“Nurse Unseen,” a feature-length documentary, focuses on the history of often unsung Filipino nurses in the United States, and the impact and sacrifices they made during the COVID-19 pandemic, all while facing anti-Asian hate at work and outside the hospital. U.S. Army veteran, ICU nurse and AACN member Arlyn Dela Pena Medendorp, MSN, RN-BC, WCC, and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Michele Josue were among the collaborators for this important film, which debuted in select theaters in October. The timing is not a coincidence, as October is Filipino American History Month. The filmmakers drew on their personal and families’ experiences in nursing to create this poignant and enlightening project. Michele and Arlyn spoke to us about their inspiration and the making of “Nurse Unseen.”
Please introduce yourselves.
Michele:
My name is Michele Josue. I'm the director, producer and lead editor of “Nurse Unseen.”
Arlyn:
Hi, my name is Arlyn Dela Pena Medendorp and I am the co-producer for “Nurse Unseen.”
What’s the concept of the film?
Arlyn:
“Nurse Unseen” is a documentary about Filipino-American nurses, the history of Filipino-American nurses and their experience during the pandemic of COVID-19. Joe Arciaga [producer] and I are the two nurses on the team for “Nurse Unseen.” It's such a special project because there was so much hardship in the lives of these nurses.
One statistic from the pandemic was that Filipino nurses make up 4% of the nursing population in the United States. Yet a staggering 31% of nurses who died from COVID were of Filipino descent, posing the question, “Why are there so many Filipino-American nurses dying of COVID?” That started the journey and the camaraderie among our team. That is the premise of our film.
What was your motivation for making this film?
Michele:
I come from a long line of Filipino nurses, most notably my aunt, who is like a second mom to me and my sisters. When she passed away several years ago, I wanted to do something to honor her. Being a filmmaker, I naturally gravitated toward a film.
In 2020 – being home and feeling helpless, and also scared for the Filipino nurses in my family and community on the front lines – I wanted to help. Talking to my producing partner, we decided to make a film that not only honored my aunt and my other titas [a Filipino term of endearment and respect for one’s female elders], but all of our nurses.
“Unseen” in the title may get confused with humility or shying away from attention. Can you talk about the legacy of Filipino-American nurses?
Michele:
It's just stereotypical: All Filipinos go into nursing. A lot of Filipino comedians joke about it and we laugh, but then at one point I thought, there must be deeper, more nuanced answers to this question. Catherine Ceniza Choy's book, “Empire of Care,” documents the history of the migration of Filipino nurses. It was really fascinating and inspiring to me to learn this history, which in large part is my own history.
I wanted to create this film so that I could unpack all that I did not know myself and then hopefully teach others who were not taught this history, so we could think about the relationship between Filipinos and American nursing, and the tremendous legacy.
I do think about how my family wanted me to go into nursing, and I didn't want to because I wanted to be different. But looking back, I really should have. There's so much honor and beauty in becoming a nurse.
Talk about the connections that led to making this film.
Michele:
During lockdown, we were talking about Filipinos in Hollywood, which is always an ongoing topic because we deserve more mainstream representation. Arlyn was there. We reconnected and she told me about a project that she was going to embark on with Joe about Filipino nurses.
I said we're essentially thinking of doing the exact same film. Why don't we collaborate and join forces in the spirit of what we call in the Filipino culture, kapwa, for the best interests of the community, of the collective? It was really important to include the historical context of how so many Filipinos became nurses because of American colonization.
Joe was really focused on telling the stories of nurses who died during COVID and the sacrifice and loss and what that meant to their families. We thought we could come up with a really beautiful cinematic, artistic document that could tell this decades-long story of what it is to be a Filipino nurse in America.
It had to be a tapestry, because there's not one story that can encapsulate that experience. We would get on these Zoom calls and talk about the themes and people that we wanted to approach and interview.
We got in touch with the Filipino Nurses Association of America and listened to their ideas about casting. It grew organically from there. Now, almost three years after we started this process, I'm really proud of what we have. It's a really important documentary, groundbreaking, I think, because we've never seen this story on the big screen in a feature film fashion.
October is Filipino American History Month when we'll be making our theatrical debut in many cities across the country. I hope more people get to see the film and learn about the legacy of our Filipino nurses.
Can you talk about how you chose to spotlight particular nurses in the documentary?
Michele:
We wanted it to be multigenerational. We wanted to tell the story of nurses who had immigrated right after the Immigration Act of 1965 or in the 1980s when there was another big nursing shortage. On the other hand, I wanted to speak to really young nurses. We really wanted to run the gamut of ages and experiences.
We were primarily focusing on critical care nurses in California and New York where there are the highest concentrations of Filipino nurses. We were interested in not only hearing about their vulnerabilities or their traumas, but also about moments of inspiration and levity.
What would you like people to take away after seeing this film?
Arlyn:
I hope for this film to be an evergreen film in every nursing school out there, because there is that diversity portion that is important to the nursing curriculum. As a Filipino-American nurse, I was almost embarrassed that I didn't know anything about the impact Filipinos had in American nursing. And when I talk to my relatives and I talk to my colleagues, whether or not they're Filipino, they all tell me the same thing.
It's so deeply important for us to celebrate the Filipino nursing community and to let people know the contributions that we've made to nursing as a whole, to America as a whole, because we went through so much during the pandemic, including anti-Asian hate. Nurses were being assaulted. In many states, there aren't laws to protect nurses who are being physically assaulted by patients, which is ludicrous – we need to do better.
I'm hoping that this film will be a conversation piece, not just in the nursing community, but with lawmakers and the community as a whole, because we want people to learn
Editor’s Note: “Nurse Unseen” was screened at The White House in October. More information about the screening is available on the “Nurses Unseen” LinkedIn page. The documentary is now officially eligible for an Academy Award. For future screening and release dates near you, please visit the “Nurse Unseen” website.
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