When days like these prevail when the Philippines can no longer show her people heroes and  models  of quality, decency, moral ascendancy, humility, patience and kindness, it is very refreshing to re-visit those Filipinos who graced our soil before our time. They were the Filipinos who bled for our soil, who wept for our people, who  wrote about their ideals and aspirations. It is nice to remember them while we're surrounded by Filipinos of filth and deceit, whose only goal in life seems to be to pull another trick to mesmerize our children by hysterics and melodramas; they teach our children how to divert people's attention away from the more pressing needs of our land. Our poor children, who will teach our poor children? Who will tell them that Filipinos aren't like the ones they see in the nation's political chambers? How do we tell them that Filipinos aren't all these crooks? How can we show them that Justice is not a matter of diversionary tactics but a frontal face assault?

Who will tell our children that there is a better way of improving their lots beside  departing  from the hellhole called the Philippines to work in lands where they are no longer considered humans but animal-slaves?

There was once a Filipino who escaped his Philippine poverty by immigrating to the US to work in  the orange groves of California, who, at nights wrote about his people and country despite his endless tubercular coughing - he died poor but full of treasure and wealth through his unforgettable tale about himself, his life and times both in the US and the Philippines. His name was Carlos Bulosan. And he is the one I'd like to review at a  time like this when Filipinos who call themselves Politicians are no better than Dogs. They are a shame to the likes of Carlos Bulosan. And I said this before and I say this again - Any man acting like a rabid dog must be treated like one.

Please, get rid of these Politician assholes. Give our children better views of Filipinos!

Let me start by quoting Carlos Bulosan first:

It was midnight  and the hospital was in total darkness. Far away in the city  the lights were flickering  like a string of pearls  strung on the huge neck of a dark woman. And far away also,  in the workers'  republic of Spain , a civil war was  going on that a democracy might live.  I remembered all my years  in the Philippines , my father fighting  for his inherited land , my mother  selling baggoong  to the impoverished peasants . I remembered  all my brothers  and their bitter  fight  for a place in the sun, their tragic fear  that they might not live  long enough  to contribute  something vital to the world. I remembered my own swift and dangerous life in America. And I cried, recalling all the years that had come and gone, but my remembrance gave me a strange courage and the vision of a better life.

"Yes, I will be a writer and make all of you live again in my words," I sobbed. (America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan,  1943)

My friends, may I re-introduce to you one of our most beloved Filipinos from the land of Ilocos,  Carlos Bulosan. 

Being able to express myself in fiction once again makes me feel good. Yeah, I'm done with all the basic programs  I needed to learn to help me advance on my own computer programming. After two and a half years, I'm finally free of night school and exams. It's time for me to re-explore  my fiction, gay or otherwise. What is truly remarkable is the fact that despite my take on Philippine ordinary life and my  Pinoy author reviews,  most readers respond to me because of my gay fiction. My future might be in gay writing he-he.

But this is my  blah-blah-blah moment again, the easy writing moment, it's really easy to write opinions, like what I am doing now,  I sit down and pontificate to the world. Later, I'd call this an essay... my foot!

There is nothing more boring in writing than writing a personal opinion. My opinion writing is  nothing compared to that young Filipino in the early forties who is now remembered fondly as Carlos Bulosan. The guy came to America to pick up oranges, had to learn English along the way, send money back home, deal with the worst discrimination every minute of his life, and to top it all, he  suffered from tuberculosis.

There were no personal computers with word processors that could do cut, paste, delete and spell check then. Most nights he stayed in his room writing under a lamp (I guess).

I think it is cruel to dismiss Carlos Bulosan as mediocre writer because he was melodramatic and sentimental and used all these America-centric titles like America Is In The Heart. The mere fact he produced the volumes he produced during his short-lived life and under circumstances he lived could only be equaled by the likes of Cervantes and Dostoyevsky.  Carlos Bulosan was the epitome of a truly great Pinoy, the kind of Pinoy our country sorely needed. I am nothing compared to him. Rizal wrote novels in a pension. Bulosan wrote his novels coughing up blood.

