Carlos Sampayan

Bulosan

“Yes, I will be a writer and

make all of you live again
in my words”
- Carlos Bulosan, America Is in the Heart: A
personal History

BIOGRAPHY Born: November 24, 1913

Died: September 11, 1956
BETWEEN WARS
 EARLY YEARS
• Carlos Sampayan Bulosan was born in the
Philippines (Pangasinan province, Luzon
island).

• He was the son of a farmer and spent most of

his upbringing in the countryside with his
family
.
• Carlos decided to come to America with the
dream to fulfill these goals.
WHO IS CARLO BOLUSAN?

Who am I? •Author
•Poet
•Novelist
•Activist
INTERLUDE OF DREAMS
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
• With only 3 years of education from the Philippines,
Carlos spoke little English and had barely any money
left.

"...but we are not really free unless we use what we

produce. So long as the fruit of our labor is denied
us, so long will want manifest itself in a world of
slaves."
 COURAGEOUS AND
SELFLESS
”The human heart is bigger than the world”

In the 1930’s, the union hall had a storefront at Fifth and Washington; their alliance with the American labor
movement was established.
 NOTABLE WORKS
• AMERICA IS IN THE HEART (1943)
• America is in the Heart is the gripping
autobiography of Filipino poet and writer Carlos
Bulosan. His story starts as he describes his
peasant youth in the Philippines, recalling
memories of growing up on a farm with his
father.

• THE LAUGHTER OF MY FATHER (1944)

• This book tells about a wedding in a Philippine
village. How a young cousin outshone the
author at dancing and courting and his father's
despair over it. To redeem himself in his
father's eyes he compromised a girl, the
scandal drove him to America.
• IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT WE ARE
(1983)
• Bulosan writes a compelling piece that
illuminates and compares multiple voices
and visions–voices and visions shared by
immigrants, or the “others,” and the white
majority

• THE VOICE OF BATAAN (1943)

• Poems of Bataan -- of that ""small island of
ashes and dead bodies"", of the soldiers
that resisted to the last man, of the hope of
freedom once again.
• THE PHILIPPINES IS IN THE HEART
(1979)
• the short stories in The Philippines Is In
the Heart show that he never really left
his native country in spirit.

• THE CRY AND DEDICATION (1995)

• Dramatizes the resourcefulness, cunning,
and pain of the Filipino peasants' struggle
against a heritage of colonization, first by
Spain and later by the United States.
• ON BECOMING FILIPINO (1995)
• A companion volume to The Cry and the
Dedication, this is the first extensive collection
of Carlos Bulosan's short stories, essays,
poetry.

• THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO (2005)

• This was not only a book but it came into life
and it was played in a theater. It coped with
constant moves, brutal work conditions and
an anti-miscegenation California law that
forbade Filipinos to marry white women.
 ACHIEVEMENTS
• Bulosan was featured in the 1942 edition of Who’s Who in
America Bulosan gained recognition for his work as a poet and
editor.
• From the United States Congress, Representative Mike
Thompson also issued and signed a Certificate of Congressional
Recognition to Mr. Bulosan.

• He was awarded as one of the Centennial Honors for the Arts

particularly in Literature.

• He was honored and recognized posthumously when the City of

Vallejo California declared his birth anniversary on 24 November
2018 and every year thereafter as Carlos Bulosan Day.
 AMERICA IS IN
THE HEART
The book is about Bulosan's life
both in the Philippines and in the
United States of America, as an
immigrant. He begins by recounting
his childhood in the Philippines, and
how he lived on his father's farm
and tended it often, ploughing. He
also tells of some of the hardships
that he had, the most prominent of
which was his divided family forcing
him to pawn off the land for
extremely sub-par prices. After this,
though, Bulosan recalls his
immigration to America in 1930, and
how he was immediately faced with
discrimination and prejudice
towards him while he was a labour
worker in California.
 AMERICA IS IN
THE HEART
America Is in the Heart has
received praise from critics as
being one of the first and most
blatant accounts of immigration
from the Asian-American
viewpoint. Along with that, the
novel is one of the only accounts
of the Filipino immigration
experience in America and is
widely considered to be among
the greatest. The novel was even
called a "social classic" by Carey
McWilliams in the introductory
essay to his own book, Factories
in the Field.
 THE LAST TRIP
Carlos never had the opportunity
to return to the Philippines. After
years of hardship, he passed away in
Seattle suffering from an advance
stage of bronchopneumonia. He is
burried at Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.
REPORTERS:
FRANCES INA M. MIGUEL
CRISTEL JOY D. BAGAOISAN
JAMIE D. DARIA
RIZA MAE T. CURAMMENG

BSE- ENGLISH II-A