Caring for Caregivers
Thursday, 05 February 2026 | 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. | Room 102, Accolade East, Keele Campus, York University and virtually via Zoom
With Valerie Francisco-Menchavez (San Francisco University)
Discussant: Nikki Mary Pagaling (York University)
In-person attendees can register using this link.
Virtual attendees can register using this link.
Valerie Francisco-Menchavez, PhD is an award-winning scholar-activist, researcher, writer and educator whose academic and political work calls attention to the experiences of Filipina migrants in care work industries and their indelible abilities to form solidarities and organize with one another. Dr. Francisco’s body of work aims to recognize the multifaceted experiences of migration and transnationalism for people in the Filipina/x/o diaspora exploring their communities of care, political activism, conditions of low-wage domestic work, and intergenerational dialogue. Her development of innovative methods such as kuwentuhan explores Filipino cultural and linguistic practices as valid ways of knowing and navigation. Her academic work has been published in journals such as Critical Sociology, The Philippine Sociological Review, Alon: Journal of Filipinx Studies, and mainstream media outlets such as VICE, NPR, and SF Chronicle.
Her first book entitled, The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age(University of Illinois Press, 2018), explores the dynamics of gender and technology of care work and intimacy in Filipino transnational families in the Philippines and the U.S. Caring for Caregivers: Filipina Migrant Workers and Community Building during Crisis (2024) is her second book project and the inaugural book in the University of Washington Press, Critical Filipinx Studies Series. A transformative look at the lives of Filipina care workers and their mutual aid practices, Dr. Francisco centres the perspectives of Filipino caregivers in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2013 to 2021, illuminating their transnational experiences and their strategies and practices to help each other navigate the crumbling U.S. healthcare system.
Dr. Francisco is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. She received her PhD from the Department of Sociology at City University of New York, The Graduate Center in 2012. In the past, she has served as Assistant Dean of Restorative and Transformative Racial Justice in the College of Health and Social Sciences at SF State from 2022-2024. She was a Fulbright scholar to Cebu, Philippines in 2022. She was awarded the 2020 Early Career Award by the Association of Asian American Studies.
Nikki Mary Pagaling holds an MA in Geography from York University, where her thesis research focused on the experiences of Filipina personal support workers in Toronto. She is the Coordinator of the CITY Institute and Research Communications and Programs Assistant at the Robarts Centre.
Copies of Caring for Caregivers: Filipina Migrant Workers and Community Building during Crisis will be available for sale at the event.
This is the second event in the York University’s Canadian Southeast Asian Studies Initiative (CSEASI) Research Colloquium 2025–26. It is presented with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, CSEASI and the following York University units: Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, York Centre for Asian Research and the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation.
