"America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree. America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and the intellectual opportunities is closed to him.

We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate. We are America!"
-- Carlos Bulosan, an excerpt from "America is in the Heart, 1943."

Say America oala ed puso
(para ed si Carlos Bulosan)

Say America oala ed puso
aya so masimoon a kuan mo
isulat mo ed tedter na linget
ya nagmaliw a nyibi ed betel
so kipapasen ya asagmakan
daray kailin agla linmingaw
ed banoa ya nalalapuan da

Say America oala ed puso
malinlinew a kuan mo kaili
pantog so ngaran mo ed biek taew
inmaoet balet so dilam agi
nayarin nagtelan met so olum
ta alingoanan moy nanlapuan -
nianakan a baley ed Caboloan

*Carlos Bulosan, Filipino-American pioneer author and activist, born on November 14, 1914, in Binalonan, Pangasinan, Philippines. On September 11, 1956, he passed away penniless at the age 42.

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