"We are the living dream of the dead. We are the living spirit of the free."
Hasan Minhaj, Ivy Quicho and Junot Diaz narrate a passage from 'America Is In The Heart.'
In troubling times like these, when every day seems like a struggle for the soul of America, look to Carlos Bulosan. The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center has released a beautiful video ode to America's immigrants, featuring a passage from Bulosan's classic book America Is In The Heart. The piece is narrated by comedian Hasan Minhaj, community organizer Ivy Quicho and writer Junot Díaz.
First published in 1943, America Is In The Heart is considered one of the premier texts of the Filipino American experience and an essential work of Asian American literature. Bulosan's semi-autobiographical novel describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West.
For Frank Chi, who directed the piece, the book is deeply personal.
"I never quite found community in college. Instead, I found myself in books -- and one of them was Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart," Chi says. "When you're an immigrant, and Asian American, you're bombarded by attempts from everywhere that say you don't belong. For me, Bulosan's words helped repel that poison. He helped teach me how to be an American in my own way, on my own time."
Chi says that every single person seen reading the book in the piece is holding his own copy of America Is In the Heart -- the one that help get him through college.
"I hope it can help serve as a reminder during these trying times that at the core of our creed, America is an idea, and in the words of Bulosan, America is in the heart."
FILE UNDER: america is in the heart, books, carlos bulosan, hasan minhaj, immigration, ivy quicho, juno diaz, smithsonian