Making It New: 1900–1945 471then, while he was teaching at New York University, he became friends with Thomas
Wolfe. Wolfe read some of the book Kang was working on at the time, and took it to
his own editor. It was published in 1931 as The Grass Roof. A novel about the life of
a young man in Korea, up to the point of his departure for America, it had plainly
autobiographical roots. Well received, it was followed by East Goes West (1937), the
story of the life of a Korean in America. But, while the portrait of Korea as a “planet
of death” in The Grass Roof had been applauded, Kang’s account of American
prejudice and Korean problems in America hit a less responsive chord. In his second
novel, Kang subtly drew distinctions between different immigrants: the ones who
try to behave like “a typical New Yorker,” the “very strong nationalist” who remains
“an exile only in body, not in soul” and wants to get back to “Korean land” where he
can raise “100 percent Korean children.” He quietly, humorously sketched Korean
bemusement with American habits and tastes and, less humorously, American
indifference to the humanity of the Koreans they employ. Above all, he described the
fundamental yearning of his protagonist for a proper, permanent place in American
life, the need to move from the status and perspective of visitor to that of citizen.
Ironically, Kang never really achieved such a place himself: he was never offered
a stable teaching position, or a satisfactory permanent job of any kind. Always a
visiting lecturer or traveling speaker, he was forced to wander the country and to
supplement his meager earnings with translations, writing for children, and book
reviews. Nevertheless, he managed to produce work that voices a shared impulse
among many Asian-American writers to criticize America, certainly, but also to
claim it as their own.
Carlos Bulosan also emigrated to America while he was a young man. In 1930 he
left his birthplace in the Philippines after an impoverished childhood and a struggle
to save enough money for his passage. He worked in the United States as an itinerant
laborer and union activist. Eventually, he became one of the best-known Filipino
writers in the United States, writing poetry, short stories, and essays about Filipino-
American life between the 1930s and the 1950s. His fame grew during and after
World War II, when he produced such works as Letter from America (1942), The
Voice of Bataan (1944), Laughter of My Father (1944), and The Dark People (1944).
But it is for his autobiographical narrative, America is in the Heart (1943), that he is
best known; and it is probably on this work that his reputation rests. Divided into
four parts, the book opens in 1918 with the young Carlos sharing the extreme
economic hardship and suffering of his family. Aware of the gross inequities of
Filipino society, American cultural imperialism in the Philippines, and the need for
“radical social change,” Carlos embarks for the United States. Part two then sees him
arrive in Seattle. Traveling around, eking out a meager existence in a series of seasonal
jobs, he comes into contact with the Filipino labor movement. Forced into a
ghettoized existence, he also becomes aware of just how hostile and racist a society
America is. “I almost died within myself,” Bulosan recalls. “I die many deaths in those
surroundings where man was indistinguishable from beast.” The second part of
America is in the Heart ends, though, with a clear articulation of hope from another
character, who tells Carlos: “America is a prophecy of a new society of men.” AndGGray_c04.indd 471ray_c 04 .indd 471 8 8/1/2011 7:54:02 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 02 AM