{"id":1790,"date":"2022-04-19T03:30:33","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T03:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/?page_id=1790"},"modified":"2022-04-19T04:17:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T04:17:37","slug":"poem","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/poem\/","title":{"rendered":"I Want the Wide American Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I Want the Wide American Earth<\/h2>\n

Carlos Bulosan<\/a> – 1913-1956<\/p>\n

Before the brave, before the proud builders and workers,\nI say I want the wide American earth,\nIts beautiful rivers and long valleys and fertile plains,\nIts numberless hamlets and expanding towns and towering cities,\nIts limitless frontiers, its probing intelligence,\nFor all the free.\n                         Free men everywhere in my land\u2014\nThis wide American earth\u2014do not wander homeless,\nAnd are not alone; friendship is our bread, love our air;\nAnd we call each other comrade, each growing with the other,\nEach a neighbor to the other, boundless in freedom.\nI say I want the wide American earth....\nI say to you defenders of  freedom, builders of peace,\nI say to you democratic brothers, comrades of love:\nTheir judges lynch us, their police hunt us;\nTheir armies and navies and airmen terrorize us;\nTheir thugs and stoolies and murderers kill us;\nThey take away bread from our children;\nThey ravage our women;\nThey deny life to our elders.\n\n\n                         But I say we have the truth\nOn our side, we have the future with us;\nWe are millions everywhere,\non seas and oceans and lands;\nIn air;\nOn water and all over this very earth.\nWe are millions working together.\nWe are building, creating, molding life.\nWe are shaping the shining structures of love.\nWe are everywhere, we are everywhere.\nWe are there when they sentence us to prison for telling the truth;\nWe are there when they conscript us to fight their wars;\nWe are there when they throw us in concentration camps;\nWe are there when they come at dawn with their guns.\nWe are there, we are there,\nand we say to them:\n\u201cYou cannot frighten us with your bombs and deaths;\nYou cannot drive us away from our land with your hate and disease;\nYou cannot starve us with your war programs and high prices;\nYou cannot command us with your nothing,\nBecause you are nothing but nothing;\nYou cannot put us all in your padded jails;\nYou cannot snatch the dawn of life from us!\u201d\nAnd we say to them:\n\u201cRemember, remember,\nWe shall no longer wear rags, eat stale bread, live in darkness;\nWe shall no longer kneel on our knees to your false gods;\nWe shall no longer beg you for a share of life.\nRemember, remember,\nO remember in the deepest midnight of your fear,\nWe shall emulate the wonder of our women,\nThe ringing laughter of our children,\nThe strength and manhood of our men\nWith a true and honest and powerful love!\u201d\nAnd we say to them:\n\u201cWe are the creators of a flowering race!\u201d\nI say I want the wide American earth.\nI say to you too, sharer of my delights and thoughts,\nI say this deathless truth,\nAnd more\u2014\n\n\n                         For look, watch, listen:\nWith a stroke of my hand I open the dawn of a new world,\nLift up the beautiful horizon of a new life;\nAll for you, comrade and my love.\n\n\n                                                  See:\nThe magnificent towers of our future is afire with truth,\nAnd growing with the fuel of the heart of my heart,\nand unfolding and unfolding, and flowering and flowering\nIn the bright new sun of our world;\nAll for you, comrade and my wife.\n\n\n                                                  And see:\nI cry, I weep with joy,\nAnd my tears are the tears of my people....\nBefore the brave, before the proud builders and workers,\nI say I want the wide American earth\nFor all the free,\nI want the wide American earth for my people,\nI want my beautiful land.\nI want it with my rippling strength and tenderness\nOf love and light and truth\nFor all the free\u2014\n<\/pre>\n
“I Want the Wide American Earth” ca. 1950. Copyright \u00a9 Carlos Bulosan. Reprinted with the permission of University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections,  PNW04510<\/a><\/small><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I Want the Wide American Earth Carlos Bulosan – 1913-1956 Before the brave, before the proud builders and workers, I say I want the wide American earth, Its beautiful rivers and long valleys and fertile plains, Its numberless hamlets and expanding towns and towering cities, Its limitless frontiers, its probing intelligence, For all the free. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1790","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819,"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1790\/revisions\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmagwili.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}