This story by Carlos Bulosan highlights one of the terrible side effects of the mass immigration of Filipino men and boys to America in the first half of last Century. In the story, a young man who had immigrated at fifteen returns home after twelve years. Following a tearful reunion, he is devastated to learn the family is destitute. His father is dead, his mother too frail to get around, and one of his sisters has had to prostitute herself. Even worse, there is nothing he can do to help! Themes include failure, reunion, poverty, desperation, despair, shame.
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