What does America mean for, “America Is in the Heart,” written by Carlos Bulosan? For Carlos, America isn’t just a mean of escaping; it is a mean of expression. It gives him hope, promise, happiness, and unfortunately, pain and suffering. In his book, Bulosan describes his experiences at his hometown as well as the big city.
In order to find out about his life throughout the book, we must first look into his prior life. Carlos Bulosan was born to llocano parents in Pangasinan, Philippines in 1913. He traveled abroad to America, a place where he thought he could find work and a better place, in his 20s. He wrote a couple other novels including, “The Laughter of my Father,” “The Cry and the Dedication,” as well as many other non-published works. For a six-year period starting in 1950, the FBI conducted a systematic surveillance of Bulosan, a man thought to be a threat to U.S. national security interests. Bulosan, who found his way from the Philippines to America in the 1930s, became the literary voice in English of Asian immigrants of his day. Bulosan unfortunately died in 1956 from malnutrition and tuberculosis.
Bulosan had many struggles in his life. To begin, he had many conflictions at his home town. “At this time we had four hectares of land, which were barely sufficient to keep our family from starving.” (5) If four hectares of land, which is about 10 acres of land, was just barely enough to feed the entire family, then you can easily depict that the town they lived in wasn’t so great off. And if meeting ends meat was bad:

“… The Philippines was undergoing a radical social change; all over the archipelago the younger generation was stirring and adapting new attitudes. And although for years the agitation for nation independence had been rowing, the government was actually in the hands of powerful native leaders. It was such a juicy issue that obscure men with ample education exploited it to their own advantage, thus slowly but inevitably plunging the nation into a great economic catastrophe that tore the islands from their roots, and obfuscated the people’s resurgence toward a broad national unity.
For a time it seemed that the younger generation, influenced by false American ideals and modes of living, had become total strangers to the older generation. In the provinces where the poor peasants lived and toiled for the rich hacienderos, or land lords, the young men were stirring and rebelling against their heritage. Those who could no longer tolerate existing conditions adventured into the new land, for the opening of the United States to them was one of the gratifying provisions of the peace treaty that culminated the Spanish-American War.” (5)

The home of Carlos was becoming unrecognizable to him now. The home he once knew of became out of natural course, and he found the need to move to America. He had heard such great acquisitions from America and decided he could no longer tolerate his current home and their traditions and customs. However, it may not have been for dialogue that also drove him out of his village, but the lack of it.
“The ritual was very simple. But it was also the most dramatic of the series of colorful wedding events. My brother Leon carried his wife across the harvested fields to their new home. We followed, shouting with joy and throwing rice upon them. We stopped in the yard when they entered the house. Then we waited silently, anxious to see the black smoke come out of the house, for it would mean that the bride was a virgin. If no smoke showed, we would know that the groom had been deceived, and we would justify his action if he returned the girl to her people. It was a cruel custom, because the women could no longer marry when they returned to their parents, and would be looked upon with abhorrence and would be ostracized. But it was a fast dying custom, in line with other backward customs in the Philippines, yielding to the new ways of the younger generation that were shaping out sharply from the growing industrialism.
I do not think the smoke came out of the house where my brother and his bride were alone, because I remember the crowed milling around my father and rushing into the house. The men brought the girl out and tired her to a guava tree. The angry women spat in her eyes and tore off her clothes, calling her obscene names. When one of the men rushed out of the tool shed with a horsewhip, my father frantically fought his way through the crowed. He had hardly reached the girl when a man knocked him down, and he was trampled upon by angry feet.
The men must also have knocked down my brother Leon in the house. I saw him staggering toward his bride with blood on his face. He flung himself upon her, covering her bleeding body with his, and the stones and sticks fell upon him mercilessly. Then they tied him to the tree, beside his bride, and the angry peasants, who had been his good friends and neighbors a moment ago, began throwing stones at him.” (7)

