Savoring Romance Pinoy Style in Foreign Climes: Why Women Migrants Love Reading Tagalog Romance Novels

Publication year
2008
Journal
Review of Women's Studies
Volume
18.1
Pages
27-52
Comment

Filipino overseas workers, particularly women, have been a significant target market of Tagalog romance novels ever since these started to appear in 1984. According to Benjy Ocampo [...], editor of Books for Pleasure which published Valentine Romances, then the series which dominated the commercial romances in the mid-1980s, informal surveys based on ocular inspection or reports of field agents of Valentine Romances had identified its readers as high school students, housewives, office personnel like clerks and secretaries, department store salesgirls and despatsadoras, lavanderas, yayas, masahistas, and overseas domestic workers.
The migration of Filipino women to seek employment opportunities in other countries is a phenomenon which dates back to the 1970s. (27)

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The romance novels deceptively resemble the Mills and Boon novels but a closer examination of them would show that they are modern rehashed prose forms that belong to the indigenous romantic didactic tradition whose literary ancestors are the folk tale, the awit and corrido, the serialized Tagalog novels which used to be published in popular vernacular magazines like Liwayway, and the komiks which have directly influenced and shaped their sensibility. (30)

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They are sold more openly in Hongkong and Macau than in the Middle East countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where they are sometimes banned because of the sexual suggestiveness of the covers. In other countries, they are confiscated by the local customs or post offices if they were sent by mail. (30-31)

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The Kanlungan Center Foundation conducted a survey from June to October 2008. There were 60 respondents, chosen through purposive random sampling. Survey results reveal some demographic data about migrant women readers and insights into their reading habits and reasons that could account for the appeal of Tagalog romance novels among women migrants.

The respondents were women who worked as migrant workers in countries like Hongkong, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Japan, and Singapore in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000 onwards and who have returned to the Philippines. (31)

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Based on the results of this survey, it is evident that women migrants read Tagalog romance novels because they are a very engaging form of entertainment which can afford them relaxation and allow them to retreat into an ideal world where lovers, usually from different social classes, ultimately prevail after struggling and surmounting all kinds of obstacles. Significantly, the readers of Tagalog romance novels gave the greatest importance to the exciting, action-filled convoluted plots, usually revolving around familiar domestic themes which are the staple of sentimental melodramas. (34-35)