cepted by her countrymen but also loses her child,
husband, job, and reputation.
In The Bridegroom most characters are sub-
jected to various degrees of injustice, usually at the
hands of impersonal bureaucrats who pay little
attention to the welfare of their fellow citizens.
Often, people feel powerless and simply accept
their fate. However, as “Saboteur” masterfully il-
lustrates, they occasionally respond in unexpected
ways. The story’s protagonist is a mild-mannered
university professor who wholeheartedly accepts
the Communist Party’s slogan that “all citizens
[are] equal before the law.” The professor is on his
honeymoon with his bride and, as they eat lunch
at the Muji City train station, a local police offi-
cer throws a bowl of tea in their direction, wetting
their sandals. When he protests, the officer accuses
him of being a “saboteur” and arrests him. The
professor informs the police that he is suffering
from acute hepatitis and needs urgent medical at-
tention, but they remain unmoved. They allow his
bride to go free but keep him imprisoned. With
the help of a former student who has become a
lawyer, the professor finally leaves the prison. Yet,
before heading back to his hometown, he eats at a
series of local restaurants, barely touching the food
at one eatery before moving on to the next. Within
a month, there is an epidemic of hepatitis in Muji
City and no one knows how it started. Needless to
say, the professor is not meant to be seen as a hero.
Rather, he is someone who is unable to get even
with his oppressors and thus, in his blindness, tar-
gets the innocent population of a whole city.
Jianwu Liu and Albert BrazBulosan, Carlos (1911–1956)
Born to a large family in a small village in the Phil-
ippines, Bulosan grew into adulthood as a member
of the dispossessed peasantry during the period of
American occupation (1901–1946). When Bulo-
san migrated to the United States in 1930, he was
initially seeking only a temporary stay to search for
the freedom of economic opportunity advertised
by the U.S. government-facilitated public educa-
tion he had received in the Philippines. Only two
years after his arrival in the United States, Bulo-
san had already begun to establish himself as a
promising literary artist. His writings appeared
in numerous poetry magazines, and he was listed
in Who’s Who in America. By the 1940s Bulosan
was published in several national literary journals
including the New Yorker, Harper’s, and Current
Biography. His writings centered on the theme of
what it means to be a Filipino immigrant in the
United States. From his poetry and short stories
to his essays and autobiography, his works were
lauded for their optimistic faith in America, de-
spite his consistent, imbedded critique of her ra-
cially inhospitable climate.
In 1943 Bulosan was selected by President Roos-
evelt to contribute to a popular wartime collection
in the Saturday Evening Post. His essay, “Freedom
from Want,” offered his trademark hope for the na-
tion’s potential to live up to the promise of Ameri-
can ideals. Ironically celebrated as the epitome of
the American dream, Bulosan’s early literary suc-
cess was initially steeped in his perceived patrio-
tism. His popularity only continued to increase
during the wartime years, as his 1944 collection
of short stories, The Laughter of My Father, was
translated into more than a dozen languages and
became a national best-seller. This collection of
stories employs a dark, wry humor to highlight the
oppressive economic, military, and social condi-
tions surrounding Bulosan’s formative years. Once
again, critics failed to grasp the underlying social
critique present in Bulosan’s work. When his use
of ironic humor was misinterpreted as “comic,”
however, Bulosan himself clarified his intentions.
In his 1946 essay, “I Am Not a Laughing Man,” he
declared, “I am mad because when my book, The
Laughter of My Father, was published by Harcourt,
Brace, and Company, the critics called me ‘the pure
comic spirit.’ I am not a laughing man. I am an
angry man. That is why I started writing.”
In 1946 he published his most famous work,
AMERICA IS IN THE HEART, a loosely autobiographi-
cal work detailing the Filipino immigrant experi-
ence in early 20th-century United States. With this
publication, Bulosan was celebrated as one of the
nation’s most prominent writers. When the politi-
cal tides began to change, however, so did Bulosan’sBulosan, Carlos 29