And the other thing that makes Bulosan closer to my heart is his use of small town and  poor peasant family as a background to his stories. If you lived in a small town barrio, you'd feel Bulosan's words right into the heart. His portrayal of himself and his parents reminds me of my  small town - the hay, the grass, the endless rice-fields, and most of all, the grace of the Filipino peasant. It is the Filipino peasant's grace that I remember most, there is something in Bulosan's words that make me take a peek into the peasant world that brings in my heart a secured familiarity - a familiarity I'd like to capture forever - Bulosan makes me breathe like a child again. Sometimes I linger on one of his pages and keep re-reading it like a mantra because it reminds me of the days of nipa huts when women knelt and stooped over their clay pots to scoop  cups of rice. Bulosan takes me to the men who gathered firewood and children who blew their lungs out to fan  burning bonfires in early mornings. If you'd ask me where I'd like to die, I'd like to die in the same soil where I saw my town the first time I recognized people, places and time. There is nothing more beautiful than live in my childhood home and maybe with Bulosan telling stories to me. 

I am sitting on my chair tapping on these keys, trying to  visualize Carlos Bulosan beside me, listening to what he would be saying now if he were alive. He is a forgotten author by now, no one seems  interested to read his old melodramatic titles, titles such as America Is In The Heart . Who the f--- would  think of a title like that for a book  without being scorned? Or laughed at nowadays?

Sentimental - ah sentimentality is so easy to come to Filipinos - mixed with laughter that is so sarcastic it means pain. Carlos Bulosan is all that - a man of heart and a man who wanted to make sure his life on earth didn't pass unnoticed.  Hiding it all in the Laughter of My Father. And the pain of America Is In The Heart.

His novel America Is In The Heart  has three parts, actually,  two autobiographical parts. The first part was his life in the province of Ilocos and Pangasinan and the second part was about his life in America. I have found his life in the Philippines miserable, and his life in America no better than that of a mule's. A Filipino can tolerate much but my god, why did it seem there was no end to Bulosan's misery?

Bulosan's misery ended in the form of death - leaving a well-documented record of his life - but despite his efforts to tell his next generation the kind of life and mistakes and social problems he dealt with - thus warning it to avoid and correct them - no generation took heed of him. The proofs of his unheeded call?  No other country in the world exports as much human labor as the Philippines does.  The Philippines remains an impoverished nation. And no matter how much lip-service are accorded to our overseas worker, that doesn't mean a thing because there is no end to his human labor. He can not see any 'light at the end of tunnel' in the Philippines to make him return and in returning find good life.  And no matter how much governmental plans are promised  to the poor these mean nothing if they are not matched by action.

Bulosan did not ask for anything beyond what history provided him. He lived in a little corner, a corner the American would not like to see, a corner the American resented so very much. It was a 'migrant worker corner' at a time when  the United States was recuperating from  recession.  To the American, these 'brown monkeys' were present only to snatch up jobs from the 'locals',  using their sun-burnt hands to pick up crops,  sleep in makeshift tenements. They were beaten up for daring to date  and bearing children with white women, beaten up for entering  white-only restaurants. They were virtually invisible to the eyes of the mainstream. Bulosan lived his American life in this atmosphere.

His book re-created the experiences of the early Filipinos who were frightened, always hiding, always looking for some job in some distant part of America and if you'd ask me how that felt, I can assure you it must have been terrifying!  I could not imagine myself being alone  in the dark mountainous roads of California, discarded and beaten and afraid. I can't. I'd simply choose to die.

The Manongs of Bulosan time - the early Filipinos who escaped their Philippine poverty by working in America were the best soldiers the Philippines had. They fought a battle that was more frightening than any war the Filipino had gone through, it was a battle to exist as a Filipino with dignity amidst all the indignities he was subjected to.  Even Saroyan wrote a story about  the brutality these early  Fil-Ams faced. I still encounter old patients who tell me how they shielded their Filipino friends from barbarism in their time as if in saying that I'd be extra nice to them. My friends, Bulosan wrote his version of truth and his truth hurt.

