FilAm History: A pilgrimage to Carlos Bulosan's gravesite

PHOTOS BY DIOKNO

The author's search for influential writer Carlos Bulosan's final resting place ends in Seattle.

I WASN'T SURPRISED at how modest the grave was. That was in keeping with Carlos Bulosan's persona, quiet and unassuming.

I was on a pilgrimage of sorts, to seek out the writer that has been a huge influence on my work, helped shape my view of my place in our country and my given me a past.

Bulosan's novel "America Is In the Heart" is probably the most widely read Filipino American author ever. It's popularity goes beyond Filipino American readers. It is required reading for most students of Asian American history. Even though it is a work of fiction -- some say it is semi-autobiographical -- is is the Asian American "Grapes Of Wrath."

“It is considered the premier text of the Filipino-American experience,” said Greg Castilla, a scholar and social-work supervisor who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Bulosan. “He was a migrant worker who became a prolific writer.”

The novel's depiction of how Filipino farm workers were treated in the 1920s-1930s is heart rending and still relevant today expressing the hopes and reams of immigrants, and how some Filipinos are treated today, except instead of the short-handed hoe, today's Filipino's are hindered by given the worst hours, hampered by stereotypes of an inability to lead, and made invisible by their perceived irrelevance.

CARLOS BULOSAN

Anyway, for Filipino American History Month, I thought I'd share how to make a similar visit to honor one of Asian America's most famous and influential authors.

First of all, it is located in Seattle, the city where the author first settled when he arrived in the U.S. in 1930. Although he traveled around the country, he always considered the Emerald City his home. It was in Seattle where he found his first home, met his first American friends, lived in his first filthy American bunkhouse, first came face-to-face with racism, met an enduring love, and lived the last years of his short life, writes Herbert Atieinza in Positively Filipino.

Bulosan's grave is located in Seattle's Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in the residential neighborhood of northwest Seattle. You can Google to find directions to the cemetery. But once there, there are no directions to the Bulosan gravesite. 

Looking over the cemetery, my wife and I were perplexed. How does one find a single gravesite amidst the thousands of buried individuals in an unfamiliar ceemtery  and there's most likely no one around. Although he was celebrated among literary circles, he never achieved the super-stardom status often given to today's writers. So there are no maps, no concrete sidewalks and no crowds to follow.

All we had was Googled photos of previous pilgrims. We thought we could locate it by the nearby shrubbery and a tall white obelisk grave marker in the background. Unlike Bruce Lee's gravesite in another Seattle cemetery, it is not on Google Maps.

It took us over an hour to find it. It is dwarfed by the tombstones on either side of it. 

It was an unremarkable tombstone -- barely over two feet tall -- for such a giant in the annals of Asian American history. I'm surprised that there hasn't been an effort to give the author a memorial more fitting for his place in history. But the grave marker's humble appearance is characteristic of Bulosan, I think. 

A pen and a scroll flank Carlos Bulosan's name, under which is engraved: Writer, Poet, Activist. The inscription below has worn away so it's difficult to read.

Finding the tombstone momentarily took my breath away and a lump formed in my throat. I felt the deep emotion of thousands of Filipino immigrants welling up inside me: the agricultural workers who toiled in California and Hawaii's fields, the veterans who proudly saluted America's flag and stood by their belief's even when the country they defended denied them benefits, the nurses and doctors who staff U.S. and Canadian hospitals today, the lawyers and other professionals who took meniel jobs in order to support their families and my parents who made the journey to America, who left everything familiar to them to lmake ensure that their children have a better life, who watched their friends and family die defending their homeland and the United States from foreign invasion, 

To find Bulosan's grave, one must enter the cemetery at the West Berrett Street entrance. Turn left as soon as you pass the gates and follow the fenceline bordered by shrubbery for about 200 feet. If you're driving a car, there's a couple of parking spaces up the road a bit. Park your car and go directly to the fenceline, then make a sharp right right. 

You will find a trio of tombstones. The shorter one in the middle is Bulosan's marker.  The black marble marker has these faded, barely readable words engraved on it:

“Here, here the tomb of Bulosan is. Here, here are his words, dry as the grass is.”

Here is a Google map to help you locate Bulosan's grave. The Barrett Street entrance is at the left. The red arrow marks the gravesite.

Bulosan died from a long lingering illness, collapsing on the steps of a Seattle courthouse. Emergency an hospital personnel didn't know who he was. They thought he was a homeless indigent. 

By the time of his death in 1956, his works were largely forgotten.

"He was a little guy, very slim, and he was always very well-dressed all the time,” wrote the late Fred Cordova, who with his wife founded the Filipino American National Historical Society. “He was not what you’d call a charismatic speaker. He was unassuming and very quiet — a very gentle person. But he wrote like a lion.”

In 1943, he was one of four American authors commissioned by the Saturday Evening Post to write an essay on President Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms." Bulosan's assignment was to write about the Freedom From Want. Here's an except:

"We are the desires of anonymous men. We are the subways of suffering, the well of dignities. We are the living testament of a flowering race.

"But our march to freedom is not complete unless want is annihilated. The America we hope to see is not merely a physical but also a spiritual and an intellectual world. We are the mirror of what America is. If America wants us to be living and free, then we must be living and free. If we fail, then America fails.

"What do we want? We want complete security and peace. We want to share the promises and fruits of American life. We want to be free from fear and hunger.

"If you want to know what we are — we are marching!"

-- Carlos Bulosan

"Freedom From Want"

Saturday Evening Post

Bulosan loved America and that's why he could be so critical of our country. He saw its flaws and imperfections, but he also saw its promise and dreams. That's what drew him and millions of other immigrants to this country. The racism and xenophobia Filipinos and other strangers encountered and endured was -- and is still is -- worth it if we can inch towards the freedom and equality that we long for.

In this era of ant-immigrant sentiment, undisguised racism stirred up by Donald Trump, and Central American refugees marching to the U.S. seeking asylum only to be met by unfeeling border agents and to be separated from their children -- Bulosan's writings are  as relevant today as when he first wrote those words. May his words -- like dry grass--  spark a fire to clear the underbrush of hate and ignorance.

May his writings continue to burn in the hearts of today's students and writers.

EDITOR'S NOTE: On this blog's profile photo, there is this description: "In Search for Carlos Bulosan." That is not meant literally and it is certainly not in reference to my modest efforts at writing. It means that out there, somewhere, is a writer who could possibly match Bulosan's moving, thoughtful and inspirational messages and his long-lasting influence on generations of Filipino Americans. Despite finding Bulosan's final resting place, I'm still searching.

ONE MORE THING: For additional commentary, observatioins, tips and references with an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @dioknoed

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