Honoring the Legacy of Carlos Bulosan (Asian American Studies Event)

Department: History

Date and Time: February 20, 2020 | 7:00 PM-8:30 PM

Event Location: Dr. White Room, Cross Cultural Center

Event Details


Writer Carlos Bulosan joined the over 100,000 Filipinx who travelled to Hawai’i and the U.S. continent due to U.S. colonization of the Philippines.  Bulosan arrived in 1930 during the Great Depression, and learned firsthand the migratory lifestyle of so many of his fellow Filipinx workers, who largely were confined to low-paying, marginalized labor despite their collective ambitions for education and professional careers.  Although Bulosan passed away in 1956, his autobiographical novel America Is in the Heart:  A Personal History (New York:  Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1946), which chronicled the lives of Filipinx who travelled from the Philippines to the United States during the colonial period, is considered an Asian American Studies classic and still widely taught and read today.  In addition to another novel The Cry and the Dedication (Philadelphia:  Temple University Press, 1995), Bulosan also wrote stories and poems, as well as edited the 1952 yearbook for Local 7 of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen Union, which had many Filipino members.  This program will honor Carlos Bulosan’s literary labor and activism, and will feature readings and reflections around his legacy.