Carlos Bulosan

Carlos Sampayan Bulosan (born in Binalonan, Pangasinan, Luzon, Philippines, November 24, 1913, died in Seattle, Washington on September 13, 1956) was a Filipino English-language novelist and poet who spent most of his life in the United States, and is best-known for the semi-autobiographical America Is in the Heart.

Life and career

Carlos Bulosan was born to Ilocano parents in the Philippines in the rural village of Mangusmana, in the town of Binalonan, Pangasinan. There is considerable debate around his actual birthdate, as he himself used several dates, but 1911 is generally considered the most reliable answer, based on his baptismal records, but according to the late Lorenzo Duyanen Sampayan, his childhood playmate and nephew, Carlos was born on November 2, 1913. Most of his youth was spent in the country side as a farmer. It is during his youth that he and his family were economically impoverished by the rich and political elite, which would become one of the main themes of his writing. His home town is also the starting point of his famous semi-autobiographical novel, America is in the Heart.

Like many Filipinos during the time, he left for America on July 22, 1930 at age 17, in the hope of finding salvation from the economic depression of his home. He never again saw his Philippine homeland. No sooner had he arrived in Seattle, was he immediately met with the hostility of racism, forcing him...
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