AS AM 5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: James Frey, Roland Barthes, No Baggage
Document Summary
Bulosan introduces the igorots for three reasons: First, he can present himself as radically other. Second, by comparing himself with them, he places himself on the bottom of a racial hierarchy, a comfortable perch from where he can criticize the problems with race. Third, from this place on the bottom, he questions the legitimacy of race as a category to distinguish people. Bulosan discusses race and class in order to discuss social hierarchies. At the same time, he envisions a place where those distinctions are collapsed. He wants his reader to understand the porous nature of the boundaries between different races and classes. When bulosan talks about the cockfight, he is also talking about his humanity and his place in society. A visit to a cock fight and a brothel. Throughout the first part of the book, bulosan has been providing layers of how he wants to present himself:
