Seattle remembers Filipino author Carlos Bulosan

SEATTLE (AP) — Carlos Bulosan collapsed on a courthouse lawn one day in 1956 and died at the age of 44, poor and unemployed, with none of the trappings of a famous author. He was buried in an unmarked grave.

It was the end of a life of backbreaking work, illness, and suffering — but also literary achievement and accolades from an American president.

Bulosan’s literary works — buried and forgotten during the later stages of his life — have been resurrected and are now read widely, thanks to the efforts of Asian-American scholars and the University of Washington Press.

His 1946 masterpiece, "America Is In the Heart," is one of the most widely used books in Asian-American studies classes around the world.

"It is considered the premier text of the Filipino-American experience," said Greg Castilla, a Seattle scholar and social-work supervisor who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Bulosan. "He was a migrant worker who became a prolific writer."

A Bulosan tribute mural and pictorial exhibit grace the lobby of the Eastern Hotel in Seattle, where Bulosan first landed in America on July 22, 1930. His once-unmarked grave now has a fancy granite headstone, bought by community activists.

Bulosan was 17 years old, an uneducated peasant boy from Pangasinan province in the central Philippines seeking a new life when he came to Seattle. The 75th anniversary of his arrival gave those who knew him here a moment to reflect on his life.

Fred Cordova, 72, co-director of the Seattle-based National Filipino American Historical Society, knew Bulosan during the author’s union organizing days in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when his days as a celebrated author were behind him.

"He was a little guy, very slim, and he was always very well-dressed all the time," Cordova said. "He was not what you’d call a charismatic speaker. He was unassuming and very quiet — a very gentle person. But he wrote like a lion."

Cordova said he and Bulosan visited family homes, union halls, and other gathering spots for activists. Bulosan was not that famous among the regular folks in the Seattle community, Cordova recalled.

Much of "America Is In the Heart" details the hard life of the Filipino migrant worker in the post-Depression years.

Bulosan worked up and down the West Coast in low-paying hotel service jobs, in fields, and in fish canneries. He became bitterly disillusioned, started getting involved in union organizing and taught himself to read and write.

He wrote of Filipino workers putting in 12 hour-days — picking fruit, washing dishes, cutting fish and cleaning houses — for less than $1 per day. Many were exploited, beaten and robbed of their meager wages.

"I feel like a criminal running away from a crime," he wrote in one of his earlier works. "And this crime is that I am a Filipino in America."

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Bulosan to write an essay about America and its "Freedom From Want." It was published in the Saturday Evening Post along with three essays by other famous authors.

Bulosan first gained national acclaim with a book of poems, "Letter From America," published in 1942. Another poetry collection, "Voice of Bataan," came one year later. His first big bestseller, "Laughter of My Father," was published in 1944 and was translated into seven languages. "America Is In the Heart," came two years later and propelled Bulosan to literary stardom.

When his star faded, Bulosan returned to Seattle to do organizing and publicity work for Local 37 of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, now the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

The 1970s brought a wave of ethnic awareness, and with it, a new appreciation for authors like Bulosan.