10 Things the 1940 Census Reveals About Carlos Bulosan
/
Carlos Bulosan
1. Carlos Bulosan lived at 714-3/4 West Temple Avenue, Los Angeles, California.
The apartment was in a four-unit structure just a few yards from the corner of Temple and Figueroa.
From the 1920s through the 1940s, many Filipinos lived and conducted business around this northwest corner of Little Tokyo. The hustle and bustle around Temple and Figueroa provided Bulosan details and insights about his countrymen that inevitably imbued his work. This “Little Manila” preceded the much larger area about a mile west now called Historic Filipinotown, which developed later. The Los Angeles Main Public Library, which Bulosan frequented, was a 20-minute walk away.
The house and block Bulosan lived in no longer exist. The four blocks between Temple, Figueroa, First, and South Hope have been redeveloped into the LA Department of Water and Power headquarters. The Bulosan apartment would have been in the landscaped area between the parking lot and Temple Street.
2. He was living with his older brothers Aurelio and Dionisio (Dionisio was listed as “John” on the Census schedule), as well as an unrelated housemate. Their rent was $32 a month.
3. Bulosan was 28 years old when the 1940 Census was taken.
While many accounts put his birth year as 1913 or even 1914, Bulosan was likely born in 1911 if he was 28 on his last birthday prior to the Census count.
4. He stated that he completed four years of high school, disproving popular accounts of his schooling ending in the third grade.
Bulosan completed his third year of high school in the Philippines and he would have been of the first generation of Filipinos educated in English. His older brother, Aurelio, also offered to support his continued education in the United States, which Bulosan might have accepted for he attended school in Los Angeles for a period.
His older brothers, Aurelio and Dionisio, completed two years of college and two years of high school, respectively.
“Aurelio, just five years older than Bulosan, was “head” and breadwinner of the Bulosan household.”
5. Bulosan’s citizenship was listed as “AL” or alien, as were most other Filipinos living in the U.S. who were born in the Philippines.
In the previous censuses of 1910, 1920, and 1930, however, Filipinos were considered U.S. nationals and “native born.” Although they were not citizens, Filipinos were not tagged as “aliens” then. The passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1934 reclassified Filipinos living in the U.S. as “aliens” and established an annual quota of 50 immigrants.
6. Bulosan and his brother Aurelio had been living in Los Angeles for at least five years at the time of the 1940 Census. His other brother, Dionisio, was living in Chicago in 1935 before joining them in Los Angeles.
7. He was unemployed the week before Census Day 1940.
Neither was he assigned to do public emergency work through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the National Youth Administration (NYA), nor the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – New Deal programs that put Americans to work following the Great Depression. However, Bulosan reported that he was actively seeking work and was, therefore, counted as part of the labor force.
8. He had been unemployed for 156 weeks prior to Census Day 1940.
Bulosan’s three-year convalescence following a bout with tuberculosis was duly recorded in the Census schedule.
9. Bulosan reported his occupation as a “farmer” on a vegetable farm.
Bulosan immigrated in July 1930, when the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression. He joined his brother in Lompoc and worked briefly there as a dishwasher before joining his other brother, Aurelio, in Los Angeles some months later.
With jobs scarce, Aurelio suggested that Bulosan focus on his writing. He wrote poems that were published in anthologies as early as 1932. In 1934, he even started a bimonthly literary magazine, The New Tide, but it was short-lived due to the lack of funds.
With his frail health, Bulosan would have been an unlikely farmer, much less a farmworker. Bulosan’s reporting of this livelihood could be harking back to his childhood on his father’s farm in Mangusmana, Pangasinan.
10. Bulosan reported no income in 1939, having been unemployed in the previous three years.
Aurelio, just five years older than Bulosan, was “head” and breadwinner of the Bulosan household. Dionisio had been unemployed and worked only part of the previous year.
Aurelio was incredibly supportive of Bulosan’s dream to become a writer. He had read his brother’s work and recognized his talents early. They both loved to read and bought books and magazines. Aurelio even helped fund Bulosan’s The New Tide.
Sources: 1940 Census Records, National Archives; P.L. Morantte, Remembering Carlos Bulosan: His Heart Affair with America; and Google Maps.
San Francisco-based M.T. Ojeda is a recently retired urban planner and is now indulging a passion for history and geography.