There is still questionable reasoning that Leon’s wife was not a virgin, and that the reason why they didn’t start the fire was because they did not agree with the traditions of their village, or that they believed it was no one else’s business of her virginity. Nevertheless, their actions were soon forced upon them, and they left, never to be seen again. And it wasn’t long until Carlos did as well. However it is unclear about Leon’s interactions with America, but Carlos’s was very sorrowful.
“ ‘Let me alone!’ he shouted.
Julio hit him between the eyes, and the bookkeeper struggled violently. Julio hit him again. The bookkeeper rolled on the floor like a baby. Julio picked him up and threw him outside the house. I thought he was dead, but his legs began to move. Then he opened his eyes and got up quickly, staggering like a drunken stevedore toward the highway. Julio came out of the house with brass knuckles, but the bookkeeper was already disappearing behind the apple orchard. Julio came back and began hitting the door of the kitchen with all his force, in futile anger.
I had not seen this sort of brutality in the Philippines, but my first contact with it in America made me brave. My bravery was still nameless, and waiting to express itself. I was not shocked when I saw that my countrymen had become ruthless toward one another, and this sudden impact of cruelty made me insensate to pain and kindness, so that it took me a long time to wholly trust other men. As time went by I became as ruthless as the worst of them, and I became afraid that I would never feel like a human being again. Yet no matter what bestiality encompassed my life, I felt sure that somewhere, sometime, I would break free. This faith kept me from completely succumbing to the degradation into which many of my countrymen had fallen.” (109)

After being on trial, a judge tells him, “’You Filipinos,’ she said calmly, ‘ought to be shipped back to your jungle homes.’” (253) Because while the truncheon may be
used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the mean to meanings, and for those willing to listen, the pain and suffering.
“I felt consoled when I realized that this Social Service woman was only voicing a personal opinion, an individual hate against Filipinos. I had read enough books now to know the roots of racism: I had had experience with it when I was still on the outside.
I was crushed. I wanted to be brave, but there was no hope. And once again, as when I landed in the United States, I felt a rising tide of fear and revolt. Fear always worked this way with me. I had seen so much prejudice that I reacted murderously when confronted by it.” (253)

“Macario and I boarded a streetcar and went to the Vermont Avenue district. What we encountered there almost broke my heart. We saw a nice little apartment house near Commonwealth Avenue and when we approached the landlady took away the ‘For Rent’ sign. She went inside the house and peered furtively through a window. When sure that we would not go back, she went out to the yard again and put up the sign. The next woman was more discreet. She stood by the sign as we approached. ‘This house is not for rent,’ she said awkwardly. ‘The sign is nailed to the wall and it’s hard to pull out. Maybe you can find one next block.’ But the next woman faced the issue squarely. She said:
‘We don’t take Filipinos!’ ( 256)

Although Carlos believed that his trip to America would be similar to “Robinson Crusoe,” he was mistaken. "I came to know that in many ways it was a crime to be Filipino in California .... I feel like a criminal running away from a crime I did not commit. And this crime is that I am a Filipino in America." (252) And although he knows that America will not accept him because of his racial backgrounds, he still believes in America, and will not cease to stop believing in it.
"We in America understand the many imperfections of democracy and the malignant disease corroding its very heart. We must be united in the effort to make an America in which our people can find happiness. It is a great wrong that anyone in America, whether he be brown or white, should be illiterate or hungry or miserable."

In this quote, it is vital for us to note that he never says “in America, the people…” or “the people in America understand…” No, instead he says, “Our people…” or “We in America.” Nevertheless, he, like any other person, is an American.

‘”It is but fair to say that America is not a land of one race or one class of men. We are all Americans that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Indian that offered peace in Manhattan to the last Filipino pea pickers. America is not bound by geographical latitudes. America is not merely a land or an institution. America is in the hearts of men that died for freedom; it is also in the eyes of men that are building a new world. America is a prophecy of a new society of men: of a system that knows no sorrow or strife or suffering. America is a warning to those who would try to falsify the ideals of freemen.
“America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree. America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities is closed to him. We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate- We are America! (189)

And in fact, he was right.