UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES DILIMAN

AMERICA AS PARADOX: PHILIPPINE-AMERICAN RELATIONS

THROUGHT THE EYES OF CARLOS BULOSAN

A TERM PAPER SUBMITTED FOR THE COURSE

DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINES

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

BY

RUFUS REY C. MONTECALVO

UP DILIMAN, QUEZON CITY

APRIL 12, 2010

Introduction

The figure of Carlos Bulosan cuts a distinct outline in the history of Philippine-American

relations. His account of the exploitation and violence perpetrated upon Filipino farm workers in

the United States during the Great Depression, through the War and until the early 1950s when

McCarthyist hysteria started gripping the minds of the mainstream American population,

provides an incalculable source of a viewpoint that is not much read in mainstream historical

works even today. Reading Bulosan is reading not only the biography of a single Filipino coming

to grips with a new world of exploitation, it is the history of the whole uprooted Filipino workers

who sought to understand the America that was idealized and the America that was reality. This

paper aims to highlight the contradictions in the conception of America in the writings of

Bulosan as we will find that the praises he often sings for America, is for an abstract America

that is an almost utopian ideal divorced from reality. The paper will attempt to present this

seeming contradiction by looking at the works written by Bulosan, works written about Bulosan

and of the Asian immigrant in general, and lastly will draw on the author's own interpretation of

Bulosan as an artist.

I. The Artist as Unofficial Diplomat

More than as formal relations between the designated representatives of nations such as

officers of foreign affairs and high-ranking state officials and heads of states themselves, I

believe that diplomacy in its essence is the relationship between two groups of people. And that

those who represent these two groups of people do not necessarily have to come from the upper

and educated classes, that is, the elite. Cultural representatives speak more to the commonality

between two nations, that is, it aims directly at the heart of the peoples involved. Artists and
poets and their works in particular have come to symbolize more, have more concreteness to

people from other nations, than say, the impersonal and objective pronouncements of the heads

of states.

Although essentialism is much frowned upon nowadays, nothing speaks more for the

essence of a nation than their writers. There is the feeling that for example, the works of Ernst

Junger, the much-acclaimed German author who fought in the First World War and who is well-

known as a glorifier of war, speaks of the much-touted German penchant for efficiency and

social formality.1 On the other hand, however, we have the figure of Friedrich Nietzsche who is

much critical of what he saw as the mass behavior being promoted by the State and the Church.

This criticism makes him an ally of those on the leftmost of the political spectrum at that time,

the anarchists in particular.

And we can take other cases from other nations as well to illustrate this point although

each time we will be able to find exceptions as well. In the case of the Philippines during the

decades following its subjugation to the United States, the figure of Carlos Bulosan speaks a lot

to the conditions of the Filipino's image as a wanderer. Born in the early years after the start of

the United States' entrance into the Philippines, Bulosan grew up at a time when numerous

world-changing events were taking place. We see during this time the start of the Philippines'

incursions into the larger world, compared to its rather narrow confinement during the Spanish

occupation. Bulosan's oldest brother, Leon for example, was a soldier, a member of the

Philippine National Guard which was sent to fight in the First World War in Europe 2 (the same

1http://www.juenger.org/essays_hood.php (accessed April 2010).

war where Junger fought and was awarded several medals, the same war he wrote about later

which made him somewhat famous as a glorifier of the militaristic attitude).

Carlos Bulosan's significance as a bridge for understanding Philippine-American relations

comes from his acquiring a voice from his own education that made him able to express the point

of view of those like him. Coming from the lower-class, born from the Philippine peasantry of

illiterate parents, Bulosan was at a young age exposed to the ideal of the educated man. This was

hammered on by the years of toiling under the sun, breaking the soil with his brother and father

in their farm in order to provide for the education of an older brother in the city. Years later, when

writing of his experiences, he constantly speaks of the importance of education and how

important it is for people like him to be able to express themselves to the world. Bulosan saw

education as a weapon, a means of freeing man from his intellectual and actual bondage to forces

that he does not understand. Telling of this is his socio-economic understanding of the role of the

Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines. In his writings, he seldom discusses the priests and

the church in the Philippines except as owners of land, as owners of the means of production.

