Justin Hakuta, 2007, Philippines

My name is Justin Hakuta. I went to the Philippines in 2007 and I researched the NGO response to human trafficking in the Philippines.  What that means is I focused mainly on grass roots organizations and interviewed their staffed and observed the different programs that they have to combat human trafficking, or modern day slavery in the Philippines. 

A highlight of my research in the Philippines would be the level of access that I had to the different non governmental organizations I was working with.  They were all very friendly and very open to sharing information.  So as far as interviews with staff or interviewing the clients, the trafficking survivors themselves, it was fairly easy.  Easier actually than I had anticipated to set up.  As far as a highlight of my research, because I had such access I would really find myself in these, for me, not an everyday situation.  For example, one day I  spent the day with this group of five young women who had been promised a job in the city – they’re from the countryside – and they end up being held in this compound that they employer had, and were basically being strung along for several months and fined to be there with no promise of a job ever coming up.  So I spent the day with them at their trial, because they filed a case against their employer with the help of an NGO I was working with.  It actually wasn’t so much of a research oriented day, but it was much more qualitative in the sense that we were just spending time and joking and playing cards.  But that experience really brought the personal aspect of the issue home to me, because trafficking is one of these huge things that are just overwhelming.  The people aren’t really people; they’re just sort of statistics.  My Fulbright experience was really valuable in the sense that for me it gave me that up front, in the trenches perspective where I met people that went through that, and I became friends with them.  That was kind of an ongoing aspect of my research which I found really valuable. 

In addition to my research I was also filming a documentary about a survivor of sex trafficking.  That was kind of juxtaposition to the research; sometimes I would be filming – I would travel around the country to film and use different characters – or otherwise I would be filming different grass roots organizations for my research.  Another thing I was doing was recording a hip hop album because I rap.  So I was trying to find creative ways to insert trafficking, modern day slavery, into the public consciousness.  One of the problems the activists and social workers and law enforcement that I talked to constantly brought up was the need for increased awareness.  Not only amongst the public but among all sectors of society; so whether it’s the Criminal Justice System or the media, there’s just a level of awareness that people don’t really have yet.  That’s really essential for the efforts that are put forth to combat the issue to really have an impact. 

In finding affiliated organizations, my mom is from the Philippines; I had some of her friends as around.  But mainly the bulk of my success was just through searching for organizations in the Internet and emailing them and just letting them know who I was, what I wanted to do, and what I would like from them, which was in this case a letter of support.  It’s funny because I ended up developing deep relationships with a lot of the organizations that I worked with.  But it just started with a cold email of me just introducing myself and saying, ‘Hi, my name is Justin and I’m applying for this Fulbright scholarship, and I was wondering if you could support me in a, b, c, and write a letter’.  I probably wrote too in depth introductory emails on first thought.  But it worked and the result was I had six letters of support, which I think was a huge factor in me getting the Fulbright.  Especially when you think of an issue like human trafficking, a key aspect of the Fulbright application is feasibility, of course.  I had that because I had letters of support from NGOs, from universities, from research institutions, from government offices, and again, 95% of that was just emailing people.

As far as the language is concerned, Philippines’ second official language is English, so off the bat you could talk to most people; they spoke some level of English.  The first language is Filipino or Tagalog.  When I first got there I didn’t really know that much so I had a tutor.  I took some classes in New York before going to the Philippines in preparation.  So I spoke a mix of Tagalog and English on a daily basis, although most of the people that I worked with actually spoke English.  So language wise the Philippines wasn’t really an obstacle. 

For me, when I applied for the Fulbright, I graduated two years before, so I’d been working for two years.  But one of the keys that I think made my application really strong was that I managed to tie together my academic experience, my professional experience, and my personal interests.  Everything kind of cohesively fit together.  Whereas before I was talking about researching music and film, my academic background is research, my professional background is also research, and my personal interests are human rights, and my mom is also from the Philippines.  So for me the subject was a no brainer; I was able to draw on all these different parts of my personality and skill set.  I think that really makes a strong application because the great thing about the Fulbright is that you get however many months it is to do whatever you want.  So A) you better be passionate about it because you’re going to be doing it for ten months, B) your application’s going to be stronger if you have the skills to know how to do that.  As many ways as you can connect yourself to what you want to do the better, I think.  That’s what I tried to do as much as possible.  Another thing that I found really helpful when working on my application was getting a large amount of people to look at it and getting feedback on it.  I kind of knew what I wanted to do in my head, but it took me a while to get the message polished.  I had anybody read it to have my application and essays effectively communicate what I wanted to say.