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206 Panel 5issues, relations with employers and specific casesrelated to vulnerable groups such as entertainers,trafficked or undocumented workers and Japanese-Filipino children.Beyond social and cultural gatherings, there are alsoinitiatives to address these concerns and extendassistance to compatriots. Although the most visibleactivities of many groups indeed tend to be moresocial/cultural get-togethers—“to keep in touch”—alot of these organizations have evolved into morecomplex structures constituted to cover a range offunctions. Many of them have become formalized andsustained beyond the initial activity or goal thatbrought them together. For example, there are groupsthat started out of an idea to organize a Filipino massin the area, and that eventually evolved as sustainedassociations, built around a general vision/mandate ofserving and representing co-nationals (kababayan orkapwa Pilipino) in the host community.In both Malaysia and Japan, many associations havetaken on the role of assisting compatriots in need,helping out in cases that cover more practical concernsof daily life abroad (translation, transitioning andsettling in), as well as legal and labor issues. Most of theorganizations I met described initiatives that covervarious arenas and serve a variety of purposes, whereformally stated and implied functions seem to looselycoincide. As such, whether in Malaysia or Japan, thesegroups play an important function in disseminatinginformation about work, news and updates, includingimportant announcements and legal developmentscoming from official sources such as the localgovernment or the embassy. As support groups, theytry to extend assistance and provide services that manymigrants do not have access to or information about.Some take on, handle or refer cases of women, statelesschildren, undocumented and irregular migrants,domestic workers. Organizations (both self-organizedand those linked with NGOs) provide various types ofservices including translation, legal and medicalreferrals and visa and document processing, amongother forms of assistance.Maximizing Available SpacesOne noticeable aspect of migrant communityformation pertains to this tendency to maximizeavailable spaces. As migrant non-citizens, apart fromlack of access to services or usual platforms forparticipation or redress, most overseas workers alsohave very limited access to both physical andsociopolitical spaces that may be used for individual orcollective purposes. With their growing associations,migrant communities find ways to utilize/appropriateexisting spaces in order to carry out their expandingfunctions and activities. Reaching out to churchspaces,local governments and other NGO networks,migrant communities also explore different openingsthat can be tapped in line with their programs andobjectives.Church-related associations and activities provide aninteresting illustration of how these crosscuttingnetworks operate. Existing venues provide diversifyingand multidimensional functions for the Filipinomigrant population. As such these spaces reflect andare reshaped by situations migrants face andconditions they would like to address. The most visibleand commonly acknowledged evidence of Filipinomigrant networks revolve around spaces related to thechurch. The foremost piece of advice that I kepthearing as I was conducting this study was—“go tochurch, that’s where you’ll find them”. It was throughattending mass that I met my first contacts in Penang,and it was through referrals by contacts that I madethrough these networks that I was able to link up withother communities in other cities and prefectures inJapan.On the one hand, it cannot be denied that the churchprovides a venue for migrant Filipinos in differentcountries. At the same time, however, some featuresand uses of these venues, that is, beyond “religious”purposes, can sometimes be overlooked.Many Filipino migrants voluntarily attend and gatherfor Sunday mass, making the church a significant arenafor understanding migrant worker communityformation, mobilization and organizing. Apart froman occasion to practice shared religious rituals, Sundaymass also functions as a venue for other social andcultural activities such as tea parties, celebrations andinformation dissemination, formally or informallydovetailed with church events. Individually, migrantworkers use this opportunity to meet up with othercompatriots, gather useful information regarding dailylife or consult about particular concerns that troublethem.It is also within such venues that many Filipinomigrants tend to formalize their involvements,establishing community and/or church groups thateventually represent and act on behalf of the Filipinopopulation in a given area.The Work of the 2010/2011 API Fellows