![]() ![]() The first-class passengers were annoyed, and an official of the boat came down and drove us back into the dark haven below. ![]() They were talking easily and eating rice with salted fish with their bare hands, and some of them were walking, barefoot and unconcerned, in their homemade cotton shorts. Most of them were Ilocanos, who were fishermen in the northern coastal regions of Luzon. One day in the mid-ocean, I climbed through the narrow passageway to the deck where other steerage passengers were sunning themselves. It was not until we had left Japan that I began to feel better. Why had I left home? What would I do in America? I looked into the faces of my companions for a comforting answer, but they were as young and bewildered as I, and my only consolation was their proximity and the familiarity of their dialects. I was restless at night and many disturbing thoughts came to my mind. I found the dark hole of the steerage and lay on my bunk for days without food, seasick and lonely. Carlos Bulosan, America Is In the Heart: A Personal HistoryĬarlos Bulosan, America Is In the Heart: A Personal History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), 97-112. ![]()
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