America Is in the Heart

by Carlos Bulosan

  “I know he will, José,” I said. I knew that he hated to be tied down. José knew that it was the end, that the happy yet violent days in the labor movement were over. I saw it in his face, and seeing its unmistakable presence, I was more determined to live and to study harder. I felt that I must vindicate José and our other companions, who had either given up the fight or left for the Philippines. I knew that I must acquire all the knowledge that would have been theirs had they fought on; that I must succeed for them all, now that they had given up.

  “Would you like to see my wife and son?” José asked.

  “All right.” I followed him into the street. He was driving a car. We arrived at the bungalow where his wife was still sleeping.

  “My wife can’t read,” he whispered when we entered the living room. “But how she can love!”

  In the kitchen, standing and sitting on the floor, dark and light, were José’s wife’s numerous sisters.

  “Which one among my sisters-in-law would you like, Carl?” José asked, winking suggestively. “They are all single except Teresa.” He pointed to the married woman.

  “I would take Teresa any time,” I said.

  “Let’s celebrate, then,” José said, producing a bottle of port wine.

  In the evening, filled with wine, I stumbled into the hotel room with Teresa’s help. I sat for an hour on a chair waiting for the effects of the wine to subside. When I was a little better, I jumped to my feet and touched Teresa’s face. She pushed me away and flung herself upon the bed, weeping bitterly when I moved to touch her again.

  Why were the women in my world always crying? Was there too much frustration in their lives? Were they hungry for compassion? I remembered my sisters: they, too, were always weeping. What was it that made all of them cry? I remember my mother crying when my sister Irene died with the unfinished polka dot dress in her little hands.

  I was to run from crying women, because I was afraid they would evoke emotion in me. I was afraid of such emotions because they emanated from pity. I hardened myself against pity. And so in later years, after I had successfully persevered through a spiritual crisis, I hurled contempt at women who tried to arouse deep emotions in me. I flung against them the tides of my hate, and when they started to weep, I only increased my bitterness. I thought it was the only way for me to live: to stand free, to walk unhindered across the land.

  * * *

  —

  “Well, there is nothing else to do but go back to our world,” said my brother.

  “I saw an apartment on Temple Street,” I said.

  Victor’s face darkened with disapproval. Teresa came with her car and drove us to the place. It was known as a house of prostitution, but there was no other house for rent. The street was filled with pimps and prostitutes, drug addicts and marijuana peddlers, cutthroats and murderers, ex-convicts and pickpockets. It was the rendezvous of social outcasts: known for its wide-open red-light district.

  What would happen to Eileen if she were to try to visit me here? What would I say if the police broke into our apartment? Was there a place in this vast continent where Filipinos were allowed to live in peace?

  There were two bedrooms and a bath upstairs; downstairs, a living room, a kitchen, and a storeroom. The back door faced a vacant lot brown with tall dead grass. Grass! Oh, the years of green grass and the earth! In the center were three old houses, toppling slowly but inevitably to the ground, where several Mexican families lived. At night I could see them in their beds: they were careless and primitive.

  One night the apartment on our left was raided and three prostitutes were caught with their customers. I heard them run out of the apartments and hide in the dead grass. The policemen found them with their strong flashlights and dragged them to their car in the street. One of the prostitutes had jumped from the window and broke her leg. She was groaning with pain when two policemen carried her away.

  One time a Filipino in the apartment across from ours shot his American wife in the abdomen. I was reading Gustavus Myers’s Ending of Hereditary American Fortunes when I saw the man come home from work. He arrived too soon. His wife was entertaining another Filipino—a gambler. A quarrel between the Filipino and his wife ensued, during which the gambler walked out unnoticed. There was silence for an hour; then I saw the wife coming out with her suitcase. The husband stopped her at the door. They wrestled for the suitcase. The woman disappeared for a moment and there was silence. Then she appeared at the door again, and the Filipino reappeared with a gun and shot her in the abdomen. He fired another shot into his own chest.

  They lay side by side in the living room. In a little while the Filipino stirred, then rolled over on his side and crawled to the door for support. Holding his chest tightly, he stumbled into the pathway. He staggered to the landlady’s apartment and told her to call the police. Then he walked blindly to his wife and tried to carry her upstairs. He fell three times. Then there was silence, and I thought they were dead. When the police came they were lying side by side on a blood-soaked bed, but still breathing and alive.

  In another apartment a husband took poison because he discovered that his son belonged to another man. His wife, thinking that he was dead, took poison and died. But he came out alive and took care of the child, as though it were his own.

  One night I found Teresa sleeping on the cement steps near our apartment. I carried her inside and watched her sleep until she woke up. Then she told me that she was unhappy with her Italian husband.

  “He is a gambler,” she confessed. “One day I came home from work and found that he had sold our stove. I had some food with me and I wanted to cook it. But the stove was gone.”

