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.