Leo T. reviewed America Is in the Heart: A Personal History (Washington Paperbacks, Wp-68) on + 1775 more book reviews
I picked this up from the 'free' book truck to take to the old soldiers' home on the strength of Carey McWilliams' having done the introduction, but found it better than I expected when I read the first four chapters (the author growing up in the Philippines in the 1920s). No index, which the Univ. of Washington should have done when reprinting this book in 1973....
His family really struggled (too many kids), having 4 hectares of land to farm and sold it off a hectare at a time to pay for the education of the number one son. His dad was apparently one of Aguinaldo's guerillas but there is only a reference to that.
There is one wish for the book, but there is a page in the intro with two sentences marked in ink, two dogeared pages, and two pages marked upon that I have noticed so far. No copy has been posted for nearly three years but while it reads well for me, I don't want to anger fellow PBS folks.
I have not and may not read the parts where he struggles to earn a living during the Depression because I have a copy of a book written by a Filipino student full of complaints. Mr. Bulosan's Part One reveals how hard it was to earn a bowl of rice in the Philippines and I think those on the Coast had it better. Carey McWilliams writes: "America is in the Heart is a deeply moving account of what it is like to be treated as a criminal in a strange and alien society--one in which the immigrant has been drawn precisely because of the attraction to its ideals (vii)." [I disagree as Bulosan was not in trouble with the government as was my friend Holly's grandfather with the Japanese government of Korea and later with Singman Rhee. The overpopulation and lack of opportunity in the Philippines made most of Bulosan's decision to emigrate economic and he came at a time when every scrap of work and shelter was needed by Americans.]
My further notes from Mr. McWilliams' introduction:
McWilliams praises this book as both an account of what it was like to be a Filipino emigrant in the USA circa 1930-1941 and as a work of leftist literature by a Filipio immigrant. E. San Juan, Jr., Carolos Bulosan and the Imagination of the Class Struggle, 1972, is cited. [Which would seem to be why the University bought the rights to publish this from Harcourt, Brace, and Company.]
Part One describes village life and Parts Two and Three "reflect the reaction of an imaginative and talented young Filipino, from one of those villages, to life in the United States (viii)."
While a 100,000 Filipinos had come to work in the Hawaiian Islands (mostly sugar) by 1920, 5,603 were stateside (mostly students).
The Immigration Act of 1924 (Japanese immigration cut off) brought another 100,000, about half to Hawaii and half to the states (mostly to California); some had come and returned to the Philippines. They were mostly young, uneducated, unskilled, male, and intending to stay only as long as it took to make a stake [like the Chinese]. As such, McWilliams says they were not very welcome in the West--he accuses people of xenophobia [I would suggest that they were coming not to make the community stronger but to extract cash before departing]. [McWilliams says 'the Chinese were welcomed with open arms at first (ix)' but I disagree--Mr. Crocker and his partners in the SPRR welcomed them.]
McWilliams says the government of Japan extended protection to their nationals [not much in my opinion] but Filipinos had no such help, the islands being a territory. Thus labor contractors of Chinese, Japanese, and especially Filipino descent cheated these Filipino workers [but I would say that has been forever]. Stockton is singled out as a place where farm workers were separated from their hard earned cash through prostitution, taxi dancing, cock fights, raffles, card and dice sharpers, etc.
Carey McWilliams says he knew these people well in the 1930s, especially as Governor Culbert Olson's appointed leader of the Division of Immigration and Housing, 1938-1942.
The Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 limited Filipino immigration into the states to fifty a year (they still could go to Hawaii Territory), the Repatriation Act of 1935 provided free passage home (many Filipinos left), and 1935 saw the Commonwealth established with independence schedules for [1943?, actual date was 4 July 1946].
There has been heavy immigration from the Philippines in the 1960s but the immigrants include many women and educated/skilled people.
Carlos Bulosan: born 24 November 1913, Binalonan, Pangasinan, Luzon, arrived in the port of Seattle 22 July 1930 aged 17 with three years of schooling, little English, never returned to the islands, and never became a citizen. He worked to organize cannery and packinghouse workers in the 1930s, relocated to Los Angeles, and lived on very sporadic income all his years in the USA. A long stay in the LA County Hospital in 1938 [in Part One he says there was no public hospital care in the Philippines] and did a lot of reading (LAPL downtown) and some writing.
"John Fante and I, and some of our friends, saw a lot of Carlos (xix)." [in the 1940s] He lived in Seattle, 1952 to his death on 13 September 1956.
The Underview. "One of the best ways to view and understand a society is to see it from the bottom looking up (xx)." "It is my conviction that there are always two nations in every nation: the dominant on-going nation, enchanted with its self-proclaimed virtues, values, and glorious traditions, and another nation that exists on sufferance, half-buried, seldom surfacing, struggling to survive (xxi)."
