He also taught himself English and pursued his lifelong passion for writing. Like most Filipino people in America at the time, Bulosan experienced severe racial discrimination, but he found community with other Filipinos and joined the labor movement that fought to unionize ethnic workers on the Pacific Coast. With only three years of formal schooling, Bulosan was broke and spoke no English, so he spent years working low-paying itinerant labor jobs in fields, orchards, hotels, restaurants, and factories. He arrived in Seattle on Jat the age of 17. Bulosan eventually saved enough money to secure steerage passage to America. Their poverty notwithstanding, Bulosan’s family emphasized the importance of education. Following centuries of Spanish colonialism, the Bulosans struggled to survive, as large-scale plantations consolidated their hold over peasant lands. His parents were members of the Ilocano ethnolinguistic group. Carlos Bulosan was born in a rural farming village in the Philippine province of Pangasinan.
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