𝐀 𝐁𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 '𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞'

𝐀 𝐁𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 '𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞'

(𝑅𝒶𝓃𝒹𝑜𝓂 𝒷𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝓇𝑒𝓋𝒾𝑒𝓌: 𝒞𝒶𝓇𝓁𝑜𝓈 𝐵𝓊𝓁𝑜𝓈𝒶𝓃'𝓈 𝒻𝒶𝓂𝑜𝓊𝓈 𝒶𝓊𝓉𝑜𝒷𝒾𝑜𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓅𝒽𝒾𝒸 𝓃𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁, "𝒜𝓂𝑒𝓇𝒾𝒸𝒶 𝒾𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝐻𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉," 𝒾𝓈 𝒶 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝓇𝑜𝓌𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝒸𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝓊𝓃𝓂𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑔𝒶𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝒹𝑒𝒽𝓊𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒾𝓏𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝑜𝒻 𝓅𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓉𝓎 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓊𝓃𝓉𝑜𝓁𝒹 𝒸𝓇𝓊𝑒𝓁𝓉𝓎 𝑜𝒻 𝓌𝒽𝒾𝓉𝑒 𝒜𝓂𝑒𝓇𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓃𝓈 𝓉𝑜𝓌𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝐹𝒾𝓁𝒾𝓅𝒾𝓃𝑜𝓈 -- 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝒾𝓃 𝑅𝓊𝓈𝓈𝒾𝒶'𝓈 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒸𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒸𝒶𝓂𝓅𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝐻𝒾𝓉𝓁*𝓇'𝓈 𝑔𝒶𝓈 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓂𝒷𝑒𝓇𝓈, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝑒𝒹𝑜𝓂 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒹𝑒𝓂𝑜𝒸𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓎. 𝒜 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉-𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝑜𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓂𝒶𝒸𝒽 𝒾𝓉.)

Carlos Bulosan’s "America is in the Heart" is one of those books in the Philippine literary canon that I have been hearing about practically since birth. Meaning, it's something I had parked in my mind to be a must-read if I must have a good grasp of Philippine literature. For some reason, I never had a chance to encounter it, whether in a library, bookstore, used books store, a friend's book collection, or a bootleg file sourced online by an enterprising IT guy, so it was almost forgotten.

Finally, the opportunity came my way without me lifting a finger (i.e., through a balikbayan box), so I guess I had to do my part of appreciating the gesture by reading through this legendary work and hopefully enjoying its literary merits.

But 'enjoying' is hardly ever a word one would use to describe this novel, for it is quite largely a detailed account of "man's inhumanity to man" in all its disgracefulness and ignominy. All my personal sufferings due to socioeconomic realities suddenly paled in comparison (thankfully) to the gripping account of brutality described by Carlos Bulusan in this novel. No page was spared of the crime, cruelty, and agony he went through, first as a child in the Philippines, then as a young immigrant to the United States of America. This account reminds me of tragic novels or films I have read or watched back in the day like "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck, the story of Josephine Bakhita, Elie Wiesel's "Night," "Escape from Sobibor," "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," etc., whose unique accounts of hell-on-earth were as relentless as they were unflinching.

And yet, I couldn't stop reading on, except when exhausted, hungry, or to answer the call of nature, because I was eager to know more about the unbelievable wreckage of one person's life in the hands of 'fate' and white people. My gut reaction can be likened to that of witnessing a road accident yet couldn't look away. It helped a lot that Bulosan's command of the language is excellent, his grasp of English grammar impeccable. But more than that, I guess, is his authentic experience of material poverty and social inequity, told in invariably poetic and scientific voice, which is sure to resonate with anyone who had so much as a brush with it.

There's no question that racism and the superiority complex lying underneath is utterly wrong and evil, but poverty per se is dehumanizing, as this story details, the kind that is systemic and induced by social injustice (to distinguish from self-imposed poverty). “America is in the Heart” reminds us that the first Filipinos immigrated to America precisely because of poverty, precisely to escape the life of cyclical destitution in their homeland. Sadly, it also reminds us that the Filipino pioneers in quest of the American dream did not find the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Instead, they were greeted with a mighty slap on the face by hypocritical white America, ironically they who colonized a territory of natives who had no concept of personal land ownership and the concept of property as a source of identity and marker of social status. Instead of escaping the feudalistic economic system that oppressed them as a class in the Philippines, they had to deal with something that was hardly any better in their newfound place, if not a lot worse.