Bulosan's style of writing is autobiographical and social-realistic. Writing during the

period of the 1930s when the Plains Region of the United States is being covered with dust and

economic conditions are bleak, his account of the conditions of the lower and working class

gives us a most important glimpse into the mind of those people like him, of Filipinos, mostly

young men from the provinces who sought to find greener pastures in the United States.

2Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart: An Autobiography (York: Harcourt, Brace

and Company, 1946), 4-5. This is even more significant due to the fact that Bulosan
mentions that he was only aware of his brother through a photograph they have of
him in their house.
 Bulosan is a multi-faceted being and in order to understand him it is necessary to look at

the things that he became once he stepped in the American soil. First, we see him as an exploited

Filipino worker, whose inexperience in a new environment made him vulnerable to the

opportunistic designs not only of white Americans but of other Filipinos as well (when he arrived

in the United States, he and others like him were sold for around five dollars as workers in the

canneries of Alaska). Later, acquiring more experience in this new land which he will sing

praises for, we see him as a vagabond, wandering place to place with the seasons in order to find

employment. In these wanderings, though we are presented with a knowledge that can only come

from someone who have toiled the earth, something that is highly idealized in today's tourist-

oriented society, this knowledge did not come, unlike the tourists of modern-times from a desire

not so much to wander and experience the earth, but from the basic necessity of having

something to eat, to maintain body and soul with.

The birth of Bulosan as an artist came, ironically enough, with the temporary ending of

his wanderings when he was confined in a public hospital for treatment due to tuberculosis as

well as other illnesses stemming from a life of hard labor and privation. It was in the

surroundings of the hospital while recuperating from an illness, after being told by a doctor that

he only has a few years left to live (he lived until 1956 way beyond the amount of time the

doctor told him he would live) that he was finally able to gather his thoughts and put them down

in writing. It was within the confines of the hospital, under the supervision of the doctor and

nurses, and with constant interaction with family and friends that the birth of Bulosan as an artist

took place.

That this all took place within a hospital takes on a more symbolic meaning in that

Bulosan has come to associate the benevolence of America with that of the public health system.
He once wrote a friend who took to an illness that if she were to go to a hospital, the best thing

would be to be hospitalized in a public hospital because in there, the doctors really cure your

illness and not put their stethoscope to feel for your pocket. 3 It is in the hospital that he

reminisced of two other young Filipino writers who sought to find their success in the United

States. The first one is someone that Bulosan actually knew and lived with for a time together

with another person in a rented apartment. He was brought home by his other companion, in a

rather sorry state and when they gave him food, he just gulped what was given to him like he has

not eaten for several days, as most probably he really was. The story ends in tragedy however as

he recalls that this young man who aspired to be a writer and who did actually pen down a poem,

jumped to his death from the building which they stayed. This is similar to another instance he

recounts where he meets another aspiring author who promised himself that he will be the

greatest Filipino novelist during their time. This ends in another sad note however as Bulosan

simply leaves the young man who pleads to him to stay on a while longer because he does not

have friends.

All of these aspiring writers were somewhat self-educated like him, were workers and

vagabonds as well who sought the greener pastures of the United States and saw only the same

poverty that they were escaping back home in the Philippines. We have in these young men the

image of the starving artist, constantly hungry not only for the warmth and food, but for

recognition as well.4 What inspired these young men was an idea that America had so much to

offer to them, that it is a place where they can express themselves in a new manner, different

from the conditions of the country where they came from. It is this difference, this feeling of a

3Letter to D, dated June 2, 1953, in Selected Works and Letters (p. 81).
new beginning that inspires, that frees the creative soul of the artist and although he may

not be able to achieve that which he so hardly sought after, as most often happens, still

the possibility alone of being able to express one’s self and be respected for this ability is

more than enough motivation.

