On Becoming Filipino

Dark images of an America we'd like to forget abound in Carlos Bulosan's "On Becoming Filipino." He captured a time in our history when prejudice was rampant and blatant, when we were a collective people unaccepting of those who were 'different'.

Phillipine-born Bulosan came to the United States in 1930, during the height of the Great Depression. Like thousands of others, he came seeking a new life and ended up doing work similar to what he'd be doing in his homeland, laboring in farms and restaurants. This was a time when Filipinos in particular were persecuted and threatened with deportation. These conditions inspired Bulosan to become a labor organizer, editor and writer.

"On Becoming Filipino" is a collection of short stories, essays, poems, and personal letters. All the sections are disturbing but revealing. The story "Passage into Life" is about Allos, a young peasant boy. In each of the brief chapters, Allos witnesses a violent death. Some of the deaths are of those he knows, others are of strangers he comes across in his travels. In "The Thief", Cesar Terson, an immigrant, dreams the American Dream and tries to capture it but instead labors in drudgery and lives in poverty until his death.

Bulosan's poetry is no less heavy. "You cannot blame us. We followed the sun/ and the rain with gladness and hope./ There are many lands to go to,/ but we are astounded by your horizons,/ and we are glad we came with our children," reads the first stanza of "The Foreigners". The rest of the poem talks of being misfits in a land that is not theirs.

Bulosan's personal letters are the most telling section. There is no confusing fact with fiction. He wrote on May 2, 1938, "Do you know what a Filipino feels in America? I mean one who is aware of the intricate forces of chaos? He is the loneliest thing on earth. There is much to be appreciated all about him, beauty, wealth, power, grandeur. But is he a part of the luxuries? He looks, poor man, through the fingers of his eyes. He is enchained, damnably to his race, his heritage. He is betrayed, my friend."

The entire book resonates with what it's like to want to embrace and contribute to a new culture, one you can benefit from, which can benefit from you. The sadness that pervades the book comes not so much from the stories, but the realization things haven't changed that much-prejudice is still rampant in our society-we're just more subtle about it.

[ Prism Online November 1995 Homepage ]

[ Top of document ]