America is in the Heart (1946) By Carlos Bulosan

 

A brief and simplified history is in order for this book. Resultant of the Spanish-American War in 1898 the U.S. military in a loose alliance with Filipino revolutionaries (the future Tagalogs) defeated and expelled the Spanish colonial government from the Philippines. Although the Filipino revolutionaries wanted to take over at that point, the militarily stronger Americans claimed the islands as a US colony based on the terms ending the Spanish-American War.

During the American colonial period, tens of thousands of men and some women were recruited to the U.S. mainland as cheap labor. Just as Chinese had been recruited to help build the transcontinental railroad, Filipinos were destined to be farm labor and cannery workers. All were swayed by the promise of the “American dream.”  Carlos Bulosan would be one of those immigrants, fleeing the corruption of foreign land owners, and the poverty of his home country.

As is typical of all of U.S. immigrant history, Irish, German, Italian, Polish, etc., they were treated horribly, taken advantage of by agricultural landowners who were backed at every level by government institutions. They were denied all rights taken for granted by “real” Americans.

Concurrent with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese troops also invaded and occupied the Philippines. Thousand of Filipinos, like tens of thousands of others flocked to army recruitment centers in the United States. They were denied enlistment because they had never been given papers when they were imported to work in the country. This bureaucratic bigotry was eventually ended by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Filipinos would be allowed to join the U.S. military – though citizenship status was not paired with that. Good enough to die, but not good enough to become a citizen, not unlike 2025 America as Mexican Americans and Native Americans can enlist; but are often denied veteran benefits because of their lack of paperwork.

In 1946, after the end of the war, the Philippines was “given” “independence.”

America is in The Heart, is Bulosan’s semi-autobiographical memoir of what being a native in the Philippines was like; and then learning that being a recruited immigrant in the United States, primarily on the Pacific coast, did not mean they were welcomed. He worked tirelessly to help organize Filipino workers to fight for better working conditions and better pay. He sought to build coalitions with other groups, and had to deal with police raids, blacklisting, and other constant intimidations underwritten by opportunist landowners and their paid political allies. His work in union organizing gained him notoriety as a Communist during Red Scare America. He also worked to build social and educational organizations within the Filipino communities to help assimilate people into an America which was vastly different from what it purported to be. His experiences and reflections on what American hostility does to immigrants is depressing, and accurate.

He was self-educated utilizing American libraries. Later in his short life he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, the scourge of its time. He was hospitalized and underwent three operations and two years of convalescent care. It was during those two years that he read every book he could lay his hands on and then dedicated himself to writing of the Filipino experience in America. He would begin submitting articles and poetry to many literary magazines which in turn helped him develop friendships with other American writers. This section of the book reminds me of a book I blogged a few years ago titled: The Republic ofImagination by Azar Nafisi.

Carlos Bulosan’s first book, Letter from America, would be published in 1942. He would die in 1956 having never seen commercial success. Malnutrition would be cited as a contribution factor.

While Bulosan is well known to Filipinos throughout the world, he is not well known outside that community with one very significant exception, he was asked to write the essay that accompanies the Saturday Evening Post publication of Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want painting, part of Rockwell’s Four Freedoms series in the Post and displayed in a traveling exhibit across the country.

Recommendation: Yes for history buffs; and should be required reading for any politician who believes they know anything about immigration.

Paducah Gateway: A History of Railroads in Western Kentucky (1978) By Donald Lessley

 

Today most people think of Paducah as a river town because its location is where the Tennessee River flows into the Ohio River, just a few miles east of where they will jointly meet up with the Mississippi River. With flat boats and then steamboats the river was a major throughfare of pioneer America. What people don’t know is that it was also a key city in the early days of railroading – Paducah Gateway covers that history.

Both sides of the Ohio River had dozens of short line railroads moving people, agricultural commodities, timber, and coal, lots and lots of coal. In the book author Donald Lessley puts all of that in a roughly chronological order with failures and mergers eventually narrowing the railroad companies down to basically the Illinois Central Gulf, the Burlington Northern, and the (Norfolk) Southern RR – all three are still active. They faced a common challenge however, getting across the river: to the north with an end goal of Chicago; and to the south with an end goal of either New Orleans or Mobile. Hence, Paducah, KY with its established ferry to Brookport, IL became a key transfer point. Today it is hard to imagine, but before bridges trains were decoupled and placed on ferry boats, three or four cars at a time, and then recoupled on the other side. The time! The expense!

