agree that a lot of Filipinos are very family-based. And being family-centered like that, like, comes with a level of everyday care. Yeah, I think that she finds it really rewarding because she's able to juxtapose it with the journey getting there. ...

You know, like studying in the Philippines and like her whole journey being centered around like, "Yeah, I want to be with my family and I want to be able to do it in the states." I find that a lot of older Filipinos that are able to immigrate like that have that sort of narrative as well.

GILGER: Yeah. Let me ask you, lastly, Gayle, just about the way you shot this. Because it's very tightly focused on just these two people and their faces, and you have sit-down interviews. But so much of it is just them kind of being themselves and their homes. It felt to me like it was shot very lovingly, I guess, is the best way I can put it. Tell me about your approach to that.

TOMIMBANG: My cinematographer is Ellery Fakis. She's a close friend from film school. And when I presented the project to her, I was like, I don't want to shoot out a hospital. Like, I know this whole project is around nurses. But in my proposal for the grant, I really emphasized, hey, like these these nurses, they're people. They're people outside of the profession. And there's an aspect of like, well, a lot of Filipinos, I've noticed like their work is their life, but like, what do you do when you come home? Who are you outside of that?

So all that to say, like, I had worked with Ellery in order to shoot this the way that we did because I was like, I wanted to emphasize that these nurses are people. And like, when you're in a hospital and you see a nurse, like, maybe sometimes you're not registering that that's a person, too.

GILGER: Yeah. All right. Well, you hit it beautifully. That is filmmaker and interdisciplinary media artist Gayle Tamimbang joining us to talk about her film. Gayle, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

TOMIMBANG: Of course. Thanks for inviting me.