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In America is in the Heart, America symbolizes hope and the promise of advancement out of the dire circumstance into which Carlos Bulosan, the author and protagonist, is born. Coming to America allows Carlos to gradually transform from an illiterate peasant to a published writer. At a young age, Bulosan recognizes that being a Filipino peasant entails a cycle of poverty and ignorance. He understands that his poor, illiterate parents cannot improve their situation, and wants to avoid their fate. Early in the novel, Carlos observes how America inspires the peasantry to revolt against the landed elites following the close of the Spanish-American War. America also brings public education to the Philippines, and Carlos’s parents and brothers tell him that education is a necessary tool for advancing out of poverty. Among the most crucial moments in book occurs when Dalmacio teaches Carlos about Abraham Lincoln, a poor boy who became President of the United States. For Carlos, Lincoln’s extraordinary story is emblematic of the kind of social advancement that America offers, but which is impossible to achieve in the Philippines. Even when Carlos immigrates to America and experiences brutal racism and economic exploitation, he does not lose hope in American ideals. Despite having no formal education, America introduces him to new people and new ideas that enrich his life. Americans like Alice and Eileen Odell provide him with books to learn from, while his circle of friends and associates in the labor movement help him understand how to put the American ideal of equality into practice. By the end of the novel, Carlos takes to heart Macario’s lesson that America is an “unfinished dream” fueled by the “hopes and aspirations” of immigrants like himself who must work daily to finish that dream.
America Quotes in America Is in the Heart
The America Is in the Heart quotes below all refer to the symbol of America. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 13
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Why don't they ship those monkeys back where they came from?
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Chapter 16
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And perhaps it was this narrowing of our life into an island, into a filthy segment of American society, that had driven Filipinos like Doro inward, hating everyone and despising all positive urgencies toward freedom.
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Chapter 19
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Why was America so kind and yet so cruel? Was there no way to simplifying things in this continent so that suffering would be minimized?
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Chapter 24
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I knew, even then, that it was not natural for a man to hate himself, or to be afraid of himself. It was not natural, indeed, to run from goodness and beauty, which I had done so many times.
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Chapter 25
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America is not merely a land or an institution. America is in the hearts of men that died for freedom; it is also in the eyes of men that are building a new world.
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Chapter 30
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I knew now. This violence had a broad social meaning; the one I had known earlier was a blind rebellion. It was perpetuated by men who had no place in the scheme of life.
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Chapter 36
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I was enchanted by this dream, and the hospital, dismal as it was, became a world of hope. I discovered the other democratic writers and poets, who in their diverse ways contributed toward the enlargement of the American dream.
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I acquired a mask of pretense that became a weapon I was to take out with me into the violent world again, a mask of pretense at ignorance and illiteracy, because I felt that if they knew that I had intellectual depth they would reject my presence.
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Chapter 37
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Maybe I succeeded in erasing the sores, but the scars remained to remind me, in moments of spiritual vicissitudes, of the tragic days of those years.
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Chapter 39
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But now this desire to possess, after long years of flight and disease and want, had become an encompassing desire to belong to the land—perhaps to the whole world.
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Chapter 41
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They worked as one group to deprive Filipinos of the right to live as free men in a country founded upon this very principle.
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Chapter 46
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Then it came to me how absolutely necessary it was to acquaint the Filipinos with the state of the nation.
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We are Americans all who have toiled for this land, who have made it rich and free. But we must not demand from America, because she is still our unfinished dream.
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Chapter 49
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It came to me that no man—no one at all—could destroy my faith in America again.
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America Symbol Timeline in America Is in the Heart
The timeline below shows where the symbol America appears in America Is in the Heart. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
The culmination of the Spanish-American War has turned the Philippines into an American colony. The influence of American ideals such...
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...property and moves with his bride away from his village. Later, on his way to America, Carlos passes through Leon’s new town and waves to his brother and his wife and...
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Chapter 2
Although the American government brought free, “popular education” to the Philippines, schools are centered in far-off towns, and...
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Chapter 6
...of Binalonan fires all public employees, including Amado. The loss of work sends Amado to America, and Macario, who moves to Manila to escape the girl from school, also contemplates fleeing...
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Chapter 9
...also understand it. He settles on going to Baguio but hopes to someday get to America. “It was good-bye to Binalonan and my childhood,” Carlos states. He takes a bus to...
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...tells Carlos that English is better than money for those who want to go to America. He begins teaching Carlos to speak English after Carlos agrees to do some work for...
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Chapter 11
...for two years. The teacher resents the wealthy Philippine middle class, having spent time in America as a boy only to return to the Philippines to find that his peasant parents...
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Chapter 12
...moving until I came back with money.” Before he departs for Manila to go to America the next morning, Francisca gives Carlos five pesos to go to school. Carlos shares a...
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...new shoes to wear so he can hide his provincial origins on his way to America. Carlos arrives in Tondo, Manila’s slum district. It is rife with cockfighting, gambling, crime, and...