  Was there a happy situation in the world outside of books? My despair led me to fairy tales: Arabian Nights, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Andersen’s Tales, Aesop’s Fables, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. These books stimulated me to go back to the folklore of my own country. I discovered with amazement that Philippine folklore was uncollected, that native writers had not assimilated it into their writings. This discovery gave me an impetus to study the common roots of our folklore, and upon finding it in the tales and legends of the pagan Igorots in the mountains of Luzon, near my native province, I blazed with delight at this new treasure. Now I must live and integrate Philippine folklore in our struggle for liberty!

  My interest in folklore led me to the lives of Filipino heroes. Knowing them led me to the mainsprings of our history—to José Rizal whose story had been told to me years ago by my brother Macario when I had been sick in Binalonan. Why I had forgotten him until now, I did not know.

  * * *

  —

  This was the world into which I was thrown when I left the hospital. I wanted to run away from it, but did not know where to go. I could take the freight train again—but was I strong enough? I could no longer work with my hands; the right was partially paralyzed. My left leg was shrunken and stiff. I had never learned a trade.

  One day the doctor from the hospital came to see me. “I think I should tell you, Carl,” he said. “You haven’t many years to live.”

  “How many do you think?” I asked.

  “It’s hard to say. Your lungs are greatly impaired. The perforation in the right one is the size of a silver dollar. And the way you live—” He looked around the bare room and outside to the tenement houses. “If you go on this way you are lucky if you live another five years.”

  Five years! I was terrified. I loved life so much. But now I knew that I would be deprived of it. All right, I knew what to do. I would show those who had driven me to this corner of death that I would not be cheated of these last five years. All right. I would show them. All right. . . .

  “I don’t want to die yet,” I told Macario. “I cannot believe that I have only a few years left. There are so many things I would like to do.”

  “There is nothing we can do, Carl,” he
said. “But we will stick together until the end.”

  “I would like to do something positive,” I said.

  “I will work for both of us,” he said gently. “You stay home.” He was so kind, so gentle. “Maybe you will find something to do.”

  “I would like to write,” I said. “But maybe I was not meant to be a writer. I would like to tell the story of our life in America. I remember vividly how you described our fate: ‘It’s a great wrong that a man should be hungry and illiterate and miserable in America.’ Yes, yes, it is a great wrong. Maybe I could write it down for all the world to see!”

  “I’ll sacrifice my life and future for whatever you think is right, Allos,” he said.

  I felt vast and immortal. Now he had used my native name again. I looked at him and knew that he meant it. I knew that he would help me live for a while so that I could write about our anguish and our hopes for a better America. I knew that if he died somewhere in pursuit of what he had wanted to be, he would live again in me and in all the words that seized my mind.

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  I felt that I was nearing the end, and every day created a havoc in me. I wanted to do something but I did not know where to begin. I had a vague desire to write, my mind was teeming with ideas, but I was not sure of myself. I yearned to know someone who was a successful writer, but the men around me were violent and crude. I needed some kind of order to guide me in the confusion that reigned over my life.

  I had only one escape—the Los Angeles Public Library. I planned to read ten thousand books on all subjects, but reading only made me live the acute pain of the past. When I came upon a scene that recalled my own experiences I could not go on. But mostly I felt that other writers lied about life, that they were afraid to depict it as it really was in their environment.

  I returned to the writers of my time for strength. And I found Younghill Kang, a Korean who had immigrated to the United States as a boy and worked his way up until he had become a professor at an American university. His autobiography, The Grass Roof, gave me an enlightening insight into the history of the Korean revolutionary movement. But it was his indomitable courage that rekindled in me a fire of hope.

  Why could not I succeed as Younghill Kang had? He had come from a family of scholars and had gone to an American university—but was he not an Oriental like myself? Was there an Oriental without education who had become a writer in America? If there was one, maybe I could do it too! I ransacked the library, read biographies omnivorously, tried to study other languages. Then I came upon the very man—Yone Noguchi! A Japanese houseboy in the home of Joaquin Miller, the poet, who became the first poet of his race to write in the English language.

  Here at last was an ideal. Noguchi led me to other writers: Louis Adamic, Carey McWilliams, and John Fante. Adamic, because of his phenomenal success, overshadowed the others. But McWilliams’s interest in the agricultural workers in California, including some 35,000 Filipinos, eventually drove him into the progressive movement, where we met and worked for civil liberties for the Filipinos and other minorities. On the other hand, Fante’s obscure background and racial origin aroused in me a sense of kinship. I considered his imperturbability as merely a defense against an alien world, for his Italian pride and prejudice were similar to my Filipino pride and prejudice. But at the same time I feared that, because he lacked a positive intellectual weapon with which to cope with his environment, he might eventually lose the vigor of his peasant heritage.

  * * *

  —

  These, then, were the writers who acted as my intellectual guides through the swamp of a culture based on property.

  Now I had the urge to write about my experiences, but still lacked the intellectual preparation to undertake such a tremendous task. One day I met an American poet in the Los Angeles Public Library. Ronald Patterson invited me to his little room, and in a corner, piled to the ceiling, were magazines of all sorts—New Masses, Partisan Review, The New Republic, Left Front, Dynamo, Anvil, and other Leftist publications, many of which sprung up and died in that one decade.