II. The Reality of Poverty

So what did Bulosan want to present to the world when he remarked, upon

discovering that he is actually able to write in his own words, 'understandable English,'

saying 'They can't silence me anymore! I'll tell the world what they have done to me!'? As

was already discussed earlier, Bulosan took a very pragmatic and practical view of his

writing, and that purpose was not only being the voice of those who do not have the

ability to air their grievances, but being a part of that movement for social justice itself,

so that really, writing is merely an auxiliary activity for, in the case of Bulosan in the later

years of the 1930s, his labor organizing.

His role as a spokesman of the workers was recognized by President Franklin

Delano Roosevelt when Bulosan was asked to contribute an essay for the 'Four Freedoms'

series of articles which was published in the Saturday Evening Post Magazine on March

6, 1943. The late 30s until the mid 40s can be said to be the peak of Bulosan's literary

fame. A year before he was commissioned to write for the 'Four Freedoms,' with his

theme being 'Freedom From Want,' he already gained fame for publishing a collection of

4This image of the starving artist is something that is of a modern literary

conception and is clearly expressed in the works of Knut Hamsun, a
Norwegian author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who
wrote about his experiences in the work ‘Hunger.’
poems entitled 'Letter from America' (source: Philippine Daily Inquirer September 10,

2005, "Bulosan finally given place in America's Heart.") Also, in 1944 was the

publication of his 'Laughter of My Father' which became an international bestseller, being

translated into several languages. In order to understand Bulosan's role as the unofficial

diplomat not only of the Filipinos, but in this particular case, the workers in general, we

have to look at the content of his essay 'Freedom From Want.'

The Four Freedoms series was inspired by the Four Freedoms speech made by

President Roosevelt in 1941 which detailed that what should be aimed at are the four

freedoms of: 1.) Freedom of Speech and Expression 2.) Freedom of Religion, 3.)

Freedom from Want, and 4.)Freedom from Fear, for everyone in the world. It is worthy to

mention that of all the authors commissioned to write for this series, Bulosan was the

only Asian. The others were more popular and influential than Bulosan at that time as

well. These essays were made with matching illustrations by Norman Rockwell who was

a popular painter and illustrator whose works enjoyed a popular appeal in twentieth

century America. For the piece on 'Freedom From Want,' Normal Rockwell illustrated an

idyllic image of a happy, smiling, obviously middle-class Anglo-Saxon American family

all gathered around a table covered with an immaculate white linen with accompanying

silver and porcelain-ware. At the very center, what Rockwell wants for us to focus on, is a

large recently cooked golden-brown turkey being carried and displayed on a platter by the

loving grandmother. The whole thing assumes an ironic character once we read what is

mentioned by Bulosan in the essay.

Bulosan does not write from the perspective of middle class America, but of the

lower and working classes. The first words of this essay: "If you want to know what we
are, look upon the farms or upon the hard pavements of the city. You usually see us

working or waiting for work, and you think you know us, but our outward guise is more

deceptive than our history," is very telling and honest.5 These words suggest an

estrangement between the working class and the middle and upper classes who are

usually the readers of magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post. Bulosan continues

with his elucidation of the mindset of those who labor, telling the readers that for the

workers, "freedom is not an intangible thing. When we have enough to eat, then we are

healthy enough to enjoy what we eat. Then we have the time and ability to read and think

and discuss things. Then we are not merely living but also becoming a creative part of

life. It is only then that we become a growing part of democracy." 6 Bulosan speaks from

years of toil and privation, his words ringing with the promise he made of telling the

world what they have done to me, or in this case, what they (who this 'they' is remains

wide open for speculation) have done for the working and lower classes.

