Biographical research paper

Review Reviewed Work(s): Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt: Critical Perspectives on Carlos Bulosan by JEFFREY ARELLANO CABUSAO Review by: Leo Angelo Nery Source: Philippine Studies: Historical & Ethnographic Viewpoints, Vol. 65, No. 4, Hegemony and History Textbooks: Archive of Colonial Spies Filipina–GI Intimacies (dec 2017), pp. 519-523 Published by: Ateneo de Manila University Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26621980 Accessed: 22-03-2021 05:08 UTC

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JEFFREY ARELLANO CABUSAO, ED.

Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt: Critical Perspectives on Carlos Bulosan Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2016.378 pages.

"Occupation: Writer . . . Estate: One typewriter, a twenty-year old [sic]

suit, worn out socks; Finances: Zero; Beneficiary: His people" (xix). Thus

read Carlos Bulosan's obituary, which was published in the Daily People's

World in 1956. Penned by his friend and fellow unionist Chris Mensalvas,

the tribute is a brief but poignant summation of Bulosan's contribution not

just to Philippine literature but also to social movements both in the US

and the Philippines. However, although Bulosan's place in literature and

history is beyond dispute, interpreting his work (and his life) has been a site

of contestation for the past sixty years. Early literary criticism of Bulosan's

writings was dominated by formalist readings until in the 1970s, under the

repressive but radicalizing conditions of martial law, Bulosan and his work

were liberated from "promiscuous sentimentalism" (xxi) and reimagined as

products of the struggle against repressive and exploitative colonial relations

between the US and the Philippines. Post-martial-law scholarship on

Bulosan has since branched out to include, among other lenses, gender,

migration, transnationalism, and culture; recent events, such as the

resurgence of authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and the intensification

of racial and gender discrimination, have made Bulosan's experience as a

Filipino exile in the US contemporary once more. The task, however, is to

reintroduce Bulosan to a new generation of aspiring scholars, activists, and

social scientists, without disregarding the more than half-century of scholarly

work that Bulosan has inspired.

Introducing new scholars and readers to the history of Bulosan scholarship

is Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao's primary objective in his compendium Writer

in Exile/Writer in Revolt: Critical Perspectives on Carlos Bulosan. It is not

simply a collection of Bulosan-inspired works, but also a historical narrative

of Bulosan criticism as well as an exposition on the appropriate methodology

in reading Bulosan's life and works. Affirming E. San Juan Jr.'s perspective

that Bulosan should always be viewed in light of his emancipatory vision

and project, Cabusao aims to contribute toward "historicizing, decentering,

BOOK REVIEWS 519

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and renewing Bulosan criticism" (xix). By positing that "the formation of

the critical reception of Bulosan's art parallels the formation of Bulosan's

literary imagination" (xvii), Cabusao firmly asserts that an appreciation of Bulosan's work must also include the historico-material conditions that

provided Bulosan an ethico-political vision geared toward the liberation of

oppressed peoples, an interpretation that in 1972 San Juan introduced in

his pioneering work, Carlos Bulosan and the Imagination of Class Struggle

(University of the Philippines Press).

The book is composed of twenty works on Bulosan, curated in a manner

that parallels the emergence of Bulosan's social, political, and literary views.

Part I, "Bulosan's Voice: Listening to the Manong Generation," serves as

a starting point both for Bulosan's literary journey and the maturation of

Bulosan criticism. Part II, "Location of Exile: Creating an Alter/native

Filipino Literary Practice," situates Bulosan within Filipino and Third

World writing through literary criticism produced by his texts America is

in the Heart (1946) and The Laughter o f My Father (1944). Part III, "The

Writer as Worker: Broadening the Bulosan Canon," charts Bulosan's

growing commitment to the utilization of literature as an instrument of

social change, which coincided with his increased literary production from

the Great Depression to the Cold War period. The concluding section,

"Collective Memory and Revolt: Becoming Filipino—Becoming Free," is a

collection of articles that provides a unifying thread for Bulosan scholarship.

