Biography of Amado V.

Hernandez
Carlos Bulosan was a prolific writer and poet, best
remembered as the author of America Is in the Heart, a
landmark semi-autobiographical story about the Filipino
immigrant experience. Bulosan gained recognition in
mainstream American society with the 1944 publication
of Laughter of my Father, which was excerpted in the New
Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, and Town and Country. He
immigrated to America from the Philippines in 1930, endured
horrendous conditions as a laborer, became active in the labor
movement, and was blacklisted along with other labor radicals
during the 1950s. He spent his last years in Seattle, jobless,
penniless, and in poor health.

According to his baptismal records, Bulosan was born in Pangasinan Province in the Philippine
Islands on November 2, 1911. But other sources give Bulosan’s birth date three to four years
later. This is just one example of conflicting versions of his younger years in a peasant family
with three brothers and two sisters. The family farm was sold, hectare by hectare, to pay for boat
fare for his older brothers’ passages to the United States.

The Idea of Equality

In the period of Bulosan’s birth, Americanization of the Philippine Islands was strong. In
1903, the “Pensionado” program offered promising student scholarships to attend universities in
the United States to gain knowledge that could benefit their homeland. Also in 1901, the
“Thomasites,” a group of teachers who went to the Philippines on the USS Thomas (hence the
name), crossed the Pacific to educate Filipinos in the American Way. This American style of
education highly influenced the young Bulosan as he attended high school. He was led to believe
that equality existed among all classes and individuals in the United States. Then in 1906,
Filipino laborers arrived in Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations (the beginning of the
“Sakada” or plantation worker system). Enticed by stories of the United States and by the
departure of his elder brothers Macario and Dionisio for California, in 1930 Bulosan quit his job
working for his family peddling vegetables and salted fish at the local market. He paid $75 for
passage on the Dollar Line to Seattle, Washington.

Not a Land of Opportunity

Bulosan had heard how easy it was to earn a living in the United States even as a bellhop
or dishwasher. He had not been told that people of color did not enjoy democracy.
Notwithstanding his status as a “national” and not an “alien," Bulosan became quickly
disillusioned by the reality of life in the United States. The stock market crash of 1929 and the
Depression had devastated the country. Jobs were scarce and competition was intense for
whatever was available. When Bulosan arrived in Seattle, he was “shanghaied and sold for five
dollars” to work in an Alaska fish cannery to earn $13 for the season. He picked apples in
Eastern Washington and finally moved south to California to continue the familiar seasonal cycle
of picking fruits and vegetables.

Years of Bitterness

In Washington, the future author experienced racism when whites torched a bunkhouse where he
slept. According to Carlos P. Romulo, “it carried him into years of bitterness, degradation,
hunger, open revolt, and even crime. The pool rooms and gambling houses, dance halls and
brothels, were the only places he knew. They were the only places a Filipino could know.”
Bulosan would later write: “I know deep down in my heart that I am an exile in America. I feel
like a criminal running away from a crime I didn't commit. And this crime is that I am a Filipino
in America.” Between 1935 and 1941, he became involved in the labor movement, organizing
unions to protect his fellow Filipino workers.

Writing for His Life

Writing also became a means to fight against the discrimination he had witnessed. In
1932, he was published in a poetry anthology. While living with one of his brothers in Los
Angeles, he had already submitted articles for small newspapers and had done some writing
for The New Tide, a bimonthly Filipino publication. The New Tide was a radical literary
magazine that brought Bulosan into a wider circle of fellow writers.

Writer As Reader

Bulosan had always been sickly. He loved the public library and reportedly read a book a
day. During this time, he came across the works of Karl Marx and began telling friends “of the
rising power of the working classes and what they would achieve in the coming revolution.” In
1936, Bulosan contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to the Los Angeles General Hospital.
He spent about two years at this hospital, the whole time actively reading and writing. “Writing
is a pleasure and a passion to me,” he wrote.

In the 1940s, Bulosan gained recognition for his work as a poet and editor:

 In 1942, his book of poems, Letter from America, was published.

