An Introduction to Filipino American Literature

This “AMERICAN PARABLE,” in all its many permutations, underlies the peculiar position of both the Filipino American writer and the Filipino writer in English in the Philippines. For if there is one indisputable fact about Filipino American writing nurtured on American shores that sets it apart from other Asian American writing it is that it is inextricably mixed with indigenous Philippine writing in English. Its early major practitioners, Carlos Bulosan and Jose Garcia Villa, made no distinction, nor would the luminaries of today, Bienvenido Santos and N. V. M. Gonzalez. (As fate would have it, all four belong to the