The autobiographical story of Carlos Bulosan in America is in the Heart is the story of America from a perspective no one cares to acknowledge and appreciate because there is nothing, other than Carlos Bulosan’s book, that deeply reconciles this view of America. I believe that the universal notion that America is a land for the free is not a cliché at all because it is this notion that perpetuates America’s ability to continually burn as a beacon of freedom. In fact, Bulosan came to this conclusion towards the end of his narrative as he saw America’s freedom as a “huge heart unfolding warmly” toward him. Through his turbulent American experience he discovered something in America beyond freedom and how it became diluted through racial inhibitions; Bulosan’s American experience culminated with the discovery of his true self, which ultimately kept his “faith” in America.
Bulosan’s autobiography begins with his impoverished childhood in a rural village in the Philippines. At this time of his life it is just a struggle for survival amongst corruption and a lack of opportunity for his peasant family. During this period of Bulosan’s life he is mesmerized with the wonderful fantasies of what America had to offer through his older brother Macario. Due to the Western influence of Macario’s education Carlos is enthralled with how the idea of America has radically changed his brother. Macario encouraged Carlos to get a Western haircut and showed him, though dimly, the light in knowledge. This first brush with America acted as a catalyst towards Bulosna’s eventual immigration.
Once Bulosan immigrates to west coast America he is catapulted into a nomadic lifestyle interacting with the Filipino-immigrant America not with the America he envisioned. Racism and exploitation sum up all that needs to be said of Bulosan’s early American experience. But from these struggles he met influential people, such as labor union activists wanting to give Filipinos better rights, and contemporary writers of that era who saw Bulosan’s talent in writing, that evoked the true America he yearned.
The section where America is in the Heart reveals its true purpose begins when Bulosan catastrophically contracts tuberculosis. While undergoing treatment he underwent an intellectual enlightenment that culminated all his struggles in America. Eileen Odell who gave him books that sparked his interest and kept his sanity while in a Los Angeles hospital assisted Bulosan into this period of contemplation.
The profound effect Bulosan experienced from reading is best exemplified when he wrote “I trembled with delight when I came upon a brilliant phrase or a novel idea. While the other patients were worrying and complaining, I explored the worlds of great men’s minds.”
Bulosan’s involvement in the diverse books lent to him also helped him find solace in his predicament just as “writers reacted to the social dynamics of their time.” As Bulosan began divulging the priceless knowledge between each page he read he began honing his understanding of himself by connecting his life’s experience to the author. Bulosan found “reading widened my mental horizon, creating a spiritual kinship with other men who had pondered over the miseries of their countries.”
From Bulosan’s self-education through reading he found the reason why he had to write. Bulosan found writing cemented his true self toward the American idea permanently and reading showed him that experience is all he had to write from. This revelation revealed itself when Bulosan’s own influence was reflected by an Arkansas boy named John Custer whom Bulosan formed amity with at the hospital. John Custer wrote:
“I doubt if you remember me. I met you in the Los Angeles County Hospital years ago and you wrote a letter for me. I returned to Arkansas and followed your suggestion. I found a job and educated myself when I was not working. I have studied American history, which was your suggestion. Learning to read and write is knowing America, my country. Knowing America is actually knowing myself. Knowing myself is also knowing how to serve my country. Now I’m serving her…”
I believe that even though Carlos Bulosan never truly became an American citizen or totally benefited from all of America’s ideals he still discovered America at its best. Even though America held several different races and people she still enabled all those ideals to coalesce into one “social force” just as the authors of his books gravitated towards. America is in the Heart contains Bulosan’s faith in America, that it will someday enable all of us to find our true self.
At various stages of his life Carlos Bulosan emphatically and materially lived the ideals that surrounded him while in America. Through the American freedom of allowing and harboring diverse ideals, a myriad of dictums filled into his consciousness. Reading enabled him to vicariously see these ideals, while writing evaluated them. What explains Carlos Bulosan’s American experience is not what hardships he suffered but what he transformed these hardships into, which is the embodiment of America. Bulosan took all the ideals he formulated during his tribulations and made them reality through voicing himself through his poignant writing. America is in the Heart demonstrates America is the revolution and evolution of ideals and hardships clashing from different points of history as they imperfectly conform to the present. That is the life Carlos Bulosan inherited when he came to America and that is the prospect America is in the Heart wishes to tell all of us. America’s magnanimity should be taken beyond the promise of material wealth through hard work. In truth, America offers a dream so benevolent that Filipinos and all other races wish to have and only a few are able to grasp it for its full value; that value is the drive of the human spirit.