‘Bawal ba?’ is among the first questions asked by Filipina staff members when they recognise the small green and orange fruits growing on the trees at the rear car park of this hotel in Western Sydney. As far as anyone is concerned, being the only ones to recognise calamansi gives us Filipinos the greatest right to harvest them. Undoubtedly planted for ornamental purposes, four healthy trees line the parking spots used by staff members behind the hotel. Throughout the year, through the seasons, these trees are picked bare, gathered in plastic bags to be taken home and distributed among family and friends.

However, what interests me is the role calamansi plays in the social world of this particular workplace. Being part of the hotel’s maintenance team, I witness the daily labour of the housekeeping staff, which comprises mostly of Filipinas. It is fast-paced and physical work for low wages, and the women bear it (mostly) without complaint. With a particular room attendant, my greeting of ‘Kumusta, Ate’ is met in our native Bisaya with a customary and half-joking ‘Gi daog daog sa kapalaran, bai’ (Getting taken advantage of by fate, my friend).

To me, this begs the question of why it is that — despite the combination of being hardworking, often well-educated, and generally strong English speakers — many Filipinos still work gruelling and low paying jobs.

Is it because we are relatively new migrants? Despite qualities that are often understood as recipes for career success, in comparison to other migrant communities who have been here longer, Filipinos in Australia are yet to accumulate generational wealth and assets. At most, Filipino families are one generation removed from their predecessors who started from scratch. Meanwhile, more well-off and established communities are often made up of genealogies that resettled in Australia post-Second World War, two or three generations removed. Or perhaps is it because Filipinos are still closely tied to the homeland, in a way older migrant communities are generally not? This is seen through regular remittances that ties us up elsewhere and makes us more transnational citizens, economically and socially, by choice or obligation.

 But the conditions of many migrants are never an excuse to not smile. For better or worse, the characterisation of Filipinos as ‘happy-go-lucky’ is no truer than in the hotel’s staff lunchroom. Like clockwork, at 1:00pm., the housekeepers descend on the room for a brief 20 to 30 minute respite from their exhausting work. In this time, the Filipina women are given a space to shed off their work at the door, and to joke and laugh in Tagalog over homemade Filipino food.

Often, everyone brings a dish or a few dishes in plastic containers placed at the centre of the table to be shared with all present. Every lunch is a feast that brings everyone together, and for this brief period the women laugh as if they own the hotel. Coming from different backgrounds and life journeys, they are of various ages, from different parts of the Philippines. Some are fresh into the country, while others have been in Australia for over thirty years. During lunch, they speak about their families back home, their personal lives, and humorous experiences that can only come from working in a hotel.