PHILIPPINE LITERATURE

CARLOS BULOSAN

Carlos Sampayan Bulosan (November 24, 1913 September 11, 1956) was a Filipino novelist and poet
who immigrated to the United States on July 1, 1930.He never returned to the Philippines and he spent
most of his life in the United States. His best-known work today is the semi-autobiographical America Is
in the Heart, but he first gained fame for his 1943 essay on The Freedom from Want. Bulosan was born
to Ilocano parents in the Philippines in Binalonan, Pangasinan. There is considerable debate around his
actual birth date, as he himself used several dates. 1911 is generally considered to be the most reliable
answer, based on his baptismal records, but according to the Lorenzo Duyanen Sampayan, his childhood
playmate and nephew, Bulosan was born on November 2, 1913. Most of his youth was spent in the
countryside as a farmer.

SUMMARY OF THE STORY TWO FACES OF AMERICA

The Two Faces of American Freedom boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the
colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the
context of shifting notions of empire and citizenship. Today, while the U.S. enjoys tremendous military
and economic power, citizens are increasingly insulated from everyday decision-making. This was not
always the case. America, Aziz Rana argues, began as a settler society grounded in an ideal of freedom
as the exercise of continuous self-rule―one that joined direct political participation with economic
independence. However, this vision of freedom was politically bound to the subordination of
marginalized groups, especially slaves, Native Americans, and women. These practices of liberty and
exclusion were not separate currents, but rather two sides of the samfarmer

LESSON OF THE STORY

America Is in the Heart serves as a piece of activist literature. It sheds light on the racial and class issues
that affected Filipino immigrants throughout the beginning of the twentieth century. The autobiography
attempts to show Filipino Americans the structure of American society and the oppression inflicted upon
Filipino’s living in America. In America Is in the Heart, Bulosan properly shows the reader the animalistic
treatment that was inflicted upon the Filipino’s on the west coast. Bulosan states, “At that time, there
was ruthless persecution of the Filipinos throughout the Pacific Coast”. He wants Filipinos and even
white Americans to realize the harmful treatment of Filipinos and the problems of society.