Homesick Filipinos overseas fuel billion-dollar gift box industry
Balikbayan boxes, named after the Tagalog word for a returning Filipino, help feed relatives who are struggling, console daughters separated from their mothers, and give far-flung overseas workers a tangible tether to their families
About three hours before Philippines Flight 302 leaves for Manila from LAX, the boxes begin to spill onto the curb in front of the Tom Bradley International Terminal.
Packed with gifts such as Kirkland chocolates, hand-me-down clothes and Spam for relatives overseas, the cardboard containers criss-cross the terminal in a daily game of luggage Tetris, driven by the Filipino tradition of packing, sending and travelling with balikbayan boxes.
The practice originates with a Philippines government-sponsored programme that offered special tourism incentives, including baggage allowances, to encourage overseas workers to return and spend their wages in the homeland.
Today balikbayan boxes, named after the Tagalog word for a returning Filipino, have become one of the most enduring symbols of the Filipino diaspora.
The boxes help feed relatives who are struggling, console daughters separated from their mothers, and give far-flung overseas workers a tangible tether to their families.
“There are many who spend their entire lives as carers, and the boxes are sometimes their only remnant of a home in the Filipino community,” said Anthony Ocampo, a professor of sociology at Cal Poly Pomona and the author of The Latinos of Asia: How Filipinos Break the Rules of Race.
For many overseas Filipinos, balikbayan boxes became the best way to bridge that distance.