Words Worth Sharing

By: Elaine Lehman

 

Late yesterday, I sat on the Rizal Center’s lobby steps and looked out the glass doors. At one point I murmured, “This has been really quite a year”. And it really has, but not until I saw it all in the same one place, a cross-generation, cross-culture of children and seniors – diverse, mixed, and beautiful – did I really get the sense of just how quite a year it’s been. We at the Filipino American Council of Greater Chicago have come a long way since 2017. But there is much to do within immigrant and ethnic communities to bridge cultures and foster integrative understanding among our own – and how we are connected to the larger American society. American society needs to more fully face and accept the presence of immigrants, ethnics, and other minorities. In the same, immigrants, ethnics, and other minorities need to face and accept the diversity and differences in the larger society. Insularity is not an option.

As a fairly curious person, I have regularly explored writings about American society. But in an increasingly divided America, these days I am drawn to “America Is In The Heart”, a semi-autobiographical novel by Filipino writer Carlos Bulosan. As I am, Bulosan was an expatriate – a transplant -a settler. As an outsider, he was able to see more clearly what the landscape provided – what it is. Those born here or those who choose to be insular and not engage with larger society do not have the same relationship to a country as the settler in quest of something and gives it passion. “America Is in the Heart” is the settler’s expression of love, dismay, and heartbreak in relationship to their chosen country.

I’ve copied and pasted excerpts below:

“We are America…

We do not take democracy for granted. We feel it grow in our working together— many millions of us working toward a common purpose.

If it took us several decades of sacrifice to arrive at this faith, it is because it took us that long to know what part of America is ours. Our faith has been shaken many times, and now it is put to question. Our faith is a living thing, and it can be crippled or chained. It can be killed by denying us enough food or clothing, by blasting away our personalities and keeping us in constant fear. Unless we are properly prepared the powers of darkness will have good reason to catch us unaware and trample our lives.

If you want to know what we are, look at the men reading books, searching in the dark pages of history for the lost word, the key to the mystery of the living peace. We are factory hands, field hands, mill hands, searching, building and molding structures. We are doctors, scientists, chemists discovering and eliminating disease, hunger and antagonism. We are soldiers, Navy men, citizens, guarding the imperishable dreams of our fathers to live in freedom. We are the living dream of the dead. We are the living spirit of the free”.

I encourage you to find a copy of “America Is in the Heart” so you can read the full version.

Words worth sharing.