Statement
November 20, 2005
As Filipino-Americans across the US gather this month to celebrate and commemorate the life and legacy that was Carlos Bulosan, Bayan USA honors him best by exposing and condemning the continuous witchunt and red-baiting of pro-people Filipino progressives in post-9/11 scapegoatist America.
The recent public smears, accusations, and attacks against Bayan USA members and leaders embody the same forces that hounded the heavily-surveyed Bulosan till his last breath.
It is important to remember Bulosan– revered and respected by elites, scholars, artists, youth, and workers alike– secured a listing in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s blacklist drafted by the House of Representatives Un-American Activites Committee throughout the 1950′s. Providing a spoken and written voice for the voiceless and exploited immigrant laborers spread across Depression-stricken America, Bulosan was branded as a threat to national security and endured a painful decade-long hound by the FBI that included the constant gathering and filing of his tax records, credit records, and personal mail. He was continously punished by forced impoverishment as the FBI filed memos to US employers, preventing Bulosan from gainful employment and leaving him penniless upon his death.
Carlos Bulosan led a life under constant risk because of his political beliefs. Central to these was the belief in genuine civil rights and liberties for the exploited migrant worker, the right for migrant workers to organize, unionize, and demand for genuine democratic reforms. Central also was the belief that Filipinos in the US could never be free from suffering as long as their compatriots in the motherland continued to suffer the plight of rampant human rights violations, economic disparity, and foreign domination.
Bulosan acted on these beliefs by opposing US domination and intervention in the Philippines and denouncing US puppet Philippine presidents who pampered US interests over Filipino people’s welfare. He allied himself with and relentlessly supported the democratic struggle waged by the Filipino people for genuine land reform, workers rights, end to militarization, and foreign intervention. He dispelled mythical demarcations that the struggle of Filipino migrants in the US was separate from the overall struggle of the Philippines for genuine national sovereignty.
Just as the Cold War provided the framework for the US government’s witchunt of Bulosan and other progressives, the US-led War on Terror imposes the needed backdrop of paranoia to apply the same red-baiting tactics and initatives against modern-day Filipino progressives who are working to sustain Bulosan’s progressive vision for a new generation of Filipinos in the US. Under the banner of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, or Bayan USA chapter, Filipino-Americans have been harassed and surveyed by both the FBI and US Department of Homeland Security, our leaders smeared as conspiratorial communists and organizations branded as communist fronts.
It is with Bulosan’s stoic example that we take these attacks in stride, because it is a mere reflection of how backward this so-called War on Terror is striving to regress our American and world culture. But it is also a glaring indication of the need for Filipinos to take leadership in challenging and breaking the culture of fear created by warmongers and oil-thirsty world leaders. It is a sounding horn of the penetrating relevance of Bulosan’s life’s work.
Bulosan’s presence today would undoubtedly translate to a US-based call to oust the fake and illegitimate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime. It would translate to the call for the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement and withdrawal of US military presence in the Philippines. It would translate to the call to repeal the US Patriot and Homeland Security Acts and mirror image—the Anti-Terrorism Bill in the Philippines. It would translate to the condemnation of state atrocities committed against legitimate human rights defenders in the Philippines, and the killing spree of Bayan and Bayan member organization leaders. It would translate to the defense of Filipino progressives everywhere, such Professor Jose Maria Sison and all overseas compatriots supportive of the Philippine people’s movement.
If Bulosan were alive today, he would find himself marching side by side with Bayan USA and with the Filipino people.
We call on all Filipinos and allies in the US to be ever more vigilant and critical against baseless and smearing attacks against legitimate progressives in our communities. It is with thoroughgoing education and firm linkage with marginalized and disenfranchised Filipino majority that we can prevent and end Bush and Arroyo’s aggressive war campaign against critical mass in these turbulent times.
