CARLOS BULOSAN Biography - Writers

 
 

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CARLOS BULOSAN

Name: Carlos Bulosan                                                               
Born: November 24, 1913                                                             
Died: September 13, 1956                                                           
                                                                                   
Carlos Bulosan (born to Ilocano parents in Pangasinan, Philippines on November     
24, 1913, died in Seattle, Washington on September 13, 1956) was a Filipino         
American novelist best-known for the semi-autobiographical America Is in the       
Heart.                                                                             
                                                                                   
He was active in labor politics along the Pacific coast of the United States and   
edited the 1952 Yearbook for ILWU Local 37, a predominantly Filipino American       
cannery union based in Seattle. There is some controversy surrounding the           
accuracy of events recorded within America is in the Heart. He is celebrated for   
giving a "Third World" perspective to the labor movement in America and for         
telling the experience of Filipinos during the 30' and 40's.                       
                                                                                   
In the 1970's, with a resurgence in Asian/Pacific Island activism, his writings     
were discovered in a library in the University of Washington leading to             
posthumous releases of several unfinished works.                                   
                                                                                   
His other novels include The Laughter of My Father and the posthumously             
published The Cry and the Dedication which detailed the armed Huk Rebellion in     
the Philippines.                                                                   
                                                                                   
As a progressive writer of labor struggles, he was blacklisted by the FBI due to   
his labor organizing and socialist writings. Denied a means to provide for         
himself his later years were of hardship and flight. He died in Seattle             
suffering from an advanced stage of bronchopneumonia. He is buried at Queen Anne   
Hill in Seattle.