PeregriNasyon: Is America in the Heart?
I was a freshman in college when I saw Filipinos on stage for the very first time. It was the world premiere of PeregriNasyon: Is America in the Heart?, a full-length adaptation by Chris Millado based on the novel America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan. This was the story of the Filipino farmworkers at the height of the Great Depression. The play was produced by Teatro ng Tanan (Theater for Everyone), a Filipino theater company in San Francisco. They went on to tour the show in Hawaii and then New York.
I never forgot this play, the manongs (older brothers) and their stories followed me all the way to Seattle. In 2018 we produced a stage reading of the play (with permission from Mr. Millado) at Theatre Off Jackson, the very same Jackson street that was filled with gambling houses, single room tenements, and dance halls, two generations before. The landing place of the manongs before they made their way from Alaska to California, chasing the season for every job and every cent. This website is a primer for those interested in learning more about this period in American history where Filipinos fed a hungry nation.
For more information on the touring show go here. To book this show, email, info@sariwafarm.com.
Carlos Sampayan Bulosan was born on November 2, 1911 in Mangusmana, a small town in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. He was born in a family of peasant farmers.
The Philippine peasant class is under a feudal system where farmers do not own the land and work for landlords and hacienderos who own the majority of the land since colonial times. To this day, 9 out of 10 farmers are landless and have to leave their province for Manila or work abroad to seek better opportunities.
Image: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
Birth
By the 1920’s, some 3,000 arrived annually to find work. Their destination in Seattle was always the International District, where they could find some solace, familiar faces, and diversion from the laborious journey ahead. The Eastern Hotel was a primary stopping place for Filipino migrants, who filled the building during Spring and Winter, upon their return.
It was common to see Filipino laborers gathered in the lobby of the Eastern and other hotels in the District, the barber shops, and street corners to exchange gossip, read newspapers, and get caught up on the latest news. King Street in the 1930’s was like a barrio in the Philippines, noted a visiting Filipino journalist. At night, it was making the rounds of gambling joints, movies, or dance halls in the area. Rizal Hall (near Sixth and King Street) was like a Filipino community center where lively music constantly played. Victims of racial discrimination and exploitation, Filipinos found refuge in the International District, if only for a short moment.
Image: Filipino asparagus pickers in California, attired in their working clothes. 1950's from Haggin Exhibit photo collection, Filipino American National Historical Society
1920s
The Crash
On Monday, October 28, 1929 the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by 13% the start of a decline that doubled by mid-November triggering the longest and deepest downturn in the history of the United States.
Carlos Bulosan arrived at the age of 17 in Seattle, July 1, 1930 at the start of the Great Depression.
Carlos Bulosan joined the over 125,000 Filipino workers in the Alaskan canneries, the fields of California and in the Hawaiian plantations during 1907-1946. He arrived in the middle of the Great Depression, Filipinos were deemed as nationalists without the protection of citizenship. Many men like him faced racial discrimination, exclusion from ownership of land, and prohibited from various employment. Unions were still being formed and Filipinos faced intense labor exploitation and vicious vigilante violence. Although violence were frequent, two in particular made newspaper headlines, the 1927 attack in Yakima Valley in Washington and the 1930 Watsonville Riot in California.
Image from the Yakima Morning Herald, November 11, 1927
1920’s - 1930’s
At the age of 35, Carlos Bulosan published his first novel America Is in the Heart, which he deemed as a personal history. The book powerfully documents the stories growing up in the impoverished rural area of the Philippines and the migration into the United States to work as laborers living in dehumanizing conditions, struggling through discrimination and exploitation, and carving a home where they can with other Filipinos.
It is one of a few rare books that crystallizes the immigrant farm worker's experience during the Great Depression.
In his novel, within the first few chapters, Bulosan wrote why he was compelled to write this book on page 57, the moment he chose to leave his homeland, "Yes, I will be a writer and make you all live again in my words."
Bulosan never returned home, he died September 11, 1956, at the age of 42 from bronchopneumonia. His grave could be found at Queen Anne Hill in Seattle.
Image: University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections
America is in the Heart
additional Resources and recommended study guides
Larry Itliong, Journey for Justice by Dawn Mabalon and Gayle Romasanta
https://www.bridgedelta.com/purchase/journey-for-justice-the-life-of-larry-itliong
Journey for Justice Teacher’s Guide
https://www.bridgedelta.com/teachersguide
Larry Itliong: Unity of Filipino and Mexican Farmworker,
a curriculum from the Asian American EDUcation Project
https://asianamericanedu.org/filipino-american-farmworkers.html
The Tobera Project
https://www.toberaproject.com/
Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies
https://bulosancenter.ucdavis.edu/about-us
The Delano Manongs
https://www.pbs.org/video/kvie-viewfinder-delano-manongs/