45 pages • 1 hour read
Carlos BulosanAmerica is in the Heart
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Luciano, another of Allos’s brothers, returns home from military service in the Philippine Scouts. He teaches Allos how to make snares to catch birds. Instead of eating the birds, they try to make pets out of them. Allos recalls this as the most pleasant time in his life. Luciano is responsible for helping Allos see that there is beauty in the world and that objects are more than the functions they might serve. When Luciano’s pension from fighting in World War I finally arrives, he embarks on a political career. He becomes the mayor of Binalonan but is unhappy. He encourages Allos to keep reading good books and says maybe he can become a journalist. That night, Allos vows to become a writer.
Chapter 8 Summary
As peasant uprisings continue in the provinces, Allos’s father loses the rest of his land. He spends three weeks in provincial court fighting for the restoration of his farm but loses the case, driving him to alcoholism. Meanwhile, Allos and his mother go to Tayug to help with the rice harvest. Men come to the fields and pass out pamphlets while making impassioned political speeches. Allos sees one of them, Felix Razon, in America later. The men tell Allos and his mother they must leave the rice fields but do not explain why.
Days later, Felix returns with men wearing black armbands. They persuade Allos’s mother to sell them a partial share of her field. The men with black armbands are from the radical Colorum Party, an embittered group of anarchists. In an effort to escape a violent revolt, Allos and his mother leave the fields but do not get far. In town, the radicals attack government buildings, and Allos and his mother witness the fighting. Back in Binalonan, the government changes hands four times in the following days of fighting. Allos vows to leave the town and to return only when he can help the peasants.
Chapter 9 Summary
When Allos is 13 years old, he tells his mother and father that he plans to leave Binalonan and earn money in the town of Baguio. As his bus leaves, Allos says goodbye to his childhood.
At the Baguio marketplace, Allos struggles to find work. A rice trader finally hires him to carry heavy sacks. Later, Miss Mary Strandon, an American woman who works at the library, hires Allos to cook and clean for her. He meets an Igorot houseboy, Dalmacio, who lives nearby and works as a servant. Dalmacio says he will teach Allos English so he can go to America.
Dalmacio reads Allos a story about Abraham Lincoln. Allos cannot believe that a poor boy became the President of the United States. As his literacy improves, Allos reads about Lincoln himself. He greatly enjoys his time at the library; the proximity to books enriches his mind.
Chapter 10 Summary
After over a year and a half in Baguio, Allos goes home to Binalonan and sees people on their way to church, both peasants and the middle class. If the peasants get in their way, the wealthier people whip them and spit on them. When he gets to his house, it is empty and dark.
Luciano finds him and says that their father sold the house months earlier and bought a small piece of land in Mangusmana. Their mother and sisters are there, and their father is very ill. The next morning, Allos walks to Mangusmana and thinks of Leon on the way. He imagines that the feeling of homecoming Leon experienced after returning from the war was similar to what he now feels.
Chapter 11 Summary
Allos moves into a boarding house in Lingayen with 14 other boys and works for a fisherman. Despite their illiteracy, he finds much to admire in the fishermen: they are wise and hard-working; they know the sea inside and out; and their knowledge is valuable, even though it doesn’t come from books.
When fishing season ends, Allos agrees to go to school with his cousin. His English teacher views Allos’s presence there as a chance to strike back at the privileged classes. Because Allos is a peasant, the teacher gives him higher marks than the other students, even though he hasn’t earned them.
Chapter 12 Summary
Allos returns to Binalonan and learns that Luciano is now married. His mother, father, and sisters have gone to live again in San Manuel. Allos and Luciano go to see their old house and learn that a gambler bought it. Allos promises to come back and buy it one day. The next morning, he visits his family in San Manuel. After saying goodbye—he is truly ready to visit America—he returns to bid farewell to Luciano.
On the train to Manila, Allos meets a university student named Juan Cablaan. He gives Allos advice on how to look less like a peasant and provides him with a pair of shoes. After settling into another boarding house, Allos goes to watch a cockfight. He is surprised to see Juan appear. Juan says he visits the slums to remember his heritage. He asks Allos if he has ever been with a girl. He shows Allos a prostitute and asks if he wants to try her. Allos runs away and cries in the boardinghouse. The next morning, he gets on a boat leaving for America.
Chapters 7-12 Analysis
Chapters 7 through 9 focus on the political strife facing the country, the peasant class’s ignorance of many of the uprising’s particulars, and the development of Allos’s aesthetic sense. Despite the fact that the Colorum Party fought on behalf of the peasantry, many of its adherents were members of the urban proletariat, which may explain the philosophical divide between Allos’s family and the demonstrators. Meanwhile, the fact that the church is responsible for seizing some of Allos’s father’s land may seem strange to modern American readers. This makes more sense given that during the period of Spanish colonial rule, the Catholic Church in the Philippines aligned itself with the large plantation owners responsible for oppressing peasant farmers. The revolts show a country in frequent turmoil. Peasants who are brave enough to revolt are no match for government soldiers.
Amidst the conflict, Allos learns that beauty and knowledge can exist for their own sake. The kindness of Luciano toward the birds shows Allos that not everything must serve a function—or possibly, that beauty itself may be the highest function of an object or animal. When Miss Strandon exposes him to the library and the story of Abraham Lincoln, Allos understands the possibility of upward social mobility in America. Before these chapters, his lofty aspirations have the ring of childish naiveté, but once he learns that an uneducated boy named Lincoln—who Allos sees as equivalent to the peasants—could become the president, he begins to see the value of planning, learning, and commitment. Unfortunately, he will learn in later chapters that his identity as a Filipino immigrant greatly hinders his ability to benefit from the myth of the American Dream, which Lincoln’s story came to embody in the popular imagination. His fixation on Lincoln’s rags-to-riches ascent begins a lifelong struggle surrounding Allos’s attitude toward the United States, as he attempts to negotiate between the myth of America and the reality of America.
In Chapter 12, with the collapse of his family life complete, Allos no longer feels any pressure to remain. He concludes that his family’s unfortunate cycle will replicate itself endlessly. His mother will have more children. His father will grow increasingly ill. The government will continue to change hands. Education will never be prioritized among the peasants, except as a means to earn more money. While leaving Manila on the boat, Allos’s ambitions become a reality. He, at least, will have a chance to forge his own path. If he had remained behind, his path would largely be chosen for him, as was the case with most members of his family. Given that Allos will face very different but equally challenging struggles in America, he will ultimately view his decision to leave the Philippines with great ambivalence.
Elsewhere, Allos’s admiration of the fishermen foreshadows his later work writing on behalf of the working class. Despite the immense value he places on formal education, Allos understands and respects the wisdom possessed by uneducated workers. This understanding will also give Allos confidence in his own largely self-taught methods when he embarks on a literary career.
