Abstract
Based on research in the unpublished papers of Sanora Babb at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, this essay uncovers new information about Bulosan’s relations with Sanora and her sister Dorothy Babb, the two American women who virtually “made” him into a writer. Given his intimacy with both women, active in leftwing and Communist Party activities in Los Angeles during the formative years of Bulosan’s life, as well as his association with leftist union leaders in Seattle, Bulosan’s radical affiliations are no longer in doubt, even without FBI documentation. Apocryphal Bulosan manuscripts such as All the Conspirators are bound to emerge since the whole colonial and neocolonial contexts of Bulosan’s genealogy are usually ignored by those applying an immigrant-success-story framework (practically all would-be Bulosan experts). Hence the need to revalidate the focus on his full-length novel The Cry and the Dedication and his links with Amado V. Hernandez and the progressive national-popular movement (Huks) in the Philippines as a US colony and neocolony.
Recommended Citation
San Juan, E. Jr.
(2014)
"Excavating the Bulosan Ruins: What is at Stake in Re-Discovering the Anti-Imperialist Writing in the Age of US Global Terrorism?,"
Kritika Kultura:
No.
23, Article 9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13185/1656-152x.1582
Available at:
https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss23/9
