7/29/2019 If You Want to Know What We Are by Carlos Bulosan

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If you want to know what we are

By Carlos Bulosan

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1. If you want to know what we are who inhabitforest, mountain, rivershore, who harnessbeast, living steel, martial music (that classless

language of the heart), who celebrate labour,wisdom of the mind, peace of the blood;

2. If you want to know what we are who becomeanimate at the rains metallic ring, the stonesaccumulated strength, who tremble in the winds blossoming (that enervates earthspotentialities),who stir just as flowers unfold to the sun;

3. If you want to know what we are who growpowerful and deathless in countlesscounterparts,each part pregnant with hope, each hope

supreme,each supremacy classless, each classlessnessnourished by unlimited splendor of comradeship;

4. We are multitudes the world over, millionseverywhere;in violent factories, sordid tenements, crowdedcities;in skies and seas and rivers, in landseverywhere;our number increase as the wide world revolvesand increases arrogance, hunger disease anddeath.

5. We are the men and women reading books,searchingin the pages of history for the lost word, the keyto the mystery of living peace, imperishable joy;we are factory hands field hands mill handeverywhere,molding creating building structures, forgingahead,

6. Reaching for the future, nourished in the heart;we are doctors scientists chemists discovering,eliminating disease and hunger andantagonisms;

we are soldiers navy-men citizens guardingthe imperishable will of man to live in grandeur,7. We are the living dream of dead men

everywhere,the unquenchable truth that class-memoriescreateto stagger the infamous world with propheciesof unlimited happiness_a deathless humanity;we are the living and the dead meneverywhere.

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8. If you want to know what we are, observethe bloody club smashing heads, thebayonetpenetrating hallowed breasts, giving nomercy; watch thebullet crashing upon armorless citizens;look at the tear-gas choking the weakenedlung.

9. If you want to know what we are, see thelynchtrees blossoming, the hysterical mob rioting;remember the prisoner beaten by detectivesto confessa crime he did not commit because he washonest,and who stood alone before a rabid jury often men,

10. And who was sentenced to hang by a judgewhose bourgeois arrogance betrayed theofficehe claimed his own; name the marked man,the violator of secrets; observe the banker,the gangster, the mobsters who kill and gofree;

11. We are the sufferers who suffer for naturalloveof man for man, who commemorate thehumanitiesof every man; we are the toilers who toilto make the starved earth a place ofabundance

who transform abundance into deathlessfragrance.

12. We are the desires of anonymous meneverywhere,who impregnate the wide earths lustrouswealthwith a gleaming fluorescence; we are thenew thoughtsand the new foundations, the new verdureof the mind;we are the new hope new joy lifeeverywhere.

13. We are the vision and the star, the quietusof pain;we are the terminals of inquisition, thehiatusesof a new crusade; we are the subterraneansubwaysof suffering; we are the will of dignities;we are the living testament of a floweringrace.

If you want to know what we areWE ARE REVOLUTION!