Title: My Father Goes to Court

Author: Carlos Bulosan

Author’s Background:
Carlos Bulosan was born in the Philippines in the rural farming village of
Mangusmana, near the town of Binalonan (Pangasinan province, Luzon island) on
November 2, 1911, near the end of a tumultuous period in his country’s history. He was
the son of a farmer and spent most of his upbringing in the countryside with his family.
Like many families in the Philippines, Carlos’s family struggled to survive during times of
economic hardship. Many families were impoverished and many more would suffer
because of the conditions in the Philippines created by US colonization. Rural farming
families like Carlos’ family experienced severe economic disparity due to the growing
concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the economic and political elite.
Determined to help support his family and further his education, Carlos decided to come
to America with the dream to fulfill these goals.
Traveling by ship, Carlos arrived in Seattle on July 22, 1930, at the age of
seventeen. With only three years of education from the Philippines, Carlos spoke little
English and had barely any money left. Bulosan arrived on July 22, 1930, at the beginning
of the Great Depression. Along with other expatriate Filipino Americans – or “Pinoy,” as
they called themselves – he endured terrible poverty and hardship in his new country. In
fact, it could not truly be his country, since as immigrants from an American colony
Filipinos could not become citizens of the United States. Bulosan was quickly disillusioned
by the violence, prejudice, and exploitation the Pinoy suffered as farm or cannery workers,
virtually the only jobs available to them. Desperate to survive, he soon began working
various low-paying jobs: servicing in hotels, harvesting in the fields, and even embarking
to the Alaskan canneries. During his hardships in finding employment, Carlos
experienced much economic difficulty and racial brutality that significantly damaged his
health and eventually changed his perception of America.
From several years of racist attacks, starvation, and sickness, Carlos underwent
surgery for tuberculosis in Los Angeles. His health condition with tuberculosis forced him
to undergo three operations where he lost most of the right side of his ribs and the function
of one lung. Yet, he recovered and stayed in the hospital for about two years where he
spent much of his time reading and writing.
The discrimination and unhealthy working conditions Carlos had experienced in
many of his workplaces encouraged him to participate in union organizing with other
Filipinos and various workers. Carlos become a self-educated and prolific writer
determined to voice the struggles he had undergone as a Filipino coming to America and
the struggles he had witnessed of other people. Like many of his fellow Filipinos in his
time, Carlos never had the opportunity to return to the Philippines. After years of hardship
and flight, he passed away in Seattle suffering from an advanced stage of
bronchopneumonia. He is buried at Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.
About the Work:
My Father Goes to Court is a humorous story and just one of the twenty-four
short stories in Carlos Bulosan’s “The Laughter of My Father” which was published in the
1940’s in New York. It is the most popular one among the stories in his collection. He
wrote this story based on folklore in the Philippines and it has an underlying social
commentary. According to THE ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY literary critic L.M. Grow in
1995, laughter could be understood as the reference to peasant's resistance against the
colonial structure and the comprador class found in the agricultural areas of the island of
Luzon in the Philippines. L.M. Grow suggests that perhaps what accounts for Bulosan’s
anger over the critics’ reaction is his anger over the mistreatment he received as a Filipino
living in America, which he might have hoped to communicate through his stories. In
particular, “My Father Goes to Court” fails as protest literature because the judge favors
the side of the poor father, showing that the system can work for the downtrodden.

Character Web:
Characterization:
 Father- the main character of the story who was sent to court after being accused
of stealing the spirit of rich man’s food and wealth.
 Mother- the wife of the father who was always bullied by her children.
 Young narrator- the speaker in the story who witnessed all the happenings of the
life of his father.
 Rich man- the man who accused the father of stealing his food and wealth
 Rich man’s children- the undernourished children of the rich man
 Judge- the presiding officer during the trial of the father to the court.

Plot:
1. Father’s family moved to a small town.
In 1918, one of the Philippine floods devastated the farm owned by the
young narrator's father which caused them to move to a small town of Luzon. In
there, they have a next door neighbor who is a very rich man whose sons and
daughters seldom came out of the house. Their house is very tall that they could
look at the people below. While the other kids in the town play outside, the children
of the rich man stayed inside their house and kept the windows closed.

2. Most of the time, the young narrator’s family stood outside the windows of the big
house to waft the smell of the rich man’s food.
The rich man’s servants were always frying and cooking something good
and the aroma of the food was wafted down to the house below which is the house
of the poor. One time, the servants roasted a chicken and the children of the father
wafted the smell of the fat of the chicken. While they are savoring the smell of the
viand, they quickly eat the rice as if they have a lot of food.

3. Some days, the rich man appears at the window and glowered down at them.
He looked at the people below one by one as if he were condemning them.
He is angry because the poor family was all healthy because they could go outside
everyday to shower themselves with sunlight and bathed cool waters of the river.
The people below are always happy from neighbor to neighbor.

