Aiiieeeee!

An Anthology of Asian American Writers

Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, Shawn Wong, Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, Shawn Wong

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780295746494
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

In the eyes of mid-twentieth-century white America, "Aiiieeeee!" was the one-dimensional cry from Asian Americans, their singular expression of all emotions—it signified and perpetuated the idea of Asian Americans as inscrutable, foreign, self-hating, undesirable, and obedient. In this anthology first published in 1974, Frank Chin, Jeffery Chan, Lawson Inada, and Shawn Wong reclaimed that shout, outlining the history of Asian American literature and boldly drawing the boundaries for what was truly Asian American and what was white puppetry. Showcasing fourteen uncompromising works from authors such as Carlos Bulosan and John Okada, the editors introduced readers to a variety of daring voices. Forty-five years later the radical collection continues to spark controversy. While in the seventies it helped establish Asian American literature as a serious and distinct literary tradition, today the editors' forceful voices reverberate in contemporary discussions about American literary traditions. Now back in print with a new foreword by literary scholar Tara Fickle, this third edition reminds us how Asian Americans fought for—and seized—their place in the American literary canon.

ASIAN AMERICAN WRITERS

We Are Not New Here

CARLOS BULOSAN

(1914–1956)

CARLOS BULOSAN WAS BORN IN THE PHILIPPINE VILLAGE of Mangusmana. He left the Philippines in 1931 and came to California where he worked as a fruit picker. He traveled on freight trains throughout America and returned to California where he became a labor leader. He is the author of several collections of poetry and short stories, Letter From America (1942), The Voice of Bataan (1943), and The Laughter of My Father (1944). His autobiography, America Is in the Heart, was published in 1946. Four years after Bulosan died of tuberculosis his letters were published under the title Sound of Falling Light: Letters in Exile.

From America Is in the Heart

I TRIED HARD TO remain aloof from the destruction and decay around me. I wanted to remain pure within myself. But in Pismo Beach, where I found Mariano, I could not fight any more. He and I slept on the floor of a small cottage, where two others were living. It was used by prostitutes when summer came and the farm workers were in town with money. When our companions woke up in the morning, Mariano and I rushed to the small bed and slept all day, waking up only at night when the gambling houses opened. I would walk among the gamblers hoping they would give me a few coins when they won.

Throughout the winter and far into spring, I lived in this cabin with my companions. When I was hungry I went to the chop suey house in our block. I would sit with gamblers and when the waiter came with a pot of hot tea and rice cakes, I would drink four or five cups and put the cakes in my pockets. Then my hunger was appeased, and I could talk again. I almost lost my power of speech, because when I was hungry the words would not come; when I tried to speak only tears flowed from my eyes.

One night, when the Korean woman who owned the restaurant saw me looking hungrily at some half-emptied plates left by white customers, she said: “When you are hungry, come here and eat. This is your home.”

When I went to the kitchen to wash dishes to pay for my food, the woman threw her hands up and said, “That is enough! Go home! Come again!”

I went again and again. But I had no home that winter. One of my companions died of tuberculosis, so Mariano burned the cabin and left town. The nights were cold. Once in a while I could hear church bells ringing, and I would say to myself: “If you can listen long enough to those bells you will be safe. Try to listen again and be patient.” They were my only consolation, those bells. And I listened patiently, and that spring came with a green hope.

I went to Seattle to wait for the fishing season in Alaska. There seemed no other place in this wide land to go; there seemed to be tragedy and horror everywhere I went. Where would I go from here? What year was it when I had landed in Seattle with a bright dream? I was walking on Jackson Street when I suddenly came upon Julio, who had disappeared in Sunnyside after the riot in Moxee City.

I went with Julio to a Japanese gambling house on King Street, where he taught me how to play a game called Pi-Q. I watched him play, learning his tricks. Before the gambling houses opened, we sat in his room for hours playing Pi-Q. Julio was very patient and kind.

“Gambling is an art,” he said to me. “Some people gamble because they think there is money in it. Yes, there is money in it when you are lucky. But then the meaning of gambling is distorted, no longer an art. You could win ten dollars a day all your life, and make an art of gambling, if you would only try. I am an artist.”

When Julio had perfected the art of gambling, he turned to picking pockets. I watched him practicing for hours. He would put a silver dollar on the edge of the table and walk toward it, snatching the dollar swiftly as he passed. Then he would use a fifty-cent piece, a quarter, and finally a dime. When he could snatch a ten-cent piece without dropping it, he mingled among the people in the streets and practiced a new art.

I followed him. How swift and nimble he was! Once, in a department store, he was almost caught. I hurried past him whispering in my dialect that he was being watched. His room was filled with inexpensive trinkets.

“Why don’t you sell it and use the money for something good?” I said.

“You are distorting the art of picking pockets again,” he said. “My ‘pickings’ are works of art. I use them for artistic expression only.”