 Bulosan was featured in the 1942 edition of Who’s Who in America
 He edited Chorus for America: Six Philippine Poets.
 In 1943 he wrote the book of poems Voice of Bataan, a tribute to the soldiers who died
fighting in that battle.
 In 1943, the Saturday Evening Post published four articles on the “Four Freedoms”:
freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Bulosan wrote "Freedom from Want."
 In 1944, Bulosan's Laughter of my Father became a bestseller and established Bulosan as
an important writer. It was translated into several languages and excerpts were read over
wartime radio. He was praised by fellow Filipinos who “for the first time are depicted as
human beings.”
 In 1946, Bulosan published the work that he is best remembered for, America is in the
Heart. In it, stories loosely based on his brothers’ and friends’ experiences depict an
immigrant Filipino’s life in the 1930s and 1940s. America is in the Heart has been used
as symbol for the Filipino American identity movement of the 1970s and is included in
many bibliography lists for college courses on Filipino American studies classes.
The 1950s ushered in the anti-Communist fervor of Senator Joe McCarthy and the
Un-American Activities Committee. Carlos Bulosan and fellow radicals were
“blacklisted” even by some Filipino writers. Bulosan continued his labor union activities
and edited the 1952 yearbook of the Union Local 37 International Longshoremen
Workers Union (ILWU).
In the 1950s, Carlos Bulosan was living in Seattle, jobless, penniless, and in poor health.
On September 11, 1956, the poet died of tuberculosis. With his passing, Filipino
Americans lost their most articulate spokesman.
His friend, Chris Mensalvas (called “Jose” in America is in the Heart) wrote in Bulosan’s
obituary: “... I am willing to testify that Carlos Bulosan is dead ... but ... [he] will never
die in the hearts of the people.”
Carlos Bulosan, writer, poet, labor activist was buried in Seattle in Mount
Pleasant Cemetery on Queen Anne Hill. Until 1982 his resting place was an unmarked
pauper’s grave. Finally a group of his admirers raised the funds to purchase an elaborate
headstone of black granite.

Biography of Amado V. Hernandez

Amado V. Hernandez (Amado Vera Hernandez) aka
Amante Hernani, Herminia dela Riva, Julio Abril. b
Tondo, Manila 13 Sept 1903 d. Manila 24 March 1970.
National Artist in Literature. He is the son of Juan
Hernandez and Clara Vera. He married sarswela actor and
kundiman queen Atang dela Rama. He studied in
Gagalangin, Tondo, the Manila High School, and the
American Correspondence School where he finished a
bachelor of arts degree. He began his writing career, as a
journalist and later editor of various pre-WWII Tagalog newspapers, like Watawat, Pagkakaisa,
Makabayan, Sampaguita and Mabuhay Extra. He joined the Akademya ng Wikang Tagalog and
the Manila Press Club, During WWII; he served as an intelligence officer for the resistance.
After the war, he was appointed and elected as councilor of Manila in 1945 and 1947,
respectively. He sponsored ordinances aimed at promoting worker's rights and freedom. As he
immersed himself in the labor movement in the late 1940's and early 1950's, Hernandez's
sympathy for the working class grew into strong identification with their struggle for social
justice and liberation. He represented the Newspaper Guild of the Philippine in the country's
biggest and most militant labor federation, the Congress of Labor Organizations (CLO). In 1947,
he was elected the president of the CLO. Because of pursuing the worker's cause, he was
imprisoned in 1951 for alleged subversive activities. He was released on parole in 1956 after five
years and six months of detention, and was finally acquitted of all charges in 1964. He returned
to journalistic practice, writing as a columnist for Taliba from 1962 to 1967, serving as editor of
the radical newspaper, Ang Masa , until his death 1970.

