Customer Reviews

On Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings of Carlos Bulosan (Asian American History & Cultu)

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This reading should be considered one of Filipino-America's (and Asian America's) best literary works as of yet. There is no other writer prior to the cliche' "Amy Tan-esque" era that has made a lasting impact on American literature. The novel is (r)evolutionary in its attempt to educate generations of literature afficionados. What better way to pay tribute to equal rights activists than Bulosan's magnum opus? Bulosan is the next Walt Whitman and then some, beginning with his incipient stages in rural Pangasinan province, to his voyage to America and initiation into manhood and the adventures in between. He is Walt Whitman's echo, fervent, passionate, honest - speaking for all humankind, and fighting for the rights of 1930s struggling working class of Filipinos, Mexicans, Native Americans, African-Americans, and Asians.

Powerful works. Bulosan is poetic, honest and down-to-earth, and very vivid and lyrical in his descriptions of the atrocities he suffered as a Filipino living in America.

This book grips the heart and pulls on all the strings. It brings out the Filipino experience for the "Manongs" as no other book that I have read. This collection of short stories, essays, poems, and correspondance lets Carlos Bulosan bring out the total message. A must have book