Citizenship and Postcolonialism: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Filipino Americans and their Pursuit of the American Dream

Abstract:This essay seeks to situate discussions of seminal Filipino intellectual America Is in the Heart, an early twentieth century autobiographical novel, within the literary trope of the “American dream,” and trace the themes present in his work within contemporary recorded experiences, or in this case, contemporary twenty-first century interviews: in-depth qualitative interviews and personal testimonies of Filipino American citizens. I will highlight the historical and ongoing ethos that Asian American immigrants face with respect to their citizenship, their relationship to the host-nation, or specifically the United States, and what sacrifices have accompanied attempts in attaining the American dream.Bulosan's art is framed as being born in the gap “between colonial bondage and capitalist ‘freedom,’” (, 7) and his goal was to “interpret the soul of the Filipinos …. What really compelled me to write was to try to understand this country [the United States], to find a place in it not only for myself but my people” (, 267). The US formally colonized the Philippines during the early twentieth century, a historical relationship that complicates this inquiry. Given the postcolonial dynamic, or that the Philippines is the only Asian country that the United States colonized on a clearly public policy level, how might this historical relation of power shape postcolonial citizenship? Moreover, how might Bulosan's understandings of citizenship connect with Filipino Americans’ notions of the American dream in the early twenty-first century? By reflecting through an interdisciplinary approach, I directly place into conversation a Filipino American seminal thinker from the twentieth century vis-à-vis Filipino Americans in the twenty-first century to interrogate notions of belonging and identity within the framework of the American dream.