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...government detention center, where a doctor examines him before he boards the boat bound for America. The boat moves slowly from the harbor under a shower of confetti from onlookers. “I...
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Chapter 13
...ship steerage, he wonders why he left home and what will become of him in America. He sneaks out of steerage with other passengers to sun himself, but the first-class passengers...
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Chapter 14
...Carlos becomes acquainted with an old-timer named Julio who has a lot of experience in America. The employer who hires the Filipinos is a kind Frenchman named Mr. Malraux, who lives...
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...and wash their clothes. Julio tells Carlos, “this is the beginning of your life in America.” They decide to hop a freight train for California, and Carlos and Julio become separated...
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Chapter 16
...name of the man he followed is Alfredo. Carlos tells Amado about his experiences in America thus far, and Carlos is shocked to learn that while Amado is articulate and speaks...
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Chapter 17
...nonetheless becomes excited when Macario enters the room. Macario is surprised to see Carlos in America, and, like Amado, Macario calls him Carlos, rather his family nickname, “Allos.”
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...is staying. In the hotel room people are throwing a wedding party. Carlos counts “three American girls” and “ten Filipinos.” Macario introduces Carlos to his friends. At bedtime, Carlos is embarrassed...
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Chapter 18
...and call him a “brown monkey.” Furious, Alonzo returns to the Philippines and wages an anti-American campaign in the press.
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Chapter 19
...drives them to the hospital, where José receives care. Carlos marvels at this paradox in American culture: drivers on the highway spit at the Filipinos, yet white people in the hospital...
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...a truck. They are heading back west, “back to the beginning of [Carlos’s] life in America,” where Carlos is “going back to start all over again.”
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Chapter 20
Having witnessed so many “heart-breaking tragedies” in America, Carlos feels he is unable “to interpret them objectively.” He worries that he is being...
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...the sheets, and sells them the next day. It is his first dishonest act in America, but he does not feel guilty. He works as a sign-carrier and a dishwasher in...
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Chapter 21
...deep despair, and he refers to it as “the turning point of my life in America.” He nurtures his growing hatred for white people. Yet the hate isolates him from others,...
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Chapter 22
...runs into Alfredo, who shows off a large wad of money and tells Carlos that America is about “survival of the fittest.” Alfredo disappears not long after. Carlos then works a...
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Chapter 23
...in Portland and San Bernardino and earns $500. “This is the life for me in America,” he says.
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Chapter 25
...and Macario impresses Carlos with his newfound dedication to universal equality. Macario explains that the American ideal is yet unfinished, and new immigrants like Filipinos are charged with fulfilling American ideals...
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Chapter 26
...new guiding thought. He points out José’s imprisonment, Pascual’s death, and Macario’s new dedication to America as markers of his “intellectual awakening.” He helps distribute copies of the inaugural issue of...
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Chapter 28
...the group without college educations, but they are all nonetheless determined to create a “better America.”
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Chapter 30
...he learns that workers have formed the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA). The new union gives him hope.
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Chapter 31
...the labor movement,” as he finds it “exhilarating” to belong to “something vitally alive in America.” Macario takes a job in a restaurant to earn money and care for Carlos, who...
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Chapter 32
...and she “[weeps] silently when [he] suffer[s] pain and loneliness.” For Carlos, Eileen represents the America that is “human, good, and real” because she fulfills his “insatiable hunger for knowledge and...
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Chapter 35
...his own struggles and sorrows. When John leaves the hospital, Carlos urges him to “rediscover America,” and reminds him that he is still young and full of potential. Years later, Carlos...
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Chapter 36
...read and write poetry and wonders if an immigrant like himself can actually achieve the “American dream.” For Carlos, the dismal hospital has actually become “a world of hope.”
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...to a sanitarium on the grounds that he was a minor when he arrived in America and, therefore, has no guardian to sign the release papers.
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Chapter 37
...the remainder of his life writing “about our anguish and our hopes for a better America,” with the goal of making a positive impact on the world.
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Chapter 38
...solace in immigrant autobiographies that remind him of his own experience as an immigrant to America. One day, a poet named Ronald Patterson meets Carlos in the library and gives him...
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Chapter 40
...a fragrant banana tree and then drives Carlos back to his home, telling him about America on the way.
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Chapter 45
...Street will consume him, Carlos again retreats into books, this time by writers of historical American fiction. The books stimulate his mind, but he feels he has no outlet for his...
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Chapter 46
...pick peas, where starts a school for the other pea-pickers. He teaches the workers about American history, democracy, and the bible. He then carries his lessons to other workers in other...
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...to enter José’s house, including Filipinos, Mexicans, and Chinese people. Carlos recalls Macario’s words that America was “in the hearts of men.”
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Chapter 48
...Carlos and wants to publish an edition of his poetry. The resulting book, Letters from America, is a testament to Carlos’s “hopes, desires, [and] aspirations.” He then searches for Amado to...
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Chapter 49
...of the window and realizes: “No man—no one at all could destroy my faith in America again. It was something that had grown out of my defeats and successes, something shaped...
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