Carlos Bulosan’s fictionalized memoir America is in the Heart was published 75 years ago this month. The passionate and incendiary account captures the brutality and casual cruelty meted out to Filipino migrants in America, persecution that would continue as the poet and labor organizer was subsequently blacklisted and targeted by the FBI. By the time Bulosan died in his early forties, collapsing on the lawn of Seattle’s King County Courthouse and buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave, his once bestselling book had fallen into obscurity. Decades later it would be revived as a seminal work of the Filipino diaspora and the Asian American immigrant experience.
Since that time much has changed, and much hasn’t. Here are just a handful of the many outstanding memoirs at your local library by Filipino/Filipinx* writers to show how far we have and haven’t come.
- Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, by Jose Antonio Vargas. The Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist’s account of his struggles to find a home in a xenophobic America makes a fitting update to Bulosan’s account of “the crime of being a Filipino in America.” The book is also available in Spanish, and in a version for younger readers.
- Monsoon Mansion, by Cinelle Barnes. Everything was glitter, gold and glam, until it wasn’t. Richly recollected and evocative story of the author’s childhood in the tempestuous Philippines continues after her journey to America in Malaya: Essays on Freedom.
- Amboy: Recipes from the Filipino-American Dream, by Alvin Cailan. Feeling neither fully American nor Filipino, a first-generation finds his path and his voice in perhaps the only true melting-pot in America: the one in the kitchen. A life full of flavor, complete with recipes.
- Somewhere in the Middle, by Deborah Francisco Douglas. The Peace Corps brought her to her father’s homeland of the Philippines, but finding her roots took some real digging.
- Growing Up Brown: Memoirs of a Filipino American, by Peter M. Jamero. Presenting the unique struggles of the first generation of American-born Filipinos, Jamero’s memoir serves as vital a bridge between Bulosan’s generation and our own.
- Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo, by Jo Koy. With uncharacteristic vulnerability, the irreverent, in-your-face comedian reveals a little of the pain that fuels his side-splitting humor.
- The Groom Will Keep His Name, by Matt Ortile. A young gay Filipino immigrant’s sensitive exploration of sexuality, Asian-ness, and the contradictions of life in America.
- Fairest, by Meredith Talusan. Born an albino boy in the Philippines, Talusan eloquently relates the fascinating story of her journey across gender, race, and the world.
These and many other recent Filipino/Filipinx* life stories can be found in this list in our library catalog.
*There is widespread disagreement among Filipinos and Filipino Americans over the recently emergent ‘gender-neutral’ term “Filipinx”; hence, we use both.
~ Posted by David W.
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