By claiming that the process of remembering Bulosan is linked to the

preservation of the collective memory of Filipinos as "subjects in revolt"

(xxvii), Cabusao reaffirms simultaneously Bulosan's historical significance

and his relevance in the contemporary period, as the conditions of racial

and national subordination are not just present, but have also intensified over the recent decades.

In addition to serving as a repository of rare and/or out-of-print works,

Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt is also an attempt at establishing a canon for

Bulosan criticism, as most of the articles featured in the compendium either

contributed to or defined the direction of scholarship on Bulosan. Cabusao

pays homage to San Juan's pioneering efforts in challenging tropes that

negated the "proletarian aesthetics" and the complexity of representations

of exile in Bulosan literature. San Juan's three essays, "The Achievement

of Carlos Bulosan," "Carlos Bulosan: The Poetics and the Necessity of

520 PSHEV 65, NO. 4 (2017)

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Revolution," and "Carlos Bulosan: Critique and Revolution," encapsulate

the history of radical reengagement with Bulosan. By challenging the

immigration assimilationist paradigm that castrated the emancipatory

message of Bulosan's writings, and by situating Bulosan in the context of

the social and literary movements against US-Philippine colonial and

neocolonial relations, San Juan proposes that the central theme of Bulosan's

works was the "unfolding struggle for Filipino national sovereignty" (xviii).

Dolores Feria's "Filipino Writers in Exile," which anticipated San

Juan's shift toward a historical materialist reading of Bulosan, contributes

in elucidating the experience of exile, especially Bulosan's paradox of exile

that "those who went away never succeeded in escaping from themselves,

and those who stayed at home never found themselves" (40). The essays

of Delfin Tolentino ("Satire in The Laughter of My Father"), L. M. Grow

("The Laughter of My Father: A Survival Kit"), and Marilyn Alquizola and

Lane Ryo Hirabayashi ("The Laughter of My Father: Adding Feminist and

Class Perspectives to the 'Casebook of Resistance'") challenge the comic

misrepresentation of the Bulosan satire; after all, Bulosan said he was not "a

laughing man, [but] an angry man" (82). Odette Taverna's "Remembering

Carlos Bulosan: An Interview with Josephine Patrick" is a valuable text,

especially as a primary source, since Patrick's recollections are one of the few

first-hand accounts that prove Bulosan's life can never be divorced from the

anticolonial and antiracial discrimination struggles of his milieu. Although

the reprinting of these articles and other scholarly works in Parts II and

III may seem redundant given their availability in online repositories and

journals, Cabusao makes them more accessible given that articles such as

Grows are often blocked by paywalls and subscription fees.

Although the primary objective of the book is to introduce (and

reproduce) pivotal articles on Bulosan, Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt also

provides new material that can serve as starting points for new research

and reengagement with Bulosan's life and art for the contemporary period.

Kenneth Bauzon's "Identity and Humanity in the Age of Corporate

Globalization: A Review Essay" and Michael Viola's "Filipino American Hip

Hop and Class Consciousness: Renewing the Spirit of Bulosan" assert that

Bulosan is still relevant in contemporary times, given the need for collective

struggle and resistance amid the onslaught of neoliberalism, racial tensions,

economic exploitation, and wars of aggression. "The Bulosan Files: Another

BOOK REVIEWS 521

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Layer in an Ongoing Dialogue," a written dialogue between Alquizola,

Hirobayashi, and Arellano, highlights opportunities for new research on

Bulosan. Recently released archival materials such the Federal Bureau of

Investigation's surveillance of Bulosan reveal additional layers on Bulosan's

life, his generation's engagement with coercive US state instruments, and

the consequences of their struggle against neocolonialism in the US and the

Philippines.

