Even before the pandemic, director Michele Josue wanted to tell the history of the Filipino nursing experience in the US. It is a history with colonialism at its root, after the country was purchased by the US from Spain in 1898. During War World War II military hospitals were built to treat vast numbers of American casualties, which inadvertently prepared the country’s nurses for later mass migration. A major beneficiary of this exodus was the US in the later 1960s after its passing of the 1965 Immigration Act.
So the diaspora began in earnest, with each nurse living out their own Filipino interpretation of the American Dream. Furthermore, the then-Philippines President Marcos saw the benefit to his local economy of hundreds of thousands of nurses sending US dollars back home to their families every month.
Michele Josue’s Nurse Unseen tells the story of some of these nurses for whom “caring is part of our life.” This strong duty of care may have been a contributory factor to so many nursing deaths during Covid among the Filipino community, as no doubt is a work ethic that determined that many nurses, instead of taking three days off after a 3-day shift, would work those rest days in another hospital.
In the film, nurses and their families bear witness to this dreadful death toll, and all the time we are reminded of the social tragedy of those times, the silence and desolation on the streets, as well as the overall sense of injustice.
“When we were hearing these reports about how disproportionately affected they [Filipino nurses] were and how they were dying in these tragic numbers, that’s when we really stepped it up,” director Josue explains the story’s shift in emphasis. “As soon as we got vaccinated in April 2021, we started going out into the field to tell this very necessary story. It just felt so urgent because our aunties, our community, were dying.”
As in many other countries, inadequate PPE was supplied to US nursing staff. Container vans were being used as makeshift morgues. What’s more, Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, was “the epicentre of the epicentre,” where many Filipino nurses were stationed and where many died.
“I know there’s a sort of collective amnesia nowadays about those years – maybe it didn’t happen, and we’re just kind of putting on blinders and just wanting to march forward,” says Josue. “But this film, because we were filming it obviously in real time while this was all happening, is such a raw and honest portrayal of what we all went through, what the nurses went through in the hospital. So when we screen it with people, a lot of them say that this is the first time, the first opportunity that they been able to have that chance and that space to process and reflect what they went through, because at that time, it was just about survival. They really had to compartmentalize.”
“So it’s a healing thing,” she adds. “It’s very triggering for people to watch it, but ultimately it’s very beneficial because we have to reckon with what happened…and that’s why I am so proud of this film because it honestly bears witness to this unfortunate moment in our history, in our global history.”
What is particularly disturbing in the film is the level of anti-Filipino and anti-Asian rhetoric and violence, as evidenced within a shocking sequence of physical and verbal attacks. “While we were filming and wanting to be truthful and honest about what was going on at that time period, we were starting to hear these other reports about our elderly Asian population being attacked on the streets, nurses and scrubs being attacked on the streets, us being blamed for bringing the virus here,” Josue says.
“And it’s eye-opening when I was interviewing so many wonderful Filipino scholars who just put it into perspective, and they’re like, actually, Michele, this type of racism is nothing new,” she adds with regret.
But the film also shows us hope amid the loss and grief, with myriad testimonies that underline the Filipino community’s support and protection of the public at large at a time of most dire need. Josue also emphasises the inherent strength and resilience of her fellow Filipinos. Even though the first nursing Covid death in the US was recorded as a Filipino woman, the first global vaccine was administered by the Filipino Matron May Parsons in London.
“I hope people take away that in that darkness there is just this wonderful, beautiful human spirit,” Josue says. “I was sitting at the Doc NYC luncheon and the great Lucy Walker was giving her speech – I’m such a fan of her work – and she was talking about the necessity to tell stories about moral courage and to treat those stories with a radical love and radical tenderness. And when she said those words, I was like, she’s articulating what I try to infuse my work with as well. And I really feel like Nurse Unseen is about that moral courage and that human spirit and trying to make it a love letter, even though it can be bleak at times.”
When asked if there are parallels to be drawn between the filmmaking and nursing professions, Josue thinks for a while. “You’re creating order out of chaos. And when I’ve been interviewing so many nurses, they also similarly describe their workday in a similar fashion. It’s like orchestrating chaos. You have to be on your toes and make very quick decisions. Although the bar is much higher for them, it’s dire for them to make certain tough decisions. But the way they describe being in the hospital is kind of similar in that way. You have to be able to go with the flow, make decisions very quickly. You’re working with a lot of people and have to be very personable and it’s very much about human connection.”
“But now, having made Nurse Unseen, I see first-hand just how honourable it is to be a nurse. Maybe I could have been a good nurse, who knows. But it’s just the highest, most honourable profession, and I hold our nurses in the highest regard,” Josue signs off.