American Son: In Review

God Bless: My Lola, for naming our new puppy “Xena.” Yeah. That Xena. The Warrior Princess. My parents are suffering from empty nest syndrome and the only cure was a new puppy. And my lola named it Xena. God bless.
Feeling: :-)

Wow. How unproductive was that spring break? I really need to get my procrastination in check. But anyways, HAPPY EASTER to all of you ahead of time!

Well, I’ve already quibbled about the ending—I suppose it’s time to rant about the whole book.

In response to the questions posed by Ms. Gier during class, I have to admit that I never thought of the novel as a tragedy-comedy—I just thought the characters were obnoxious. I’m not exactly sure what constitutes a tragedy-comedy, but I can see how there is a kind of humor in the fact that the characters in American Son are constantly making poor decisions. It’s like watching a contestant from [insert name of fraternity/sorority] stumble through an episode of The Price Is Right. Bad, bad decisions.
For instance, Gabe’s sojourn through the most obscure locations in California…what was he thinking? His trip culminates with the embarrassment he causes his mother. Instead of solving his problems at home by fleeing from them—which, all you potential runaways reading this, is never the answer—he instead succeeds in worsening his relationship with his mother. And don’t even get me started about the series of errands he agrees to complete for his brother as a sort of comeuppance for selling Buster. Sorority girls on Price Is Right. Sorority girls on Price Is Right.

Also asks Ms. Gier, “To what extent is [American Son] satirical? Is it political? Is it critical? If so, then of what?”

My instinct is to answer “no,” just so that I don’t have to answer the “then of what” part of the question, but I know that’s probably not what she’s looking for. And, actually, I really don’t know what she’s looking for. I’m not sure what is being satirized. Possibly passive pilipinas? (Oy, excuse my alliteration. I do that when I’m tired.) Gabe’s mother is a stereotypically meek Filipino mother that has lost control of her children. Speaking of her children, is Roley commenting on the behavior of irresponsible, reckless, ungrateful youth? Of progeny of Filipino immigrants specifically?

I’m sure everyone else has written this already, but I think the author is critical of the American dream. Wow that sounds so obvious after I typed it. Okay, anyways, I think there’s a little irony in the juxtaposition between the standards of living of Gabe’s family and that of his uncle’s. Gabe’s mother, presumably, immigrated in order to provide her family with better living conditions, but (are you paying attention Alanis Morissette? For this is truly ironic) her brother remained in the Philippines and attained wealth and prestige.

That’s all I can think of right now. I better sleep before I start to get incoherent. See you all in class!

Spring Break Posting Pt. 1

God Bless: Happy Palm Sunday and a big "thank you" to Tony Robles
Feeling: :-I

Happy Spring Break, everybody! i hope you all have a great one, and that i don't catch any of you on Girls Gone Wild.

With that said, watch as i wring my creative reserves for an English post. Well, you know the tank's running low when you have to talk about two books to write one post. This week, let's take a gander at America Is In the Heart and American Son.

1. They're both very violent novels. In America Is In the Heart, i think Bulosan employed violence as a means to shake his audience, to shock, to reveal the dark underbelly of the American dream. On the other hand, i'm not sure what role violence plays in American Son. Both novels eventually numbed me to gore and the graphic--a feat that only Fear Factor has achieved. But i think that is a perspective shared by the characters in both novels--they are (almost) all indifferent to violence because it is a primary component of the worlds in which they live.

2. i'm skeptical about the conclusions of both novels. Bulosan ends America Is In the Heart lauding the virtues of an America that he has not experienced. So much of the book records Bulosan's struggle to survive in a cold and unwelcoming United States. Thus, the optimism he expresses in the closing chapter of his novel comes off a little, uh, out of nowhere. Okay wait, i take that back. it doesn't come outta nowhere. it comes out of left field. Or maybe that's his point--America beat him down, withered him to his deathbed, but he can remain positive because he has constructed for himself the architecture of an America he designed in his heart. For Bulosan, America is so much more than the prostitutes and the labor fields and the murders and the injustices.
And about American Son...well, yeah. That book just needs an ending. Roley, what happened, dude? Why didn't you finish the book? Did deadline sneak up on ya? Did your pen run out of ink? Your laptop out of juice? As Tomas would say, i was muy disappointed. i'm still trying to figure out what the point of that novel was.

3. Both novels portray Filipinos and/or Filipino-Americans negatively. Bulosan's semi-autobiography is brimming with prostitutes and pool halls and pandemonium and alliteration. (just kidding on that last one). The manongs are hypersexualized and morally suspect. i'm still not sure why Bulosan would portray Filipinos negatively, especially if he was writing for a white audience. It seems counter to his cause. The Filipinos in Roley's novel, meanwhile, are just as violent and prone to organized crime. i do not think that the characters in American Son are particularly affable. i'm not moved to cheer for any of them, and, excuse my language, i downright dislike some of them. What was the point of portraying Filipinos as Roley does--as ethnically homeless delinquents?

And with that, i leave you all. Have a most morphenomenal spring break!

kenneth ronquillo
retired power ranger
varsity musical chairs team captain, '98

More Like American Delinquents...

God Bless: 59 cent boba at Quickly’s
Feeling: I don’t think there’s a smiley for “Unproductive”

WARNING! i talk about the ending of the book, so please DO NOT READ ON unless you are a spineless masochist with no willpower and you absolutely want to ruin the ending for yourself!