Importantly, the IC (Illinois Central) owned and profited from that ferry. When later the IC was asked to join with other lines to build a two-track rail bridge across the river at Metropolis, they declined. They would later have to lease access to the bridge when it opened in 1917.

Although that decision was questionable, the IC would turn Paducah into a rail hub by building its repair shop there, growing the small city into an IC “factory town” employing thousands in what would evolve into a massively large building complex and roundhouse – steam engines needed regular maintenance. The expertise developed at the complex would result in not only the IC but also other rail lines sending their engines to Paducah. When the entire industry turned from Steam power to Diesel power, the shop turned with it. But diesel engines required far less maintenance resulting in a significant downsizing of operations over the years.

Perhaps the most interesting of the chapters in the book deals with the Ohio River flood of 1937, the worst in the city's history and before the city's reknowned flood walls had been completed. With a 60 foot crest, it impacted railroading (and everything else) particularly the maintenance complex & round house. 

Today the former complex is one of the City of Paducah's major urban renewal challenges, what to do with these huge, mostly vacant buildings. 

Passenger traffic declined locally as it did everywhere else in the country as a result of America’s love affair with the automobile. All local stops except for the IC’s iconic City of New Orleans train, now operated by Amtrak, were eliminated, and it only has a flagged stop in Fulton, KY, passing by at 3 in the morning.

Mr. Lessley’s book contains extensive reference material, far more than my oversimplification can relate. History buffs would benefit from it, and railroad buffs will love it. I bought my copy at Paducah’s Railroad Museum.

Recommendation: I liked it, but I’m both a history and railroad buff, not to mention I live in Paducah. 

All Boys Aren't Blue (2020) By George M Johnson

 

All Boys Aren’t Blue is the #1 target of book banners in the United States.

The American Library Association compiles an annual list of books targeted for banning. The complaint filers are interesting: per the ALA, 72% of book ban attempts are initiated by public officials egged on by campaigns organized by far-right political organizations, not by individuals. Interestingly, only 16% are initiated by parents.

To no surprise, four of the top ten books on the 2024 targeted list, including All Boys Aren’t Blue, are there because of “pro” LGBTQ subjects and/or authors. The political far-right just can’t stop bashing LGBTQ people for political gain -- just look at this year’s constant bashing of trans individuals if you don’t believe that. What better way in their minds to distract voters away from issues like corruption or billionaire tax breaks? But ask one of them if they personally know, or even know of, a trans person and you will get a blank stare.

The argument of course is they are protecting their children. From what? From exposure to the real world? So, what, they want their children to enter the real world without a clue? LGBTQ people have existed throughout history. At what age do they think becoming aware of gay people would be okay, 30, 50 70?

And then there is the issue of statistics. Let’s say All Boys Aren’t Blue is in a library. In all likelihood there will be at least 5,000 (small library) to 100,000+ (university library) other books there too. The impact will be none, with one important exception.

The exception is the person utilizing the library because they are or think they might be LGBTQ. Dick and Jane do not cover that topic. Parents emphatically do not discuss that topic. The bullshit in the locker room is not helpful. And religious organizations are likely to condemn it, or at minimum ignore it. The common early question among all gay people is this: am I the only one? There is a reason that LGBTQ kids are twice as likely to commit suicide. People who want to “protect” children are responsible for that statistic.

Imagine, if a kid had even one nonjudgemental resource to turn to.

If you are a Black “sissy,” or a White, Latino, Asian one, looking for answers there is no better starting point than George Johnson’s memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue.

Recommendation: Yes. 