In the next lines however, a very distinct shift occurs. Discussing the totalitarian

governments and why they hate democracy, Bulosan writes using the word 'us.' In this

instance, he no longer separates the lower and upper classes, but sees everyone as

Americans who have a deep faith for the workings of democracy however its enemies

may decry and spread lies against it. But afterwards, the voice shifts again to the old

register, speaking of the 'we' that are the workers who worked the canneries of Alaska,
5Carlos Bulosan, 'Freedom From Want,'
http://www.oovrag.com/essays/essay2008c-4.shtml (accessed April 2010).

6Ibid.
those who cut the timbers in Oregon. These are the ones who exist "In violent factories,

crowded tenements, teeming cities. Our numbers increase as the war revolves into years

and increases hunger, disease, death and fear."7

The words Bulosan wrote in his 'Freedom from Want' assume an even bigger

significance when we realize the origins of Bulosan in the Philippines. Not only this, but

his early experiences in America as well, adds to the reality of his words. Given the

experiences he had with those white Americans who perpetrated numerous abuses and

murders of Filipino immigrants, his remark that sometimes he wonders whether they

truly are a part of America sounds rather mild when the clubbing and strikes they

received, as well as the more blatant remarks of 'why not send these monkeys back where

they belong,' speak clearly towards the negative.

How Bulosan was able to present these views to the general public could be

explained by the prevailing view at the time of the Roosevelt administration which has

been regarded historically as more socially oriented in that it instituted welfare programs

and other actions that aimed at helping the poor and the dispossesed which was caused by

the years of the Economic Depression and the accompanying Dust Bowl phenomenon.

Given the popularity and the general approval of the American population towards the

Roosevelt administration, center left policies, which appealed more towards the industrial

laborers and farm workers, were much easier accepted relative to preceding and

succeeding periods.

7Ibid.
 The reality of poverty which the Filipino immigrants experienced, that poverty

they hoped to escape from back in the Philippines convinced many of them of the need to

unite into larger organizational units in order to fight and ensure their democratic rights in

this new land which they claimed as their home. The unions are a very crucial topic when

discussing Bulosan, for in his later years, when the spotlight no longer shone at him, he

spent his energies towards his union in Seattle, writing in its publications.

III. The Reality of Violence

Coming upon the writings of Bulosan, particularly his America is in the Heart,

one is struck first by the violence that is portrayed. It is this initial shock that makes the

reader realize that what he is reading will not be a light-hearted thing. And what makes

the reading darker is that Bulosan was writing from experiences from his real life.

Awareness of this violence is necessary and must not be shirked at since it is the fact of

violence that must be confronted first before one can say anything that is positive about

America and the people who are doing these violence, as well as the larger ideological

construct that made this violence and the larger culture of exploitation and inequality

possible. Bulosan's awareness and experience of violence then is something that is worth

exploring.

We see the most graphic picture of this violence in Bulosan's story 'Life and Death

of a Filipino in America,' though instances of various forms of violence are constantly

hinted at in his other works, particularly in the 'ethnobiography' America is in the Heart.

In this story, we are presented by the narrator of his encounters with death, and not just

any kind of death, but violent ones. The character of the story then tells us of the death of
his mother due to childbirth, of the death of his friend through being gored by a carabao.

After this second incident, the character then recounts to us his experiences once he

arrived in the United States. The character of Leroy in this story, which Bulosan

befriended and emulated, is described as a labor organizer, someone who has taken the

task of organizing his fellow workers to call for the betterment of their condition. One

night while Leroy and other Filipino farm workers were eating, a group of white men,

armed with shotguns burst into their shack and forcibly dragged Leroy out. The other

Filipinos could not come into Leroy's aid because shotguns were pointed at them.