As we know by now, the pioneering Filipinos would be looked down upon not just as poor migrant workers, but also because of the color of their skin. This double whammy of a punishment haunted every moment of their lives, that we, 20th century readers, would find strange though not too farfetched, considering there still exist certain fringe groups like neo-Nazis to this day.

We have an instinctive inkling that the world or this life isn't perfect and will never be, but as improbable utopia may be, neither hell on earth is ever acceptable, a thought that Bulosan must have grappled with in his life with such constancy.

***

This novel being an autobiography and not fiction, it is veritably a documentation of something that actually happened to a real person, and there is no doubt that it could happen again, give or take a few changes in the prevailing set of socio-economic circumstances.

There are a lot of other things that this novel warns us of: That land ownership not just means wealth or social status, it also means political clout or power. That a highly skewed distribution of earnings (or wealth) through slave wages will always result in social discontent and instability. That, if we are honest enough, our society's view of the amount of money or wealth one owns as being equivalent to one’s worth as human being leads to a lot of complex troubles in the world.

Bulosan's sad and tragic life reminds us how that kind of world gave birth to labor unions and strikes and the idea of having a just minimum wage, why some people become communists or at least socialist or leftist -- or liberal and anti-establishment in politics. It is unfortunate that in Bulosan's time, they wrongly equated the concept of democracy and fair labor compensation to communism. (Personally I am allergic to communist thought, since I grew up learning the value of small enterprise and reading articles upon articles in the Reader's Digest about the horrors of the Russian, Chinese, and other communist states' gulag, how Marxist philosophy and its variations led to the persecution and violent death of millions of people around the world.)

And yet, the reverse setting -- the American heartland -- is hardly any better, as capitalism at the time and democracy-among-whites also led to sub-human-level poverty and ruined lives among people of color.

More than a cautionary tale, Bulosan's novel is a faithful account in that it presented a world that was, though dystopic, was complex and thus real. Firstly, it was a world where even the victims were not lily-white either. I mean, just look at those early Pinoy laborers, and marvel at their many flaws as well. The white American perpetrators were indeed the personification of evil, but what do we make of the Pinoy laborers' slavish attachment or even bondage to gambling, whoring, and other vices? While at the same time exhibiting age-old Filipino values of being God-fearing and family-centered, selflessness and pakikipagkapwa, they couldn't help but succumb to their darker side.

Then again, criminality may be considered to be just one of the unfortunate consequences of poverty. Combined with personal character weakness, poverty also espouses criminality, alienation, loss of self-esteem, anxiety, dread, despondency, depression, negativism, and even atheism. (I can't help but note how Bulosan mentioned praying to God in just one brief line within its 320-plus pages. It is itself a marvel how he survived all that, while ending up with such a steely resolve as the novel's title makes it clear at the outset.)

On the other hand, there were the white Americans as well who gave another face to America, the humane ones that Bulosan encountered as well, and they were numerous enough not to quash his sense of hope, enough to restore his faith in another America, a welcoming America, a humane America, a fair and just land of opportunity.

Apart from Pinoy's well-known Catholic religiosity, another thing noticeably missing in Bulosan's account, however, is the absence of a deeper look into the hidden 'whys' of racist whites -- their secret fears of being dominated by mere "monkeys" and "savages" right in their newly conquered territory, their sense of superiority borne maybe of a psychological insecurity unknown even to them, innate xenophobia (fear of anything foreign and strange) maybe, plus the view of Pinoys as illegals (in contrast to their legal status) and therefore deserving of such a beastly treatment.

America and the world are so much more different now, thank God, but we can't be too complacent, thanks to Bulosan's great witness. Where it would have been easier to write something didactic and propagandistic, Bulosan chose the far more challenging literary, artistic path, the path that actually touches hearts and wins minds. As a result, the world -- especially latter-day Filipino immigrants to the United States -- have much to thank Bulosan and company for. For literally sacrificing their own blood, sweat, and tears, and actually writing down what they had experienced and witnessed first-hand, Bulosan and his contemporaries helped pave the way to where Fil-Ams and other immigrants of color are today: un-harassed, no longer hunted down like some farm rats and feral dogs, no longer charged with violating anti-miscegenation laws, and can walk shoulder-to-shoulder in public if they happen to fall in love with a person "not of their kind" (as though there is more than one human 'race').

(Acknowledgment: Joey Ferrer of Pittsburg, CA)