4. One instance, one of the young narrator's son came home with a bundle of his as
if there is something to eat.
The brother threw the bundle into their mother’s lap. Everybody stood
around the bundle as their mother unveiled it. Suddenly, a black cat leaped out of
the bundle and ran around the house. Their mother chased their brother and
everybody burst into laughter. In this, the rich man could hear everything.
5. Another day, one of their sisters began screaming in the middle of the night
complaining to the mother and father.
Their mother reached for her and tried to calm her. Their father lifted the oil
lamp and asked the girl about her complaint. The girl said that she is pregnant. All
of the siblings put their hands to her belly and they were all shocked when they felt
that something is moving. When their mother asked the man, their sister opened
her blouse and released a bullfrog. Everybody laughed when they saw this. Their
mother fainted and their father spilled the oil lamp to the floor. A fire began to grow
however, father managed to extinguish it.

6. As time goes on, the rich man’s children became thin and anemic.
The poor kids became robust and healthy. Their faces became bright and
rosy while the rich man’s children grew paler and paler. The rich man became sick
that he coughed day and night and it got worse everyday. The poor family
wondered why, however, all they know is that the rich man always fries their food.
One day, the rich man stood at the window his house and saw the sisters of the
young narrator grew fat while the brothers grew strong like a molave tree. He
banged the window and locked everything from then on. However, they could still
smell the delicious food even if the house of the rich man is already locked.

7. One morning, a policeman came to the house of the young narrator.

The rich man filed a complaint against the poor family. The police took the
father along with his entire family. The police said that the complaint filed against
them is all about the long years they have been stealing the spirit of the rich man’s
wealth and food.

8. The day came that they have to appear to the court.

The poor family arrived first. When the rich man arrived, they saw that he
grew old and feeble. Spectators came in. The judge entered the room and sat on
the high chair. The judge asked the father and asked if he has a lawyer. The poor
father answered that he do not need to have one. The judge allows him to proceed.

9. The rich man’s lawyer crossed examine the father.

The lawyer asked the father if they have been stealing the spirit of the
complainant’s food and wealth and the father answered no. The lawyer then asked
him if the father and his family were used to gather outside the windows of the rich
man's house and inhales the spirit of the food which was later on agreed by the
father that they indeed have done so. In return, the father requested to cross-
examine the children of the complainant. The father asked the pale children if they
agree to the argument that the spirit of their food was stolen. The children agreed.
 10. The father decided to pay the rich man.
Father walked over to where his children were sitting and took a straw hat
and began filling it with centavo pieces. He asked the judge to allow him to walk
across the hall which the judge have approved. He strode to other room with a hat
with his hands full of coins. The sweet tinkle of coins carried beautifully to the room.
Father asked the complainant if he heard the tinkling of coins and the rich man
answered in approval. Father then answered back that he had paid the spirit of the
food by the spirit of the coins. The judge then pounded the gavel and declared that
the case is dismissed. The case ended when the judge went off from his high chair
and blurted a joke wherein everybody burst into laughter.

Elements of the Story:

a. Setting
Chronological: late 1918
Physical: Small town in Luzon
b. Point of View
First Person Point of View

c. Conflict:
Man versus Man (Father versus Rich man)

Figures of Speech:
Hyperbole: He looked at my sister who had grown fat with laughing.
Styles of the Author:
a. Symbolism
o Farm-simplicity
o Food- wealth and abundance
o Gavel-justice
o House- social status
o Straw hat- poverty
o Window- suspicion
o Coins- debt
Quotable Statements:
“We were always in the best of spirits and our laughter is contagious”
“There was plenty (of reasons) to make us laugh”
Themes:
Money cannot buy happiness.
Health is wealth.
Cultural Implication:
The Filipino culture of being happy despite the struggles is depicted in the story. It
was also depicted the social status and the behaviour of Filipinos that the rich people tend
to step down on the poor because they perceive themselves more powerful than the poor.
The case of the father who does not need any lawyer describes the justice system in the
Philippines wherein only rich people can afford to have lawyers.
Implication of the title:
In the Filipino context, this story favors the underprivileged families over affluent
ones. It is supported by the part at the end of the story where after the father gave back
the “spirit of wealth” through the jingling of the coins in the straw hat, the judge
immediately dismissed the case. While it is not really true in this day and age because
the poor has no fair fight against the rich, the idea behind it is not quite simple.

___________________________________________________
References:
Carlos Bulosan Centennial. Carlos Bulosan exhibit. Retrieved 6 March 2016 from
http://www.bulosan.org/
Nikki de Dios. My father goes to court. A Thousand Words of the Heart blog post.
Retrieved 6 March 2016 from https://nikkidedios.wordpress.com/tag/carlos-
bulosan-my-father-goes-to-court/

Marilyn Alquizola, & Lane Ryo Hirabayashi. (2011). Carlos Bulosan's The Laughter of My
Father: Adding Feminist and Class Perspectives to the “Casebook of
Resistance”. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 32(3), 64–91.
http://doi.org/10.5250/fronjwomestud.32.3.0064