AMERICA IS IN THE HEART by CARLOS BULOSAN

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 Reading by Eileen Tabios

America Is In The Heart by Carlos Bulosan 

(University of Washington Press, 1943 &1973-2002)


I (re)read this classic Fil-Am novel as *homework-background* for my forthcoming novel THE BALIKBAYAN ARTIST. Carlos Bulosan's AMERICA IS IN THE HEART is, of course, about the Manongs, the first wave of Filipino immigrants to primarily the U.S.' West Coast as cheap agricultural labor. Much has been said about this book but my recent reading's takeaway is how so much of the gentleness associated with Filipino nature was squeezed out brutally from individual Manongs as a result of the abuses inflicted on them. This book is supposed to be autobiography but one of its controversies is how Bulosan seemed to have experienced *EVERY* type of hurt experienced by Manongs (as fiction, it wouldn't surprise me if that aspect would be considered overblown or unbelievable by some). So it would be logical that some of the depicted Filipinos are negatively different versions of who they might have been absent the abuse, as exacerbated by occurring in the diaspora. Ultimately, though, this aspect (of one individual experiencing all abuses inflicted on people like him) doesn't bother me. What one individual experiences can be experienced by another not in that same position. Filipinos should know this: to see one's self in another is Kapwa.







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