09/07/2026
HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND:
On Labor Day, America Should Honor the Filipino Hands That Help Build It
Filipino and Filipino American workers have enriched America’s labor tapestry while sustaining families—and an economy—across the Pacific.
By Atty. Arnedo Valera
Labor Day Weekend 2026
Labor Day is often celebrated as the final long weekend of summer—a time for family gatherings, travel and rest. But beneath the holiday lies a deeper American principle: Work possesses dignity, and those whose labor sustains a nation deserve respect, protection and gratitude.
For Filipino and Filipino American workers, that principle carries particular meaning.
Our story in the United States is written not only in immigration records or population statistics. It can be found in hospital corridors where Filipino nurses comfort frightened patients; in classrooms where Filipino teachers shape young minds; in homes where caregivers tend to the elderly and people with disabilities; and in offices, laboratories, courtrooms, hotels, restaurants, construction sites, military installations and businesses across the country.
We are present in nearly every sector of American life—not as spectators to the American experiment, but as workers, professionals, entrepreneurs, taxpayers, community builders and citizens helping move it forward.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that approximately 4.6 million people of Filipino descent lived in the United States in 2023. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Filipinos had a 64.6 percent employment-to-population ratio in 2023, placing them among the Asian American groups with the highest proportions of employed people.
These are more than impressive figures. They represent millions of individual journeys marked by courage, separation and sacrifice.
Behind every statistic is a nurse who accepts another shift while worrying about aging parents in the Philippines. There is a teacher patiently guiding American students while missing the milestones of children or relatives left behind. There is a caregiver who gives tenderness to another family’s loved one while carrying the pain of being separated from her own. There is an immigrant professional rebuilding a career after discovering that education, experience and credentials earned abroad are not always fully recognized in America.
There are also farmworkers, seafarers, service employees, technicians, small-business owners, engineers, lawyers, physicians, information-technology specialists, government workers and members of the United States Armed Forces. Together, they have woven Filipino perseverance, skill and compassion into the vast tapestry of American labor.
Yet life in America is not as effortless or glamorous as it may sometimes appear from across the ocean.
Behind photographs of new homes, family vacations and balikbayan boxes are long shifts, sleepless nights, demanding schedules, workplace discrimination, loneliness, immigration anxiety and the relentless pressure to succeed. Many Filipinos carry two sets of responsibilities: the duty to build a secure life in America and the moral obligation to support loved ones in the Philippines.
We earn in dollars, but we also pay in sacrifice.
The money sent home is not surplus wealth. It often comes from overtime hours, postponed purchases and personal needs quietly set aside. It pays tuition, buys medicine, repairs homes, supports elderly parents and places food on family tables. It also helps sustain the Philippine economy.
According to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, personal remittances from overseas Filipinos reached approximately $39.6 billion in 2025—an average of about $3.3 billion every month. These remittances came from Filipinos around the world, with those in the United States forming a vital part of that global lifeline.
This extraordinary contribution reveals the dual role of the Filipino diaspora. Filipino workers help strengthen the American economy through their labor, taxes, knowledge and consumption. At the same time, their earnings cross the Pacific to educate children, care for parents, create small businesses and sustain communities throughout the Philippines.
Few communities carry two nations so faithfully upon their shoulders.
The philosophy of Labor Day is therefore profoundly Filipino. Work, for us, is rarely an individual pursuit. It is an act of love. It is responsibility transformed into service. It is the willingness to endure present hardship so that another person may have a better future.
The Filipino values of sipag at tiyaga—industry and perseverance—are visible in the way we confront adversity. Malasakit, our instinctive concern for others, animates our service in hospitals, schools and homes. Bayanihan, the spirit of communal solidarity, lives in every remittance sent, every relative assisted and every new immigrant helped to find work and begin again.
We did not leave our homeland because we stopped loving it. Many left precisely because they loved their families enough to search elsewhere for opportunities their homeland could not adequately provide. They crossed oceans, accepted difficult work and rebuilt their lives in unfamiliar surroundings because surrender was never an option.
America offered economic opportunities, but Filipino workers brought something indispensable in return: talent, discipline, compassion, resilience and an enduring faith in the dignity of honest labor.
This Labor Day, let us reject any narrative that treats immigrants merely as burdens or statistics. America’s strength has always rested upon the courage of people willing to work, sacrifice and believe in possibilities larger than themselves. Filipino immigrants stand proudly within that tradition.
Yes, overseas Filipinos have often been called modern-day heroes. But heroism should mean more than praise during ceremonies. It should require fair wages, safe workplaces, humane immigration laws, family unity, professional recognition and genuine respect for every worker—regardless of accent, occupation or immigration history.
To every Filipino and Filipino American nurse, teacher, caregiver, laborer, professional, entrepreneur, public servant and essential worker: We honor you.
To those working while others celebrate, we see you.
To those carrying responsibilities on both sides of the Pacific, we understand you.
And to those who continue struggling quietly so their families may live with greater hope, we salute you.
“The Filipino worker does not merely cross oceans in search of opportunity; through courage, sacrifice and labor, we build bridges between nations, lift two homelands at once, and prove that no honest work is small when it is performed with dignity, love and hope.”
— Atty. Arnedo S. Valera
(Painting by Ms. Athena Garcia, generously donated to the Global Migrant Heritage Commission for the 2025 People’s Ball.)
