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Sample Student
final answers 2013 (2013 final exam assignment) #1: Research Reports |
LITR 4333
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Kreuzer, Baisha
Carlos Bulosan: The Filipino-American Immigrant Experience
My mother lived in the beautiful islands of
the Philippines until she was sixteen. She came to the United States alongside
my grandmother to initially visit and obtain an education. As it turned out, she
met my father, fell in love and got married and has continued to live in the
states. However, as she migrated to the U.S., the assimilation was not easy.
When I interviewed my mother for this paper, she told me that although she had
my father and his family, the experience was still somewhat difficult at times.
Growing up as a child, I was always fascinated with my mother’s stories about
her childhood in the Philippines and growing up on the beach. This fascination
led me to my curiosity about Filipino immigrants. My mother did have a better
situation than most immigrants as she was married to a man who took great care
of her. Due to this, I want to know more than just my mother’s story. I am
curious to know the immigration and assimilation experience of a Filipino, which
led me to my discovery of poet and writer Carlos Bulosan.
Carlos
Bulosan was born in Mangusmana, Philippines, a small farming village near the
town of Binalonan. Coming from a small town, Bulosan lived with his family and
helped maintained his father’s farm and spent most of his young life in the
countryside. However, Bulosan’s family, like many others in the Philippines,
struggled to survive during the time due to U.S. colonization. Economic hardship
was very prevalent and Bulosan was determined to change that for his family.
On July 22, 1930, Bulosan arrived in Seattle
by ship at the age of seventeen. Bulosan spoke little English due to only three
years of schooling, but desperate to help his family, Carlos took on small,
low-paying jobs to help support his family and to attempt to further his
education. What initially began as an endeavor to enrich his life turned into
Carlos’ most difficult struggle of his lifetime. The transition from the
Philippines to America was not an easy one, according to
www.bulosan.org,
“Carlos experienced much economic difficulty and racial brutality that
significantly damaged his health and eventually changed his perception of
America”.
Through all his experienced, Carlos wrote
several works that narrated the struggle through his life. From his acclaimed
biographical novel America is in the
Heart to his collection of poems from the book
On Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings
of Carlos Bulosan, Carlos has captured his migrating experience in ways that
help future readers truly examine how difficult it really was. By an analysis of
a select poem from On Becoming Filipino:
Selected Writings of Carlos Bulosan, we will be able to analyze the struggle
Carlos experienced along with the hope he initially had in America.
The poem is called
The Foreigners and discusses what the
attraction of America is to foreigners and the struggle of first arriving
without knowledge of the language.
THE FOREIGNERS
You cannot blame us. We followed the sun
And the rain with gladness and hope.
There are many lands to go to,
But we are astounded by your horizons,
And
we are glad we came with our children.
We came to share with the machinery of
your greatness,
But we are unhappy to discover this:
Your people are
miserable from the lack of mutual speech,
And their children are stereotyped.
We cannot be like them-
We brought our country's speech with us.
I am afraid I cannot write our language,
But I can work and walk in the
streets
People with men who know no compromise,
Till I stumble against you
in the dark;
And I can rap at you and scratch you like a cat,
And I can
make you feel the strength of our city.
We can jump over the tall buildings like leaves
But without words to deceive
us,
And fall upon your feet
But without tears to deceive us-
We are
invincible with death!
Look and examine us!
This poem truly dives into the desire and
stress any immigrant experiences when first arriving to a strange land, whether
you are Filipino, Irish, or African. As Jennifer Condado said in her research
paper from 2003, Vietnamese American
Immigration, “When the immigrants arrived to the
United States they were not greeted with arms opened, but instead with hostility”.
This is true for many reasons: in
Condado’s paper, her reason was for the Vietnam War. However for the
Philippines, the economic struggle during the time was cause of America not
wanting to accept immigrants. Not only were they different and difficult to work
with because of a language barrier, but they were taking away jobs Americans
could’ve had.
The first two lines begin the poem
perfectly, “You cannot blame us. We followed the sun/ And the rain with gladness
and hope…” Carlos is describing America as following the sun and the rain, two
of nature’s most beautiful and productive attributes. However, he does start
with “You cannot blame us”, which hints to Americans not wanting immigrants.
When Carlos came to America, he did experience a lot of racist treatment and by
proxy his feelings toward America being hopeful and accepting changed.
Analyzing further, Carlos begins to discuss
how a language barrier is holding him back, “We cannot be like them – / We
brought our country’s speech with us./ I am afraid I cannot write our language”.
As mentioned above, when Bulosan came to America, he did not learn the language
and struggled because of it. However, he says, “But I can work and walk in the
streets” as a reference to how his lack of language essentially does not adhere
his ability to join the work force. Bulosan needed to make money to support
himself and his family in the Philippines, and as any struggling individual
would have it, the lack of money can cause one to become desperate and even
angry because of their struggle.
While reading this poem, I was able to truly
sense the struggle Carlos experienced by coming to America without knowing the
language or understanding any sort of customs. Moving for anyone can be scary,
especially when you are just a kid. At seventeen, Carlos had to take on the
responsibility of man and provide for his entire family and himself. All he
wanted to do was find an opportunity that could lead him to success, and when he
though he had found the way, he was sorely disappointed. Although he did
eventually find success, the struggle to the top proved to be more intense and
heartbreaking then Carlos intended. Reading about Bulosan truly opened my eyes
to be thankful that my family and how their experience was not one quite as
drastic. Due to his work, Carlos published something that can show all of
America (and any other country that gets a chance to read his work) that
Filipinos are one to be recognized and that they are determined people.
Work Cited
1. Bulosan,
Carlos, and Juan E. San. On
Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings of Carlos
Bulosan. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1995. Print.
2. Condado, Jennifer.
Vietnamese American Immigration. Student Sample Research Project.
2003.
3. Kreuzer, Ivy.
Personal Interview.
4.
http://www.bulosan.org/index.html