Hernandez's poetic sensibility was initially developed in literary circles. During the
second decade he was a member and vice-president of Aklatang Bayan where he associated with
Lope K. Santos, Valeriano Hernandez- Peña, Iñigo Ed. Regalado, and Julian Cruz Balmaseda;
later he joined Ilaw at Panitik, where he became close to Jose Corazon de Jesus, Florentino
Collantes, and Deogracias Risario. He wrote poems on sundry topics for his daily column
“Sariling Hardin” (My Own Garden) in Pagkakaisa from 1926 to 1932. He continued writing
poems for his column “Pangkasalukuyan” (Today) in Mabuhay from 1932 to 1934. In 1929 he
challenged de Jesus, the acknowledged “King of Balagtasan,” to debate in verse on the issue of
nationalism and independence. For almost a month, they articulated their positions daily in the
newspapers they worked for: de Jesus in Taliba, Hernandez in Pagkakaisa . In 1940, he published
his first anthology of poems entitled Kayumanggi at Iba pang Tula (Brown and Other Poems).
His prison ordeal provided the creative impulse of most of the poems in his collection, Isang
Dipang Langit (A Stretch of Sky), 1961 and the epic, Bayang Malaya (Free Country), 1969, both
of which were written behind bars.. Most famous of his poems are “Isang Dipang Langit,”
“Panata sa Kalayaan” (Oath to Freedom), “Bartolina” (Solitary Confinement), “Ang Dalaw”
(The Visit), and “Kung Tuyo Na ang Luha Mo Aking Bayan” (When Your Tears Dry Up, My
Country).

He published short stories in different newspapers among them “Wala ng Lunas” (No
More Remedy), “Kulang sa Dilig” (Needs Watering), “Langaw sa Isang Basing Gatas” (Fly in a
Glass of Milk), “Dalawang Metro sa Lupang Di-Malipad ng Uwak” (Two Meters in Land That
Stretches Forever), “Ipinanganak ang Isang Kaaway sa Sosyedad” (An Enemy of the Society is
Born), “Isang Ulo ng Litson” (Head of a Roast Pig), and “Kislap ng Utak,Pawis ng Noo”
(Sparkle of Brain, Sweat on the Forehead).
 His experiences as a guerilla, labor leader, and a political detainee were shaped into the
novels Mga Ibong Mandaranggit (Birds of Prey), 1969, and Luha ng Buwaya (Crocodile's
Tears), 1972. Hernandez wrote plays based on prison experiences: Muntinglupa , 1957; Hagdan
sa Bahaghari (Stairway to the Rainbow), 1958; Ang mga Kagalang- galang (The Venerables),
1959; and Magkabilang Mukha ng Isang Bagol (Two Sides of A Coin), 1960. He has written
many essays, among them, “Si Atang at ang Dulaan” (Atang and the Theater), “Si Jose Corazon
de Jesus at ang Ating Panulaan” (Jose Corazon de Jesus and Our Poetry), and “Pilipinismo: Susi
sa Bayang Tagumpay” (Filipinism: Key to a Successful Country), among others. In these works,
he exposed what he perceived to be the neocolonial nature of Philippine Society and pushed for
nationalist and progressive agenda to end the long history of the workers' and people's
oppression.
In the pre-WWII era, Hernandez won more than 20 awards for his short stories and
poems. In 1925, he was proclaimed “Makata ng Ilaw at Panitik” (Poet of Ilaw and Panitik). In
1931 his story “Wala ng Lunas” won two gold medals also from the Ilaw and Panitik. His
stories, “Pilipinas” (Philippines) and “Kayumanggi” (Brown), both won first prize in the
Commonwealth Literary Contest in 1938 and 1940, respectively. He won the Republic Cultural
Heritage Award for Isang Dipang Langit, 1962; the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for
Literature fro his four plays: Muntinglupa, 1958, Magkabilang Mukha ng Isang Bagol , 1961,
both first prize winners; and Hagdan sa Bahaghari, 1959, and Ang mga Kagalang-galang , 1960,
both second prize winners; the NPC-ESSO Journalism Award for his novel Luha ng Buwaya,
1963, his “Pili sa Pinili” (Chosen form the Select) in Taliba, 1964, and for his essay, “Report on
Indonesia,” in 1965; the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan award from the city government of
Manila, 1964; the first Balagtas Memorial Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines for
Bayang Malaya , 1969; and the Tanglaw ng Lahi Award from the Ateneo de Manila, 1970. He
was proclaimed National Artist for posthumously in 1973 for “his contribution to the
development of Tagalog prose.” – R.T. Yu and N.G. Tiongso

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