A Filipina earning a doctoral degree at the University of Sydney is doing what may well be the first in-depth study on the Filipino community in Sydney and, indeed, in Australia.
In a radio interview on 2RDJ-FM’s Radio Sandigan, Shirlita Espinosa, a PhD candidate at the university, told broadcaster Michelle Baltazar that her thesis was being based on research about ”Filipino migrants’ print material culture and how its production related to the general migrant experience”.
Ms Espinosa said that part of the minority’s print material culture was its ethnic newspapers, but that her study also covered the Filipino community’s political representation and power struggles’.
”The research-study is for the fulfillment of my doctoral degree under Sydney University’s International and Literacy Studies Program, and is funded by Ford International Fellowship Program and supervised by associate professor Dr. Bronwyn Winter of the University of Sydney,” she said.
Ms Espinosa has gone through the archives of Mitchell State Library, in Sydney, and said she will interview the editors and publishers of Filipino-Australian newspapers in Sydney as well as Filipino authors. She is also gathering information on the Filipino community in general.
”I am very much interested to know what interests, motivations, problems and other facets in representing the community publishers encountered, then and now,” Ms Espinosa said.
After her two-year scholarship, Ms Espinosa said she will return to the Philippines to resume teaching at the University of the Philippines.