His “pickings” were neatly arranged on the table, on the floor; and some of the cheap wrist watches were hanging on the bed posts. I thought I had understood Julio when he walked across the Rattlesnake Mountains. But I was wrong. He was again a new personality, shaped by a new environment. I felt that I should leave him. I was angry that the old Julio was lost, for he had given me something, a kind of philosophy, which had sustained me for a long time.

“I’m going away,” I said. “I want to work—anything but gambling. Or picking pockets.”

“You are a damn fool!” he shouted. Then suddenly, realizing that he had made a mistake, he said: “There is no work anywhere. Why don’t you go to the gambling houses and wait for the hop-picking in Spokane?”

It seemed a good idea. I went to a Chinese gambling house and started playing at a Pi-Q table. At night, when the place was crowded, I stopped playing and sat by a table. I noticed a Filipino farm worker, an elderly man, who was playing heavily at one of the tables. He left when he had lost all his money. Then he came back with a gun and began shooting at the Chinese dealers.

There was a general scramble, and I ducked behind a table that had fallen on the floor. I was terrified but managed to gather a handful of bills, crept to the back door, and rolled down the stairs. I ran frantically to the street, in front of the gambling house.

The Filipino had gone completely crazy. He was running up and down the sidewalk with a long knife, stabbing everyone in his way. The people ran for their lives. But for some it was too late. He had killed eight and wounded sixteen before the policemen caught him.

I lost track of Julio. But I was glad, when I took the freight train to Portland, of the things he had taught me before he disappeared. Word of the incident in Seattle had reached Portland before I arrived, and all the gambling houses were closed. I took another train to Sacramento where a Filipino mass meeting was being held. I skirted the crowd and took a bus for San Bernardino, where Chinese gambling houses were open to Filipinos.

I lost almost all my money. I stayed on for another day, but on the fourth day I gave up hope. I had only fifteen cents left. At night, when the gambling houses closed, I went to a Filipino pool-room and slept on a pool table, which was warmer and softer than the hard benches along the walls. But it was not the first time, for I had slept on pool tables in Santa Barbara, before Alfredo had appeared with plenty of money.

The next morning, desperate and hungry, I sat in front of a gambling house hoping to try my luck with my fifteen cents when the place opened. I did not go in right away, but killed time talking to the other gamblers. Three hours before closing time, I started playing and went on until the place was closed. I was jubilant. I had won nearly five hundred dollars!

“Now,” I said to myself, “this is the life for me in America.”

I took the bus for Los Angeles. No more freight trains for me. They were only for hoboes. I called up my brother Macario from the station, but he had left his job. I did not know where Amado lived, so I took a train for San Diego hoping to gamble there for a week.

It was twilight when I arrived in San Diego. I rented a room at the U. S. Grant Hotel. It was a new life. No more sleeping in poolrooms and going hungry. No more fear of want.

It was Sunday and the gambling houses were closed until Monday. I took a ferry boat to Coronado, a small island off the bay. When I returned to the ferry station the boats had stopped running for the night. I walked back to town and tried to get a room, but all the hotels refused me.

I went to the ferry station and slept on a bench. The following morning I took a streetcar to Coronado where, in a drugstore fountain, I was refused service. One young girl, who was a student, told me that there was a Filipino clubhouse on the island.

I went to the clubhouse. Frank opened the door, and it was a happy reunion. I thought that he had gone to Chicago when we parted in Utah. He was now a photographer. He was living with fifteen other Filipinos, mostly hotel and restaurant helpers. He took me to the kitchen where some of the men were playing Pi-Q.

I took my place by the table, pulling my hat down over my face. I wanted to win their money: it did not matter to me whether they were laboring men or not. I had to play with them, and cheat them, when I had the chance. Cheating was an imperative of the game.

The men went to work reluctantly, one at a time, and came hurrying back to the table, throwing their wages on it. I cheated them flagrantly because they were poor players, laughing aloud and kidding them while I won. But I was afraid of this bunch of work-worn, fear-stricken men. I knew that they were capable of violence, unlike professional gamblers who, upon discovering that you are one of them, lose a few more dollars and leave the table. I had discovered that there was fraternity among professional gamblers; when one was destitute, others are ready to give him a hand.

In the afternoon, when all the men came back, I won all their money. They became quarrelsome. Frank told me that one of the men had a wife who was in a hospital. But the man was shy and full of pride, and I knew I could not do anything for him. Why did he gamble his money when his wife needed it? Did he think he had the right to marry when he was scrubbing floors for thirty-five dollars a month? To hell with him!

So I was becoming hard, and brutal too: and careless with my talk. I went to San Diego and played in Chinatown. But I could not forget the man whose wife was in a hospital. I kept seeing his face on the gaming table, forlorn and pitiful. I played without direction, angry with myself. And I began to lose.

The next morning I went to Coronado. On my way to the Filipin...