Carlos Bulosan - America is in the heart: a personal history

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AMERICA IS IN THE HEART

CARLOS BULOSAN (19111956), born in Binalonan, Pangasinan, under U.S. colonial occupation of the Philippines, arrived in the United States at the start of the Great Depression as part of a generation of Filipino migrant workers. From 1930 to 1956, Bulosan developed into a leading Filipino writer in the United States committed to social justice. In the 1930s, Harriet Monroe of Poetry magazine introduced Bulosan to the literary world as a poet. His editing of The New Tide (1934), a Filipino workers literary magazine, connected Bulosan to progressive American writers such as Richard Wright and Sanora Babb. Bulosan established his position as a major Filipino writer with The Laughter of My Father (1944) and America Is in the Heart (1946). An iconic figure of Filipino American literature, Bulosan was recovered by the Asian American movement and the Philippine national sovereignty movement of the 1970s. With his body weakened by a long battle with tuberculosis, Bulosan died in Seattles King County Hospital on September 11, 1956, due to advanced pneumonia. A pioneering Filipino writer-activist in the United States, Bulosan is an iconic figure of Filipino American literature and Filipino American labor history.

ELAINE CASTILLO was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. America Is Not the Heart is her first novel, and was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

An internationally renowned literary and cultural critic, E . SAN JUAN , JR . is emeritus professor of English, comparative literature, and ethnic studies, University of Connecticut and Washington State University. He received his degrees from the University of the Philippines and Harvard University. He was previously a fellow of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, and Fulbright Professor of American Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium. His recent books are Carlos Bulosan: Revolutionary Filipino Writer in the United States; Working through the Contradictions; In the Wake of Terror; and U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines. He will be a professorial lecturer at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and at the University of Santo Tomas in 2019.

JEFFREY ARELLANO CABUSAO is an associate professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. He was a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Department of English at Kalamazoo College. He received a 2011 Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). His teaching and research focus on U.S. Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, and Womens Studies. In 2016 he edited Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt: Critical Perspectives on Carlos Bulosan.

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First published in the United States of America by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., 1946

This edition with a foreword by Elaine Castillo and an introduction by E. San Juan, Jr., published in Penguin Books 2019

Foreword copyright 2019 by Elaine Castillo

Introduction copyright 2019 by E. San Juan, Jr.

Notes in Appendix: Selected Letters of Carlos Bulosan copyright 2019 by Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao

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Carlos Bulosans letters from Sound of Falling Light: Letters in Exile by Carlos Bulosan, edited by Dolores S. Feria, The University of the Philippines Press. Originally appeared in The Diliman Review, Volume 8, Numbers 13 (JanuarySeptember 1960), published by the College of Liberal Arts of the University of the Philippines.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING - IN -PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Bulosan, Carlos, author. | Castillo, Elaine, writer of foreword. | San Juan, E. (Epifanio), 1938- writer of introduction. | Cabusao, Jeffrey Arellano, writer of supplementary textual content.

Title: America is in the heart / Carlos Bulosan ; foreword by Elaine Castillo; introduction by E. San Juan, Jr. ; selected letters of Carlos Bulosan and suggestions for further exploration by Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao.

Description: [New York, New York] : Penguin Books, 2019. | First published in the United States of America by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. 1943. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018051637 (print) | LCCN 2018060172 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143134039 (paperback) | ISBN 9780525505815 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Bulosan, Carlos. | Filipino Americans--Biography. | Filipino American migrant agricultural laborers--Biography. | Philippines--Social life and customs.

Classification: LCC PR9550.9.B8 (ebook) | LCC PR9550.9.B8 A8 2019 (print) | DDC 818/.5209 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051637

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