Read full story here Eastern Standard Times
The Philippines plastic crisis is deeply intertwined with poverty, economic structures, and global waste exports.
Meet the Filipinas Leading the Fight Against Plastic
Front Page
The Diaspora is Home
October 04-November 02, 2025
Flux Factory Flux IV Gallery, New York, USA
Supported by New York State Council of the Arts
Review: Queens Chronicle
The FilAm
Inside the Massive, Elaborate Care Packages Filipinos Send Home
An extensive shipping network allows millions to stay connected to the friends, relatives, and children they rarely see.
Published in The California Sunday Magazine
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Singapore Runaways
Supported by Pulitzer Center
Published in multiple publications
New York Times Lens, New York Times China
South China Morning Post
Photographing Human Trafficking in New York
The American Dream of Bangladeshis
Asian American Stories
CLICK HERE
AS YOU WILL BE
A three-person show with Amy Ritter, Courtney Garvin, in Foreman Gallery, Anderson Center for the Arts, New York
Xyza Cruz Bacani’s Im Migrant project focuses on the Bengali community in New York and their journey toward achieving the American dream. In her photographs, she documented the lives of various Bengali families as they navigated their lives in New York. Her photographs are as intimate as they are exploratory, interspersed with handmade textiles and traditional Bengali wedding garments. Im Migrant captures the very many ways in which “American-ness” might be defined and redefined by the immigrant experience.
CLICK HERE
Daydreams In Exile
Peter Augustus is pleased to present Daydreams in Exile by Xyza Cruz Bacani.
Saturday, 18 February – Saturday, 25 March 2023
CLICK HERE
Climate Change and Human Trafficking in Indonesia
Project supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Palm oil production is one of Indonesia’s biggest industries, supplying almost half of the world and driving massive deforestation on the archipelago. In addition, Indonesia’s large population, agricultural land use practices, deforestation, and coal consumption make it a high greenhouse gas emitter.
To make way for commercial logging interests, Indonesia’s indigenous people were forced 50 years ago to migrate into the country’s peat lands. Frequent heat waves and unpredictable weather makes peat lands prone to wildfires, threatening their indigenous inhabitants. With few government protections, indigenous groups have nowhere else to go and are vulnerable to lung disease caused by exposure to heavy smog produced by the palm mills, while indigenous women desperate to leave are often preyed upon by human traffickers.
In this project, Xyza Cruz Bacani reports on the environmental and social challenges facing indigenous people working on Indonesia’s palm plantations.
Publications
TOPIC
A Dirty Business
QUARTZ
Indonesia’s climate refugees are being forced into deadly labor abroad
SCMP
The impact of the palm oil industry on Indonesian farmers and the environment
RAPPLER
No man’s land
ASIA SOCIETY MAGAZINE
Risky Crossing
How a single doctor fights to keep COVID-19 from reaching his rural town.
Anthony Cortez protects the 56,000 residents of Bambang, Philippines, through contact tracing, quarantine—and gossip.
Published in National Geographic. Click HERE
When Love is not enough
Millions of Filipinos work abroad to support their families back home. Eight mothers and children share their stories of separation
By Jessie Yeung and Xyza Cruz Bacani, CNN
No mother wants to leave her child — but in the Philippines, it can feel like there’s no other choice. Unable to earn enough money at home, an estimated 2.2 million Filipinos worked overseas last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. The majority were women, many hoping to give their child a better future.
They work as nurses, hospitality staff, nannies and cleaners. Last year, they sent $33.5 billionback to the Philippines in personal remittances — a record high, according to the country’s central bank.
Published in CNN. Click HERE