The primary sources found in the appendix are as valuable as the

articles selected for inclusion in this volume. The appendix contains rare

photographs of Bulosan and his works and selected sections of the J952

Yearbook of the Local 37 of the International Longshoremen's and Warehouse

Men's Union, which Bulosan edited. The editorial of the J 952 Yearbook as

well as the articles "To Whom It May Concern" and "Terrorism Rides in the

Philippines" provide a glimpse of Bulosan and his generations perspectives

on social justice and equality along class and racial lines. As Bulosan declared,

the union did "not discriminate against sex, race or national origin," and the

"unconditional unity of all workers [was the] only weapon against the evil

designs of imperialist butchers and other profiteers of death" (326-27).

Cabusao's rationale for the selection of essays included in this book is

to offer "critical perspectives" on Bulosan scholarship. But glaring are his

omissions, which may be due to the voluminous nature of Bulosan-inspired

texts and copyright issues; still, it is evident that commentaries by Leonard

Casper, PC Morantte, and Joseph Galdon have been excluded, even though

they could provide context to the conflicts within Bulosan scholarship. The

debates between San Juan and his critics, Casper and Galdon, represent

a turning point for Bulosan scholarship, as well as literary criticism and

cultural studies. Because Bulosan scholarship was a site of contestation,

especially during the 1970s, these debates offer a historical perspective on

the emergence of committed scholarship, especially since it occurred during

the repressive conditions of the Marcos regime. The introduction to All the

Conspirators (University of Washington Press, 1998) by Caroline Hau and

Benedict Anderson could also have enriched discussions on Bulosan's literary

vista, but copyright issues and the recency of All the Conspirators might have

contributed to its exclusion.

Writer in Exile/Writer in Revolt fulfills its basic objective, which is to

serve as an introduction to Bulosan, his works, and theoretical perspectives

they have inspired. Despite the exclusion of some works that could have

522 PSHEV 65, NO. 4 (2017)

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contributed to an appreciation of the evolution of Bulosan scholarship, this

volume provides readers with an excellent starting point to expand the field

and make it relevant amid contemporary challenges and issues.

Leo Angelo Nery Uepartment or interdisciplinary btuaies, institute or Arts ana sciences

Far Eastern University

<[email protected]>

MARIA SERENA I. DIOKNO, ED.

Hidden Lives, Concealed Narratives: A History of Leprosy in the Philippines Manila: National Historical Commission of the Philippines, 2016.293 pages.

Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, has attracted scholarly inquiry for a number of

right reasons. For one, scholars can examine the ways by which societies and

regimes of power have made sense of a disease that has caused mass suffering

in different places at different times. While it is now known that the microbe

Mycobacterium leprae causes leprosy, the disease's longevity had allowed

it to gain various cultural meanings in the past, ranging from its Judeo

Christian association with impurity and sin to miasmatic interpretations

to its association with lewd behavior and lack of hygiene—notions that are

general knowledge in the literature. In the Philippines the history of leprosy

has inspired scholarship, from Enrico Azicate's MA thesis, "Medicine in the

Philippines: An Historical Perspective" (University of the Philippines, 1989)

to Warwick Anderson's "Leprosy and Citizenship" (positions 1998:707—

30). Yet, there are more stories to tell. Enriching the literature is the book

Hidden Lives, Concealed Narratives: A History of Leprosy in the Philippines,

commissioned by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines

(NHCP) and edited by Maria Serena Diokno, professor of history at the

University of the Philippines-Diliman and former NHCP chairperson. With

Diokno are esteemed Filipino scholars, mostly historians, who authored the

chapter essays. Marshalling materials that include missionary documents,

travelogues, materia medica, health journals, as well as oral testimonies, the

book retells Philippine history through the lens of the history of leprosy.

Hidden Lives, Concealed Narratives is composed of three parts that are

organized chronologically. Part 1 looks into the precolonial and Spanish

BOOK REVIEWS 523

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