That is why I cannot fathom how the Filipinos of our country today can pride themselves in producing export-class workers; why they run an educational system geared towards employment abroad. Our  Philippine system isn't working  because we have propagated the diseases we should have cured long long time ago.  Bulosan wrote about them in early forties, and they are still alive and well in this new century. Feudalism is rampant and our farmers are still suffering.  We cannot see a clean politician around and if there is one, the media will not hesitate to throw mud at him.

The most terrible thing to happen to a nation is to have a population that doesn't care anymore. When a Filipino says "You may as well destroy the Philippines and I don't care because I'd be living and working abroad"  our nation must be the saddest nation on earth.  I don't need to hear that verbally from any Filipino, all I need is to see the action of that Filipino.

We all see that Filipino everyday of our lives - he is heartless. His actions speak of intense selfishness no matter who suffers and perishes. He worries about his political standing and party  no matter what, he must remain in power and if he does not, he'd make sure to sow havoc.

The mere fact that we don't read Bulosan except as a requirement in school is reflection of Filipino selfishness.

We entered the woods and in five minutes the car stopped. One of the men in front jumped out and came to our door.
"You have the rope Jake?"
"Yeah!"
The man on my right got out and pulled me violently after hitting me on the jaw. I fell on my knees but got up at once, trembling with rage. If only I had a gun! Or a knife! I could cut these bastards into little pieces! Blood came out of my mouth. I raised my hand to wipe it off, but my attacker hit me again. I staggered, fell on my face, and rolled on the grass.
"Up! Goddamn you! Up!"
Painfully I crawled to my feet, knelt on the grass, and got up slowly. I saw them kicking Millar in the grass. When they were through with him, they tore off Jose's clothes and tied him to a tree. One of them went to the car and came back with a can of tar and a sack of feathers. The man with the dark glasses ripped the sack open and white feathers fell out and sailed in the thin light that filtered between the trees.
Then I saw them pouring the tar on Jose's body. One of them lit a match and burned the delicate hair between his legs.
"Jesus, he's well-hung son-of-a-bitch!"
"Yeah"
"No wonder whores stick to him."
... Another man, the one called Jake, tied me to a tree. Then he started beating me with his fists. Why were these men so brutal, so sadistic? A tooth fell out of my mouth, and blood trickled down my shirt. The man called Lester grabbed my testicles with his left hand and smashed them with his right fist. The pain was so swift and searing that it was as if there were no pain at all. There was only a stabbing heat that leaped into my head and stayed there for a moment.  -This brutality  happened while they were planning to hold a labor strike in California. And many more experiences such as this were told by Carlos Bulosan in his novel.

Bulosan was an endearing man, a man that embodied the real Filipino. He went on improving his skill, ( read ONE BOOK A DAY while in hospital, including Sundays). He was voracious. He read everything. He had a beautiful face and was very young. He was as much interested on American women as much they were interested with him. The above narration  further tells that when he found the opportunity, he managed to get a knife from the shoe of Millar and freed all the three of them. Despite his painful leg and limp he managed to escape his American killers "running like a kangaroo". That was how strong he was.

REMEMBER HIS WORDS amidst the beatings: "If only I had a gun! Or a knife! I could cut these bastards into little pieces!"

Bulosan, despite his small frame was a BIG fighter. And a BIG thinker. Today, Bulosan is one of the strongest voices of immigrants in America. His stories are so fascinating, one of a kind. He pulled America to her realities and offered the Fil-Am like me the gift of belongingness to America. He narrated the experiences of the minorities who had to fight for their American dream. Bulosan will be etched in the history of America because only HE managed to write a story like America Is In The Heart, a culmination of all the experiences of thousands of Filipinos who came to America during his time. If someone says the Filipino has no value to the American fight for civil liberties and anti-discrimination or  if a Filipino is accused of being non-involved in the over-all American struggles, I'd say, excuse me, I have Carlos Bulosan honey!



