Quote by Carlos Bulosan: “America is in the heart.”

The idea of a place or a belonging isn't only in geography — it lives inside us as hope, longing, and belief. Bulosan wrote this as a Filipino immigrant living through racism and poverty in the United States, arguing that the promise of America was a feeling he carried despite everything that denied it to him.

Bulosan was writing during World War Two, when Filipino Americans faced racial discrimination in the United States despite the Philippines being an American territory and many Filipinos serving in the US military. His memoir documented both the dream of equality and its brutal daily denial.

Filipino-American writer and activist, born in Pangasinan in 1913 and known for his autobiographical novel America Is in the Heart. His writing documented the lives of Filipino immigrant workers in the United States, confronting racism and labor exploitation during the 1930s and 1940s.