California library to be named after Filipino writer Carlos Bulosan
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LOS ANGELES—The name Carlos Bulosan will soon find distinguished company in famous writers like John Steinbeck and Robert Louis Stevenson as a public library in this city is formally dedicated in his honor.
The five-member Los Angeles Library Commission voted unanimously Thursday (Friday morning in Manila) to name the Echo Park Public Library after Bulosan, who arrived in America in 1930. Knowing little English, he taught himself to write and went on to pen in 1946 his semi-autobiographical novel “America is in the Heart,” which has become part of the American literary canon.
“It’s a wonderful thing to be able to lift up a name as monumental as Carlos Bulosan’s whose self-education and use of our libraries is widely credited for his success as a writer,” city librarian John Szabo told the Inquirer after the historic vote and dedication.
In a historic twist of fate, the commission who voted for the name change was in the same Central Library along Fifth Street here where Bulosan in the 1930s found solace in reading books as he battled tuberculosis, loneliness and poverty.
Odd jobs, indignities
The itinerant writer traveled between Seattle, Washington and this city, taking on odd jobs in California’s central coast picking fruits and vegetables to survive, suffering indignities while savoring occasional successes when his poetry and essays were published by reputable American publications like The Nation, The New Masses and the Saturday Evening Post.
“I am trying to write every day in the midst of utter misery and starvation,” commissioner Kelly Besser said during the open forum, quoting Bulosan in one of his letters in 1949 curated by Bulosan scholar E. San Juan Jr.
“I locked myself in the room … pulled down the shades and shut out the whole damn world,” Besser intoned as he continued quoting the author.
The dedication also comes at an important time when the Filipino diaspora is celebrating Bulosan’s 70th death anniversary on Sept. 11 this year.
Time of reckoning
While there was wide support for the name change, the campaign came in the midst of enormous public pressure because of a historic reckoning in America to erase the legacies of important figures like Cesar Chavez who recently was exposed for sexually assaulting women during his time as leader in America’s premier labor movement.
“There should be a moratorium for at least ten years to prevent what we are currently experiencing,” said one library patron.
But the commission voted 5-0, saying Bulosan’s recognition as one of America’s best writers and poets was long overdue. Although he achieved such stature, the Filipino immigrant from Binolanon, Pangasinan, never actually became an American citizen.
“Our vote today serves to honor the diversity of our city and recognize his (Bulosan’s) role as an important writer in our community,” said library commission president Mayra Valadez, herself a daughter of Mexican immigrants.
“Today’s historic vote is a meaningful step toward honoring Carlos Bulosan’s legacy and recognizing the deep history of the Filipino-American community in Los Angeles,” said activist Jaime Geaga, who spearheaded the campaign after seeking the support of LA Mayor Karen Bass last year.
New urgency
Robert Reich, a former labor secretary during the Clinton presidency, recently revived interest in Bulosan’s work and legacy, showing how the writer’s call for dignity and economic justice during his time has taken on a new urgency under President Donald Trump whose nativist policies have targeted immigrants.
The campaign to rename the Echo Park Library after Bulosan started in May of 2017 when book enthusiasts—including this reporter—created the Carlos Bulosan Book Club at the Echo Park branch here, where a good number of Filipino-Americans live.
Despite all the bad things that happened to him, Bulosan never doubted America’s goodness.
In a time when that goodness is currently in question, naming a library after Bulosan seeks to preserve that image.
