America Is In The Heart: A Personal History by Carlos Bulosan

First published in 1943, this classic memoir by well-known Filipino poet Carlos Bulosan describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West. "It was a crime to be a Filipino in California. . . . The public streets were not free to my people: we were stopped each time these vigilant patrolmen saw us driving a car. We were suspect each time we were seen with a white woman. And perhaps it was this narrowing of our life into an island, into a filthy segment of American society that had driven Filipinos . . . inward, hating everyone and despising all positive urgencies toward freedom." (Carlos Bulosan) "America came to him in a public ward in the Los Angeles County Hospital while around him men died gasping for their last bit of air, and he learned that while America could be cruel it could also be immeasurably kind. . . . For Carlos Bulosan no lifetime could be long enough in which to explain to America that no man could destroy his faith in it again. He wanted to contribute something toward the final fulfillment of America. So he wrote this book that holds the bitterness of his own blood."―Carlos P. Romulo, New York Times

"Bulosan's gripping memoir-novel of a young Filipino immigrant long ago secured its place in Asian American literature. . . . An outstanding introductory essay extends the historical discussion (and in some ways brings it full circle) in this third edition. . . . [Bulosan's] call to action resonates with the same urgency today as it did seven decades ago."―Greg Lewis, Pacific Northwest Quarterly

"The premier text of the Filipino-American experience."―Greg Castilla

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: University of Washington Press; revised edition edition (February 21, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 029599353-7
ISBN-13: 978-02-9-599353-9
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds