Two Faces Of America by Carlos Bulosan

Biography
Carlos Sampayan Bulosan (November 2, 1913 September 11, 1956) was an
English-language Filipino novelist and poet who spent most of his life in the United
States. His best-known work is the semi-autobiographical America Is in the Heart.
Two Faces Of America
America Is in the Heart, sometimes subtitled A Personal History, is a 1946 semiautobiographical novel written by Filipino American immigrant poet, fiction writer,
short story teller, and activist, Carlos Bulosan. The novel was one of the earliest
published books that presented the experiences of the immigrant and working class
based on anAsian American point of view and has been regarded as "the premier
text of the Filipino-American experience."[1] In his introduction, journalist Carey
McWilliams,[1] who wrote a 1939 study about migrant farm labor in California
(Factories in the Field), describedAmerica Is in the Heart as a social classic that
reflected on the experiences of Filipino immigrants in America who were searching
for the promises of a better life.
Carlos Bulosan (1913-1956)
Life and career
Carlos Bulosan was born to Ilocano parents in the Philippines in the rural village of
Mangusmana, in the town of Binalonan, Pangasinan. There is considerable debate
around his actual birth date, as he himself used several dates, but 1911 is generally
considered the most reliable answer, based on his baptismal records, but according
to the late Lorenzo Duyanen Sampayan, his childhood playmate and nephew, Carlos
was born on November 2, 1913. Most of his youth was spent in the countryside as a
farmer. It is during his youth that he and his family were economically impoverished
by the rich and political elite, which would become one of the main themes of his
writing. His home town is also the starting point of his famous semiautobiographical novel, America is in the Heart.
Characters
medi
nieri
don
corasoy
labayo

TWO FACES OF AMERICA

1. America is in the Heart is a semiauthobiogropical novel with strong ties to the
Authors Experience
2. It is well remembered because for its insight on the immigrant experiences
3. After 1946, it is republished by The University of Washington Press in 1973. 4. It
was described by one character in the book's original draft as "30% autubiograph
40%case history of Filipino (Filipino immigrant) life in
America, and 30% fiction

Setting of the Story

: Certain place in America

Themes
Bulosan's America Is in the Heart is one of the few books that detail the migrant
workers' struggles in the United States during the 1930s through the 1940s, a time
when signs like "Dogs and Filipinos not allowed" were common. The struggles
included "beatings, threats, and ill health". In this book, Bulosan also narrated his
attempts to establish a labor union. Bulosan's book had been compared to The
Grapes of Wrath except that the main and real characters were brown-skinned.
Despite the bitterness however, Bulosan revealed at the final pages of the book that
because he loved America no one could ever destroy his faith in his new country.In
this personal literature, Bulosan argued that despite of the suffering and abuses he
experienced America was an unfinished ideal in which everyone must invest time
and energy, this outlook leaves us with a feeling of hope for the future instead of
bitter defeat. According to Carlos P. Romulo when he was interviewed by The New
York Times, Bulosan wrote America Is in the Heart with bitterness in his heart and
blood yet with the purpose of contributing something toward the final fulfillment of
America.
Message
America Is in the Heart serves as a piece of activist literature. It sheds light on the
racial and class issues that affected Filipino immigrants throughout the beginning of
the twentieth century.
The autobiography attempts to show Filipino Americans the structure of American
society and the oppression inflicted upon Filipinos living in America. E. San Juan, Jr.,
in Carlos Bulosan, Filipino Writer-Activist, states, American administrators,
social scientist, intellectuals, and others made sense of Filipinos:
we were (like American Indians) savages,
half childish primitives, or innocuous animals that can be either civilized
with rigorous tutelage or else slaughtered outright. In America Is in the Heart,
Bulosan properly shows
the reader the animalistic treatment that was inflicted upon the
Filipinos on the west coast. Bulosan states, At that time, there was ruthless
persecution of the Filipinos throughout the Pacific Coast. He wants Filipinos
and even white Americans to realize the harmful treatment of Filipinos and
the problems of society.