McWilliams argues that US influence in the Islands continues in 1972 given business and military interests in the Philippines as well as Filipino immigrants to the US. He notes Admiral Dewey authorized Aguinaldo 'to proclaim a republic.'
Carey McWilliams ends his essay by urging America to take the high road.
His family really struggled (too many kids), having 4 hectares of land to farm and sold it off a hectare at a time to pay for the education of the number one son. His dad was apparently one of Aguinaldo's guerillas but there is only a reference to that.
There is one wish for the book, but there is a page in the intro with two sentences marked in ink, two dogeared pages, and two pages marked upon that I have noticed so far. No copy has been posted for nearly three years but while it reads well for me, I don't want to anger fellow PBS folks.
I have not and may not read the parts where he struggles to earn a living during the Depression because I have a copy of a book written by a Filipino student full of complaints. Mr. Bulosan's Part One reveals how hard it was to earn a bowl of rice in the Philippines and I think those on the Coast had it better. Carey McWilliams writes: "America is in the Heart is a deeply moving account of what it is like to be treated as a criminal in a strange and alien society--one in which the immigrant has been drawn precisely because of the attraction to its ideals (vii)." [I disagree as Bulosan was not in trouble with the government as was my friend Holly's grandfather with the Japanese government of Korea and later with Singman Rhee. The overpopulation and lack of opportunity in the Philippines made most of Bulosan's decision to emigrate economic and he came at a time when every scrap of work and shelter was needed by Americans.]
My further notes from Mr. McWilliams' introduction:
McWilliams praises this book as both an account of what it was like to be a Filipino emigrant in the USA circa 1930-1941 and as a work of leftist literature by a Filipio immigrant. E. San Juan, Jr., Carolos Bulosan and the Imagination of the Class Struggle, 1972, is cited. [Which would seem to be why the University bought the rights to publish this from Harcourt, Brace, and Company.]
Part One describes village life and Parts Two and Three "reflect the reaction of an imaginative and talented young Filipino, from one of those villages, to life in the United States (viii)."
While a 100,000 Filipinos had come to work in the Hawaiian Islands (mostly sugar) by 1920, 5,603 were stateside (mostly students).
The Immigration Act of 1924 (Japanese immigration cut off) brought another 100,000, about half to Hawaii and half to the states (mostly to California); some had come and returned to the Philippines. They were mostly young, uneducated, unskilled, male, and intending to stay only as long as it took to make a stake [like the Chinese]. As such, McWilliams says they were not very welcome in the West--he accuses people of xenophobia [I would suggest that they were coming not to make the community stronger but to extract cash before departing]. [McWilliams says 'the Chinese were welcomed with open arms at first (ix)' but I disagree--Mr. Crocker and his partners in the SPRR welcomed them.]
McWilliams says the government of Japan extended protection to their nationals [not much in my opinion] but Filipinos had no such help, the islands being a territory. Thus labor contractors of Chinese, Japanese, and especially Filipino descent cheated these Filipino workers [but I would say that has been forever]. Stockton is singled out as a place where farm workers were separated from their hard earned cash through prostitution, taxi dancing, cock fights, raffles, card and dice sharpers, etc.
Carey McWilliams says he knew these people well in the 1930s, especially as Governor Culbert Olson's appointed leader of the Division of Immigration and Housing, 1938-1942.
The Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 limited Filipino immigration into the states to fifty a year (they still could go to Hawaii Territory), the Repatriation Act of 1935 provided free passage home (many Filipinos left), and 1935 saw the Commonwealth established with independence schedules for [1943?, actual date was 4 July 1946].
There has been heavy immigration from the Philippines in the 1960s but the immigrants include many women and educated/skilled people.
Carlos Bulosan: born 24 November 1913, Binalonan, Pangasinan, Luzon, arrived in the port of Seattle 22 July 1930 aged 17 with three years of schooling, little English, never returned to the islands, and never became a citizen. He worked to organize cannery and packinghouse workers in the 1930s, relocated to Los Angeles, and lived on very sporadic income all his years in the USA. A long stay in the LA County Hospital in 1938 [in Part One he says there was no public hospital care in the Philippines] and did a lot of reading (LAPL downtown) and some writing.
"John Fante and I, and some of our friends, saw a lot of Carlos (xix)." [in the 1940s] He lived in Seattle, 1952 to his death on 13 September 1956.
The Underview. "One of the best ways to view and understand a society is to see it from the bottom looking up (xx)." "It is my conviction that there are always two nations in every nation: the dominant on-going nation, enchanted with its self-proclaimed virtues, values, and glorious traditions, and another nation that exists on sufferance, half-buried, seldom surfacing, struggling to survive (xxi)."
McWilliams argues that US influence in the Islands continues in 1972 given business and military interests in the Philippines as well as Filipino immigrants to the US. He notes Admiral Dewey authorized Aguinaldo 'to proclaim a republic.'
Carey McWilliams ends his essay by urging America to take the high road.
