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.
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.
posted by The Kenneth @ 11:37 PM
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