America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan
Genre: Memoir
Blurb (on back of book):
First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well known Filipino poet 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. Bulosan does not spare the reader any of the horrors tha accompanied the migrant's life; but his quiet, stoic voice is the most convincing witness to the terrible events he witnessed.
MY OPINION: ***
I read this for my American literature class and while I personally enjoyed it overall, it certainly had its flaws.
Carlos Bulosan was a Filipino-American immigrant who came to America in the early twentieth century to escape from the peasant life in the Philippines. In America, he harbored many hopes and dreams about what he would find but is soon awakened to reality when he confronts the discrimination, prejudice, racism, and violence that permeated/s throughout society.
I enjoyed reading this book for a variety of reasons. It highlights the traumatic journey of immigrating to the US as a child, dreaming of the opportunities and "good" life you will find here, only to realize that the US is a horrible place if you aren't a straight, white, Christian, rich man. Bulosan speaks through the character of Allos with some most likely fictionalized stories as well as events taken from his own life, so it's a sort of blurred line between what is real and what is fictional. The novel follows Allos from childhood to manhood to the end of his life, which I found really interesting.
My only qualms about the memoir is the fact that it was so incredibly repetitive at times. I do not want to discount from Carlos/Allos's life or experiences and understand that of course, people traveled around in search of work or in attempts to escape. However, the amount of times he details every single little trip he made to one city or another and back again was so incredibly tiresome and hard to follow. Also, it simply just cannot be possible that in every single town he goes to, he runs into the same 10 people over and over, especially his brothers. The immigrant population was not so incredibly small that we can be magically finding the same small group of people every single time.
There are also SO many characters that it's very hard to keep up with who is who and what their purpose is. Some characters are mentioned in passing for a couple of sentences here and then thirty chapters later, they reappear with no context and we are just supposed to remember who they were.
It was also interesting to see Allos's relationship with white women. It really stood out to me with the number of white women he comes across and his automatic glorification of them as either angels or mothers. He doesn't really want anything romantic with any of them, for the most part, but treats them like guardians or nurturers.
The scenes of violence were particularly difficult to get through because it makes one so devastated and sickened with America to imagine these things happening to people in real life. The fact that brutality on the basis of race and other identifying aspects of people still exists today makes me sick to my stomach.
The brothers were lowkey kind of selfish if we are being really honest. I understand they are trying to better their own lives but at what expense??
Overall, I find it hard to rate people's memoirs because it's like assigning a star rating to their lives. I usually keep all memoirs at 3-5 stars and base it more on my personal enjoyment or interest in the book rather than the writing style or the person's story. I would recommend this book to readers interested in learning about the Filipino immigrant experience in the early twentieth century.
Main Character: Allos
Sidekick(s): Friends, family, etc
Villain(s): Discrimination, hate crimes, etc
Memoir Elements: This is a semi-autobiographical account of Carlos Bulosan's life and experiences.
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