  I took some copies of the magazines with me. Here was something that intrigued me. Here was a new pattern of ideas. I looked back to the abortive The New Tide, and its full significance came to me. I asked my brother to read every magazine as fast as I could get them from Ronald, and when José came to our apartment, I asked him to read them too. Although the defeat of Republican Spain and the rise of Hitler were reflected in these publications, the magazines died with the setback of democratic forces all over the world. The course of international politics was changed, and new social ideas emerged and affected the literary movements in all countries.

  One evening Ronald came to our apartment with a young Jewish girl. They took me to a meeting on Spring Street where, to my surprise, I met a girl who claimed she was Dora Travers’s sister. The audience was composed of many nationalities. Current issues were discussed passionately; but every argument was directed toward one purpose—the unification of the minorities so that they might work effectively with the progressive organizations and the trade unions toward a national program of peace and democracy.

  I felt that Filipinos could participate in this program. I said so to Ronald and he referred me to a certain Anna Dozier, who in turn referred me to a Filipino in Boyle Heights. It seemed a great opportunity to rally Filipinos toward unity behind a vast democratic program.

  I asked José to go with me to Boyle Heights, hoping it would help him regain his early enthusiasm. He was no longer sure of his decisions. But I took a chance, because I felt that if he had the making of a good labor leader he should also have an instinctual direction for sound politics.

  I found the Filipino working in a restaurant on Brooklyn Avenue, a wizened little fellow who could hardly speak English. It was very difficult to converse with him. I tried some of the principal Philippine dialects, but he knew only his obscure island patois.

  “Yes, comrades,” he said in effect, “I’m the first Filipino Communist in Los Angeles. That is why the Party refers to me when a Filipino wants to join us. Are you ready to sign up?”

  I was surprised. I had thought that he would explain the circumstances. Was he not referred to us by the Communist Party? I had not expected to sign up with the organization, but if it was the only way by which I could get the support of organized groups in Southern California, I would do just that without considering the consequences.

  “I didn’t come to join the Party,” I said apologetically. “I mentioned the difficult situation of our people in the state at a meeting the other day, and I was referred to you. I am in favor of unity. Perhaps we could have a statewide conference somewhere and plan a strategy.”

  “First,” he said, “you got to join the Party. You can’t plan intelligently without Party direction. I tell you, comrades, you got to work with me as Communists.”

  “There must be some other way,” José interposed.

  “There is no way other than the Party,” he said with finality.

  I asked him to give us more time, and left.

  “There is something in what he said,” I told José.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  I wanted José to reconsider the proposal of the Filipino Communist, because I could have his confidence and he could have mine. I took up the matter with my brother.

  “We are familiar with Filipino problems,” he explained. “But we must sound out their sentiments and feelings. Would they like to work under the direction of the Communist Party?”

  It was a logical question. But I said: “They wouldn’t have to know it.”

  “The truth always comes out,” José said.

  “Perhaps the formation of a separate Filipino unit of the Party is the answer,” I said. “I understand that there are several members in California. Why couldn’t we put these members in a group of o
ur own?”

  “It seems logical,” José argued. “But there must be a broader, more democratic, all-inclusive organization around which we could rally our forces.”

  “We must have a mass meeting next Sunday,” my brother said.

  * * *

  —

  I prepared a leaflet and distributed copies to the Filipinos in the county. When Sunday came a crowd gathered in the Workers’ Hall on Main Street. José presided and I acted as secretary. The meeting was very simple and orderly.

  “How come we Filipinos in California can’t buy or lease real estate?” a man asked.

  “Why are we denied civil service jobs?” asked another.

  “Why can’t we marry women of the Caucasian race? And why are we not allowed to marry in this state?”

  “Why can’t we practice law?”

  “Why are we denied the right of becoming naturalized American citizens?”

  “Why are we discriminated against in relief agencies?”

  “Why are we denied better housing conditions?”

  “Why can’t we stop the police from handling us like criminals?”

  “Why are we denied recreational facilities in public parks and other such places?”

  Ten important points—a broad generalization of our difficulties in California. It was comforting to know that these men too were stirred by the social strangulation of our people. But it was our plan to listen to the community, not to propose a program of action. The meeting was only a sampling of ideas—although, I found out later, it was also the beginning of a statewide campaign for the recognition of Filipino rights and privileges.

  Still José and I could not agree. My brother suggested that we take separate trips along the coast. I was reluctant to pursue this suggestion. But it was my opportunity to get away from my brother for a while, because I was oppressed by the drudgery of his everyday life. Perhaps my return to the land and working people would give me a better understanding of our problems. I had not seen the familiar California coast for two years, and perhaps I had lost my perspective. Historic events had taken place while I was in the hospital, and one of the most significant was the emergence of the CIO: several of its locals were dominated by Filipino cannery and agricultural workers.