The Stone Diaries (1994) By Carol Shields

 

The Pulitzer Prize winning Stone Diaries by Carol Sheilds is a fairly structured, complicated, and mostly well-written biography of a woman named Daisy born 1905 in far western Canada. Her mother Mercy dies in childbirth. Her father, Cuyler Goodwill, a worker in a stone quarry, traumatized by this turns to a neighbor lady Clarentine to care for the newborn.

Eventually, Clarentine will leave her husband and move to Winnipeg to the home of one of her sons, Barker, taking Daisy with her. Barker is a professor, well-known botanist and research expert on the spring-flowering Lady’s Slipper, but from a more practical standpoint it was his work on improving the Marquist hybrid of hearty spring red wheat that won him acclaim, and a military exemption from World War I.

Cuyler will provide financial support for his daughter but does not see her. Considered an expert in stone work, Cuyler is presented as an uneducated bumpkin in Chapter 1, but he somehow becomes a partner in a limestone mining company in Bloomington, Indiana, and transforms into a leading Chamber of Commerce type citizen.

As his career advances Barker will be advanced to the Agricultural Department of the Canadian government headquartered in Ottawa. And Daisy will move into her father’s palatial home in Bloomington and attend college.

As is expected for the time period, Daisy will marry. On her honeymoon in Paris, her husband dies in an accident making her an incredibly young widow; until she takes on her second husband, Barker, her senior by 20-some years.

Got all that?  Like I said, it is complicated.

At this point, the book becomes less complicated, and more interesting. It takes us through chapters titled Marriage, Love, Motherhood, Work, Sorrow, Ease, Illness and Decline, and finally Death.

Daisy has had two lifelong friends, nicknames Fraida and Beans. Her interactions with them, primarily through letter writing are priceless, and remind me closely and favorably of one of my favorite movies: How to Make an American Quilt. If you have not seen the movie (you should) it is comprised of weekly quilt-making meetings of old friends and relatives where personal and private trials and tribulations, loves and hates, are discussed in a manner that only close friends can understand. These are heartfelt discussions common among women, and nonexistent among men.

The book never lost my attention, though parts of it irritated me, Chapter 1 in particular. But read it, do not skip it, it provides too many connecting details – not the least of which is the “relic” discovered as Daisy’s children shift through her belongings after her death.

Recommendation: Yes

The Lincoln Highway (2021) By Amor Towles

 

I loved this book. In my years of mini book reviews, I have said: I recommend it, It was excellent, It was great, but until now I have never said “I loved this book.”

My niece gave me this book, The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. At first I set it aside thinking it would be a travelogue, a road trip. Route 30, known in most towns in the U.S. as the “Old Lincoln Highway” was the country’s first transcontinental roadway, running from Times Square to San Francisco Bay. It is not Route 66 classic The Grapes of Wrath, nor is it the beat generation’s On The Road Again. While the Highway is a re-occurring theme in the book, there is much more.

The novel begins as its central character, Emmett Watson, is being driven home by the warden to the family’s farm in Morgen, Nebraska having served his time in a juvenile detention school in Salina, Kansas. Emmett’s father had died several months back, his mother had left them many years back. The only family he has remaining is his ten years old brother Billy who has been in the care of a neighbor Sally, since their father died. The farm is being foreclosed on. The only item left to speak of was a Studebaker car that Emmett had purchased in his own name from working odd jobs.

After the bank officer, and a neighbor, have left Emmett and Billy, the brothers discover two guys in the barn. And that is where the story begins. The guys are Emmett’s bunk mates, Duchess, and Wooly, from the detention center back in Salina. They had stowed away in the Warden’s trunk unnoticed, escaping before their time was up.

The main characters, in addition to Emmett are:

Billy: His younger brother, a well-mannered and precocious kid who could be the incarnation of Young Sheldon of television fame.

Sally: A neighbor back in Nebraska who is disallusioned with life.

Duchess: A thespian whose performances have ranged from Shakesperean to circus, and whose father was a vaudeville great.

Wooly: A teenager with the spirit of a six-year-old, and a trust account.

Ulysses: A World War II vet, who has become a railroad “hobo.”

Professor Abernathe: An author whose book Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers plays a significant role in the book.

Forgive me for being stingy with details, but I am trying to not provide a spoiler here, because I want you to read the book.