After the commotion, they ran outside: "We rushed all at once, stumbling against

each other. And there hanging on a tall eucalyptus tree, naked and shining in the pale light

of the April moon, Leroy was swinging like a toy balloon. We cut him down and put him

on the grass, but he died the moment we reached him. His genitals were cut off and there

was a deep knife wound in his chest. His left eye was gone and his tongue was sliced into

tiny shreds. There was a wide gash across his belly and his entrails plopped out and

spread on the cool grass."8 We find in America is in the Heart as well that lynching of

Filipinos such as this was not uncommon during that time.

The character of Leroy was an amalgamation, that is, the real existing Leroy is not

that much important anymore compared to what he has come to symbolize in the writings

of Bulosan, that is the radical Filipino who has become enlightened of his and his fellow

Filipinos's condition and sought to remedy this condition sincerely, finding only

persecution and violence. Here the parallel with Rizal can be mentioned, as Bulosan

8Selected Works and Letters, "Life and Death of a Filipino in America," p. 54.
mentions Rizal in his writings. Rizal, the idea of Rizal as the Philippine national hero

who gave his life for the Filipino people, is not that oft-mentioned by Bulosan in

America, probably because Rizal is not that radical enough.

IV. The Reality of Kindness

In the same way that Bulosan and the working class think of freedom in terms of

being free from hunger and exploitation, as we have seen in his essay on Freedom From

Want, his conception of the ideal America hinged on the experiences he had with

Americans who showed to him and people like compassion and understanding. This can

be seen in a description of a friend she had who regularly visited him in the hospital

during his period of confinement due to his sickness:

Eileen's frugality was also conditioned by the past. She dreaded the approach of
winter, the horrors of poverty in Hollywood, where the economic pitch was sky-
blown. Yet she managed to send me flowers occasionally, on important holidays. She
was undeniably the America I had wanted to find in those frantic days of fear and
flight, in those acute hours of hunger and loneliness. This America was human, good
and real.9

In this passage, Bulosan saw in the character of Eileen a kindred spirit in that she too

was from the poorer segment of American society. We see in here that Bulosan’s

conception of the kindness and benevolence of America appears more coherent when

taken on a case to case basis of human interaction. At the human, experiential level,

America is the kind teacher who makes the effort of conducting informal teaching

9Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart: An Autobiography (New York:

Harcourt and Brace, 1946), 235.
sessions for young Filipino workers after their work in the fields. America is the kind and

successful white European immigrant who hires farmhands and treats them in a decent

manner, not cheating them of the pay which they so deserve. During that particular

incidence regarding his confinement in the hospital, America is the kind nurse or the

doctor who makes sure that his patients; even though they are poor and are not of

European ancestry, are well-taken care of.

Those women especially who took care of Bulosan had a special place in his

conception of what America is all about. A particularly sad moment in his autobiography

is when he recounts his early life in labor organizing when he and two other fellow

Filipinos who were organizing labor were escaping from the clutches of several racist

Americans who tied them to a tree and attempted to murder them. After escaping and

running, he finally knocks on the door of a stranger where he was, oddly enough,

welcomed wholeheartedly by this woman. She took care of him, nursing his wounds. In

the morning, we find out that this woman was living alone and she tells Bulosan that she

wants to take care of him and that they should leave the house and go to the city. In the

city, Bulosan and the woman live together, her supporting him. It is not directly stated,

though implied by Bulosan, that the woman was a prostitute. She would leave in the

evenings, and come back in the mornings when Carlos is just waking up. One time, they

go out and have the time of their lives, going to bar, dressing beautifully and dancing.