Reading Bulosan is an enriching experience. No other Filipino had claimed as much place in America as he did. Bulosan's life and blood sealed the Filipino-American experience as part of the whole American experience.

 It seems that every new race in America is dejected. The Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Blacks, the Jews, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Filipinos were all welcomed on American soil with carpet of biases and rejections. I will never be ashamed of the discriminations the first Filipino migrants had experienced. True, discrimination is painful but the pain only proves that we were here and we were part of the evolution of America, so that, when America tries to address its racism and bigotry and discriminatory policies, we are included in that picture. And that picture is what makes the face of America. Bulosan composed  a truly unique Filipino-American experience that belongs only to a Filipino-American. And the Filipino-American is now American.

Many nationalists may have this need to erect a border or a  fence between the Filipino and the rest of the world. They usually use the slavery endured under the Spanish friar, the manifest destiny  suffered under America, the barbarism experienced under the Japanese  as the rationale for this fence or border. To some of us, our past was an insult and must either be paid back or the perpetrators must be condemned from our soil for eternity. Many of us tend to associate our present misery to our cruel history.

To me, and maybe I think differently because I am a fiction writer, I love our experience as a  people. In  life, we always find the experienced person as more mature than an inexperienced one. The Philippines, despite its endless problems and conflicts can boast of being there in the world major events. Have you ever thought that there are only a few  people in the world that enjoyed a front seat to all major events of the twentieth century? If you'd ask a Jamaican  or a Cuban or a South American about his concept of the world, his concept, though significant, is not as extensive as the Philippine's. Even a regular American wouldn't match the experience the Filipino has. We did not stay in history vicariously reading newspapers about far away wars - the wars were brought to us and we fought,  survived and  died in them. We were there physically.

And thanks to our Filipino writers like Bulosan, we have an extensive  documentation about our Filipino experience. There is nothing to be ashamed of in being Filipino despite all the discriminations we experience, our Filipino experiences whether shameful or not, whether human or not, add dimension to our being Filipino. And no other nationality in the world could claim, boast, or be humbled by our experience besides us.

And this is why I demand the Filipino to be more mature than what I see nowadays. If our nation can produce a Bulosan,  why do we keep putting political assholes in our limelight just to insult us with their stupidities and political maneuverings like they alone make up the Philippines? The way I see it,  those who run our lives nowadays  don't deserve even to touch the finger tips of Bulosan.

They who lived  in the comforts of their air-conditioned rooms, who couldn't muster the courage to improve the lives of the Filipinos, who do nothing in their lives but to find  newer ways to fool the country by lies and deceits, who sleep and breathe thinking only about those who would or would not vote for them, should never aspire to rally a nation to greatness. We had Rizal and Bonfacio and Bulosan and Aquino, why the f--- do we have what we have now?

THE GREAT FILIPINO AMERICAN:

It is but fair to say that America is not a land of one race or one class of men. We are all Americans that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Indian that offered peace in Manhattan to the last Filipino pea pickers. America is not bound by geographical latitudes. America  is not merely a land or an institution. America is in the hearts of men that died for freedom; it is also in the eyes of men that are building a new world. America is a prophecy of a new society of men: of a system that knows no sorrow or strife or suffering. America is a warning to those who would try to falsify the ideals of freedom.

America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree. America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities is closed to him. We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate - We are America! - Bulosan, America Is In The Heart

THE GREAT FILIPINO:

It is but fair to say that the Philippines is not a land of one race or one class of men. We are all Filipinos that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Malay that offered peace in Limasawa to the last Filipino overseas worker. The Philippines is not bound by geographical latitudes. The Philippines is not merely a land or an institution. The Philippines is in the hearts of men that died for freedom; it is also in the eyes of men that are building a new world. The Philippines is a prophecy of a new society of men: of a system that knows no sorrow or strife or suffering. The Philippines is a warning to those who would try to falsify the ideals of freedom.

The Philippines is also the nameless Pinoy, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the body murdered because of his beliefs.  The Philippines is the illiterate Pinoy who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities is closed to him. We are all that nameless Pinoy, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate and that murdered body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate - We are Philippines!

