america is in the heart a personal history

Thus the nightmare of racism, slavery, bigotry, became a challenge that each new immigrant had to face.

Ironically, once the earliest immigrants had taken root, their offsprings entitled to the usurped land, somehow developed a sense of superiority towards people of different ethnicity immigrating to partake of this enchanting American dream that their great nation presented. From the first Pilgrims who travelled from Europe to the Newfoundland, to the next waves of Irish, Polish, Italians, to the Africans who were first brought as slaves, the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese all under the umbrella term orientals, the Mexicans who travelled north as laborers, and finally the provincial Filipinos only seeking a humble place to call their own, all came to America in search of a better life. The United States of America is a nation composed predominantly of immigrants. Slowly the systematic oppression against poor farmers in his native country dawns on the young Bulosan, and disillusioned by the hopelessness of his nation he blindly takes a ship to America in search of greener pastures. Consequently his family is left to the mercies of farming for wealthy landowners who take almost everything they raise. His father is a poor farmer attending to a small plot of land which they eventually lose as collateral after missing a single loan payment taken so that they could give a proper education to one of his elder brothers. America is in the hearts of men.'Ĭarlos Bulosan's semi-autobiographical novel starts out with his early life born from a lowly peasant family in the Philippines. America is not merely a land or an institution.

America is not bound by geograpahical latitudes. We are all Americans that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Indian that offered peace to the last Filipino pea pickers. 'It is but fair to say that America is not a land of one race or one class of men.

America is in the heart a personal history