Bulosan recounts that he could not believe that here he was in America with a beautiful

white woman dancing in the ballroom. Later, she faints and Bulosan calls a doctor. We

then find out that she is very sick. She dies due to syphilis and complications. And

Bulosan writes these words:

 "The death of Marian marked one of the darkest period in my life. I bought a
one-way ticket to Seattle. But I drank a pint of whisky in Bakersfield and lost
consciousness until I reached Stockton, where I stopped because it was
familiar to me. I wandered aimlessly on El Dorado Street, entering bars and
drinking quantities of whisky. I did not know why I had suddenly turned to
drinking; why I was driven into it by the death of a strange woman. Yet,
looking back, perhaps it was because there was no other place for me to go,
and because I met there only drunkards and other denizens of lost worlds who
were as hopeless as I."10

As we see in this particular instance and as encountered in his America is in the

Heart, kindness by these people do not go unpunished. In one instance, a
farmer who was kind to Filipinos had his house and daughters attacked by
racists bent on killing the farmhands whose bunkhouse they set on fire. This
violence then in the writings of Bulosan appeared more prominent because of
the earlier depictions of kindness by Americans.

V. America as Paradox

The fact that Bulosan was never able to come back home to the Philippines may

help in explaining the paradox we see in his presentation of America in his writings. I

mean, with no other choice left but to face the same circumstances at home in the

Philippines, what else can he really do? His labor organizing would certainly cast on him

the spotlight of government forces, not just the government forces, but the forces of the

local hacendero or landlord as well. Besides that there is the feeling of being ashamed in

his writings, of the sadness of not being able to actualize the dreams that his parents had

for him. Here we are reminded of that scene of his childhood wherein he was told by his

mother that he can now go to school, or that other moment with his father, after planting

10Ibid., p. 219.
their field with coconut that after seven years he would be able to go to school now and

maybe even become a lawyer. In later years, while in the United States, another case of

not living up to expectations would be his failure to strike it big in America and come

back home, to teach his younger sisters Francisca and Marcela to read, which was his

promise to them before leaving the Philippines. All of these seem to push Bulosan to

make his life in America, to make it there at whatever cost it might take.

It seems that Bulosan was at a certain level unaware of the incongruity, the

incompatibility of the pictures of America he presented. The reason for this maybe that he

was too preoccupied with labor organizing to bother with the details. The search for roots

led him to accept an America that is kind and loving and welcoming, no matter the

evidence to the contrary, as it can be said that this 'unwelcoming' parts of American

society comprise only a minority. What also eased Bulosan's attitude regarding America

are the various social welfare institutions of the government during the time of Roosevelt.

One only has to mention the letter to D which he mentions of his experiences in the

public hospitals of the United States where he has oftentimes sought succour from

various problems he had. There was the time while he was a vagabond along with two

other Filipinos when they were chased by police and one of them got caught in the train

and lost a foot. It was in the public hospitals that he told his friend D to go if she really

had no other choice as he sees that the private ones examine not you, but your wallet.

In this paradox is contained the question of who really owns America and who

comprises America. Bulosan waxes poetic about the working-class, the nameless

discriminated multitude that toiled the earth, worked the fields, and built the buildings of

the industrial cities. Somehow it is difficult, if possible at all to reconcile his praises for
America and the experiences he had of suffering and exploitation. Bulosan tends to think

of America through its people. And whenever we have instances of white people abusing

the immigrants we have one picture of America and whenever we have instances of white

people helping and being friendly and treating the immigrants like human beings then we

have that image of a welcoming America that Bulosan sings his praises for.

Conclusion

The paper presented Bulosan as a sort of unofficial diplomat between the United

States and the Philippines. Instances of violence and kindness, the opposite poles of

reaction by the Americans of Filipino immigrants in the United States in the late 30s in

the writings of Carlos Bulosan are presented and discussed as well. We saw that

Bulosan's presentation of America is problematic in that he both presents instances of

violence perpetrated by white Americans upon the Filipinos and all the while praising

America as a great land whose soil he is grateful to have walked. This can be explained to

the experiential and highly personal nature of his narrative which was an autobiography.

Understanding of this period in Philippine – American relations through the eyes of

Carlos Bulosan is crucial because Bulosan came from the segment of the population both

in the Philippines and the United States that are traditionally unable to make their voices

heard.
 Bibliography

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