There is another angle in this novel by Bulosan. It is the dynamics of his family, his family being his two brothers and him in America. Life in a racist society deprives man of his civilized manners. It elicits out of him his more natural and primitive instincts. This you can see in the non-ending struggle of the three brothers against the society and against each others. And I, being one of five brothers, could clearly see this dynamics.

I sometimes have guests in my condo - Filipino guests. They  own  houses all over the US and apartments in Manhattan. I am just one of their destinations in their vacations all over, all the way from Brazil to Europe. They come with their designer clothes and expensive jewelry and perfume. They all have multiple memberships in multiple gyms. Money flows out of them like there is no tomorrow. Their families are super-rich in the Philippines. It is an embarrassment to bring them to cheap restaurants. They fight over the check.

And then, I have another group of guests in my condo - Filipino guests. They come with their simple clothes. Ashamed of their jobs in Cruise Ships. Apologetic for visiting with nothing but the shirt on their backs. I see them roam the streets of Everglades, in shorts and slippers, lining on public telephones, bringing out their phone cards, calling home. They stare at me - and I don't know why I feel so embarrassed when they stare at me.

What I am driving at is this - the Filipino immigrant worker might have surmounted the struggles of Bulosan in California in the forties. But he still continues to struggle in lands where there was no Bulosan.

It is easy for the Filipino back home to call the Filipino overseas worker a hero. I can say those same empty words anytime. But why do you call him a hero?

Is it because of the nearly seven billion dollars he sends back home, to prop up an economy that has been ravaged by the incompetence of the same Filipino who calls the Filipino overseas worker a hero?  Tell me, how do you see the Overseas Filipino Worker?  

If you really see him, if you really understand his plight, if you really fathom his pains and sufferings, you will be careful in handling the Philippines. If you really see the life of an immigrant worker, Flor Contemplacion, Sarah Balabagan, and the many imprisoned and deported Filipinos all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Nigeria,  you, a Filipino with a heart will vow not to let poverty drive him to search for a job abroad again. You, with a Filipino heart, will try to ease his suffering by making it clear you are doing something for him - perhaps by clearing the way for his/her children's future, giving them the best education that  his seven-billion dollars  can afford. You will perhaps study his life more, encourage him to have a say in his country of birth, make sure his daughters and sons don't end up in bomba films and drugs. Most of all, most of all, you'd perhaps make the Philippines a conducive place for him/her to retire.

But who will do that with the politics of rich Filipinos who come overseas to shop, have medical check-ups, worse,  write a fucking book! The mere fact the Filipino rich insists having medical check-ups in America makes me wonder why - why can't you improve the Medicine in the country that you distrust so much? Granting there is not enough technology in the Philippines, then why aren't you passing laws to address that?

Or are you all so enamored by your positions and your money that your only goal in getting into politics is merely to serve your interests and money that will keep you bragging about going abroad to shop, have medical check-ups, and write your memoirs? I have been in the States for nearly twelve years and not one of you politicians asked me how I am doing. I never saw you pass this way at all. And that's how a hero is treated in our country. Nothing!

As nothing as Carlos Bulosan. But what do I expect from a Philippine Senate that's composed of gangs of kids in high school who lost their way; they beat each others like in one of those cheap movies (well, aren't they all cheap actors?) who, instead of improving the lives that Carlos Bulosan once lived,  insist on following  Politics,  American style. Honey, you aren't in America. The Philippine politics is not a politics of maneuver and fooling around. The Filipino politics is a politics of heart.

And heart in you is what I don't see.

But I don't want to write further about Philippine politics, which is so damnable, cheap, ignorant, detached from  reality, so Kafka-esque that it's not even worth mentioning about. I can assure you that I rarely see a Filipino heart there.  

If only they read Carlos Bulosan life, maybe they'd understand how to live a real Filipino life.

But enough of my babbling already. I'm tired and I need to read Peter Bacho's Dark Blue Suit.

Alex Maskara is Pinoy

Volume 1