AmorTowles is the author of the New York Times bestselling book A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility.

Recommendation: You bet.  

Close Range: Wyoming Stories I (1999) By Annie Proulx

 

Annie Proulx is a Pulitzer Prize winning author with a large body of work including the blockbuster novels The Shipping News (1993) and the epic Barkskins (2016). She has also penned multiple short stories, famously including Brokeback Mountain (2005), which was made into a major Hollywood movie directed by Ang Lee.

Brokeback Mountain, at 35-pages, is the concluding story in Close Range: Wyoming Stories I, a collection of eleven short stories with the common denominator of ranch life in the western state where people are few, but cattle are thousands. While the state is beautiful, it has historically presented a challenging life for its residents, both cowboys and others. Close Range tells some of those stories.

One of these is A Lonely Coast, a short story about the trials and tribulations, mostly trials, of three Wyoming women. “All three women had been married, rough marriages full of fighting and black eyes and sobbing imprecations, all of them knew the trouble that came with drinking men and hair-trigger tempers.” The only available men were ranch-hands mostly, guys who live a solitary life but once a week will gather around the Buckle, the local bar, and drink themselves under the table. “Their” women were not much better.

A key theme in these one-saloon crossroads is going to a bigger town where the action was really no different. “That was the thing, they’d start out at the Buckle then drive down to Casper, five or six of them, a hundred and thirty miles, sit in some other bar probably not much different than the Buckle, drink until they were wrecked.” 

It was at this point that a haunting song came to my mind. It was composed by David Broza a folksinger born in Israel, raised in Spain, and widely traveled in the Americas. I have seen him perform at the Chicago Winery and at the 150 year anniversary celebration of the Oak Park Temple B'nai Abraham Zion. He records in Hebrew, Spanish, and English. He at one point in his travels ventured to Wyoming, and wrote a song titled Night in Wyoming. 

Night in Wyoming - David Broza

Other stories in Close Range include: The Bunchgrass Edge of the World, People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water, 55 Miles to the Gas Pump, and seven other stories.

It still amazes me that Brokeback Mountain in its original form was a 35-page short story. Director Ang Lee with an assist from author Annie Proulx, took the story and turned into a breakthrough Hollywood movie starring two major actors, Heath Ledger and Jake Gillenhaal, playing the lead roles of two gay ranch hands. Its cultural significance cannot be denied. While issues it addressed have improved, they have not gone away, and even today are under direct political threat.

While writing this I watched the movie trailer for Brokeback Mountain 2. The tag line is "there are places we can't return."  It should be "there are movies we can't sequel." I will see it but was not even remotely impressed by the trailer.

Recommendation: Anything by Annie Proulx is worth reading.

The Canterville Ghost and Other Stories (1887) By Oscar Wilde, collection published by Alma Classic 2016

 

Recently I picked up a collection of short stories written by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) in 1887. They are eclectic in nature, and quite interesting in their different literary styles. The title story is The Canterville Ghost, so categorized as a “hylo-idealistic romance,” a term with which I was unfamiliar. It is a “philosophical position that reality exists by virtue of our belief in it” – perfect for ghost stories. In the short story an American professor and his family move to the English countryside and rent a manor house, which it turns out is haunted. It is an enjoyable story, considered a young adult classic, and has been made into a movie multiple times, I just watched the 1996 version with Patrick Stewart playing the ghost -- quite fun.

The closing story in the collection was a complete surprise, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime. It is sort-of a murder mystery, with a built-in spoof of the upper classes. In the story there are plenty of available clues. One could best describe the plot summary as reverse Sherlock Holmes, instead of trying to solve a murder, Lord Arthur is diligently trying to devise a murder he can get away with. One of the characters, a supplier of dynamite, is an underground Russian anarchist – who brought to my mind The Secret Agent written by Joseph Conrad. I checked on this briefly, while Wilde who died young, is contemporary with both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) and Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness), though nothing I have come across connects them.

The other two stories in the collection are The Sphinx without a Secret, and The Model Millionaire, both of which are more character studies than stories.

Recommendation: Light, fun reads.