I just finished reading American Son. Does everyone else’s book have 216 pages? Because I’m convinced I’m missing at least another chapter. That ending didn’t leave me very happy—there is so much left unresolved. Am I wrong? Or is Roley milking me for all it’s worth? Do I have to wait around for American Son: The Sequel (or better, Philippine Daughter: The Prequel) to find out what becomes of Tomas, Gabe, and company? Bah. No wonder my lola got hooked on Guiding Light—the relationships, the drama, the emotional investment…I just want to find out what happens next!

Will Tomas ever work off his debt for selling Buster? Will Gabe and Tomas ever have a healthy relationship with their mother, or with each other for that matter? At the end of the novel do they pull a Thelma and Louise and drive off a cliff (or at least an L.A. offramp)? Roley’s novel elicits conflicting emotions in me—I don’t necessarily like these characters, but I care for them.

For example, Tomas isn’t a particularly affable guy, but I am still curious as to whether his character will ever develop into something more than a violent, ethnically-homeless, bitter, criminal-waiting-to-happen, wannabe. In the same vein, I’m curious whether the mother will ever get a grip on her children. I found her passivity to be grating and obnoxious—to a degree that rivals Santos from Caps and Lower Case—particularly when she undermines Gabe’s efforts to stand up for her at the cosmetics counter. When I read the passage towards the end of the novel in which she confronts Tomas at the family party, I thought she was finally beginning to assert her authority over her son. I thought she was finally laying down a foundation to cultivate some mettle. But I was wrong. What follows is timidity before a melodramatic WASP in a Land Cruiser. English students call this juxtaposition. I call it anti-progress. But anyhoot, what happens to Gabe’s mother? Does she find peace in America? Is she a contented member of the Filipino Diaspora?

Clearly, the novel has many loose-ends.

But I think the lack of resolution in the novel adds a little something special. Memories, for instance, are inserted haphazardly into the narrative—memories of Gabe’s father, etc. I felt like I had to carry the weight of the characters’ emotional baggage while I read the rest of the novel. I guess the memories function as meaningful asides that provide insights into the motivating forces behind characters’ behaviors and actions.

On another note, I'm having trouble deciphering as to how Gabe and Tomas (perhaps more so) ended up so ethnically homeless. They vacationed in the Philippines, they attended family parties and mass, they were raised by a Filipino mother. But still, they fail to identify with the Filipino culture. How does that happen?

Questions about the novel:
What is the symbolic significance of the dogs?
What is the point of this novel? Themes?
Why does Roley choose not to use quotation marks in the dialogue?
What happened to the truck driver? Just kidding.

This is the last time, Bulosan. This is the last time.

God Bless: Theatre Rice and everyone that came to see the show!
Feeling: : D and tired

Oh wow, i’m really milking the cow dry for English posts. It looks like I’m just going to have to whip something out and make do. This class ain’t called Abilidad for nothing! Just kidding.

Aaaaaaand we’re off!

I’m going to play my “fifth grade book-report” card and say, “I really liked Carlos Bulosan’s poems.” The reading selection for this weekend was a nice little breather after the marathon that was America Is In The Heart. Did anyone else read the book in one sitting? No. I mean because they had to. Just kidding, Ms. Gier! I read it in the portions it was assigned.

Oh! I almost forgot! I’d like to take this opportunity to voice my “connect” and “disconnect” with America Is In The Heart.
Connect:
I connected with Bulosan the most when he describes his life in the Philippines. The life he lead there speaks to me—the simplicity, the modesty, the diligence, the family dynamic. I’m reminded of the lives that my parents lived in the Philippines, that my grandmother lived in the Philippines, that I did not get to live in the Philippines. I know that what they lacked in pesos they made up for with love.
Also, I sympathized with Bulosan’s general feeling of loneliness. In America he is a perpetual vagabond. His relations are fleeting and insecure. He seems so willing to emotionally invest in anyone that will extend to him the slightest modicum of kindness. He is naïve and he squirms away from what is sexual and, to him, unmoral, and to a certain extent I do the same.
Disconnect:
His experiences in America, in general, are beyond me. But he lived through a different time period. He survived a different social climate. It’s understandable.

But back to Bulosan’s poetry:
In general, I noticed that Bulosan implements a lot of imagery of nature in his poetry. He makes just as many sentimental references to the landscapes of Binalonan in America Is In The Heart. Also, these pieces just seem like a nice supplement to his semi-autobiography/quasi-immigration-narrative. It would have been nice to have known the dates when these poems were written in order to place them in the context of the novel. But regardless, these poems summarize the themes Bulosan addresses in America Is In the Heart quite nicely. In "I Want the Wide American Earth," for example, he employs vivid imagery to construct an architecture for an ideal America. In the same poem, Bulosan evokes a sense of pan-Asian unity when he writes "We are there when they throw us in concentration camps." Is this in reference to the internment of the Japanese in Angel Island?

Anywyas, the notion that Filipinos are "everywhere" also seems to come up a lot in this poems. Oh, right, this brings up my other question. Were these poems necessarily written about Filipinos? I can see how "Factory Town" could be expanded to include an entire proletariat, and not just Filipinos. I don't want to assume that Bulosan was writing about Filipinos merely because he is Filipino.

And finally, I surrender. I’m waving the white flag. I’m throwing in the towel.
Check out this line from “If You Want to Know What We Are”:
“We are the sufferers who suffer for natural love / of man for man…”
There’s as much homosexual subtext in that line as there are subtitles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.