Étiquettes
As a college professor, I often assign novelist and activist Carlos Bulosan’s writings in my classes. To my dismay, I often find that my students have never heard of Bulosan or his writings, which center the Filipino/a immigrant experience in the United States.
What does it mean when current generations do not have the gift of historical memory? For Filipino/a Americans, who comprise the second-largest Asian American group in the nation, what are the consequences when popular culture or educational curriculums fail to center their alternative visions for, and historical contributions to, social justice in this country? What are our avenues for recourse?
In the semi-autobiographical classic, America Is in the Heart, Bulosan’s central character, Allos, provides a modest suggestion: “And I cried, recalling all the years that had come and gone, but my remembrance gave me a strange courage and the vision of a better life. Yes, I will be a writer and make all of you live again in my words.” Penguin Classics’ recent re-release of America Is in the Heart enables us to “live again” Bulosan’s words, first published in 1946, augmented with a foreword by Filipina American writer Elaine Castillo, a new introduction by Filipino social theorist E. San Juan Jr., and suggestions for further exploration by Filipino American scholar Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao.
If you want to know who we are, America Is in the Heart offers a powerful historical narrative from a unique yet collective Filipino immigrant experience during the early part of the 20th century. Bulosan articulates a Filipino/a “double consciousness” that he would later describe in this way: “Yes, I feel like a criminal running away from a crime I did not commit. And the crime is that I am a Filipino in America.”
To grasp the depth of passion and breadth of pain in Bulosan’s writing, it is important to understand the historical epoch in which he wrote America Is in the Heart. This text was first published nearly 50 years after the commencement of the Philippine-American War, a war of colonial aggression that resulted in a vast wave of Filipino immigrants (mostly men) arriving in the United States in the years to follow.
Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux 
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