“I Would Remember”

I read “I Would Remember” by, Carlos Bulosan and I have to say it was shocking. He experienced multiple encounters with death and it actually brought me back to a memory that happened not so long ago. It was around July of 2019, my grandfather passed away on my father’s side of the family, then in August of 2019, my grandmother passed away on my mother’s side of the family and finally, hopefully there isn’t anymore soon, my amazingly beautiful mother passed away in October of 2019. It was like I wanted to go out with a bang of this ending decade; but, this is not what I had in mind. Reading this story reminded me of this devastating feeling and still feeling that Carlos went through. Having someone there all the time, helping you throughout your life and all of sudden their gone, is heartbreaking. However, something I noticed of Carlos was that, he kept moving forward no matter what by taking what he learned from each death encounter and holding that memory with him to cherish and never gave up. This brings me to the question, What is America or the idea of it? Carlos coming to America and continuing to experience these death encounters shows that America is not perfect and not all that different in some ways. People are cruel everywhere you go and not everyone is happy with immigrants coming to the United States. This story opens up a lot of secrets that America keeps hidden due to having this idea of expressing yourself and being free and yet, you can be attacked and unfortunately killed for trying to do just that. This story challenges the understanding of America because in America, you can have the freedom to be anything and that is why people from different areas want to come here, for a better life. However, even in America, there are difficulties, unbelievable encounters with death, constant questioning and this idea that you can accomplish anything you want because it is just that “easy.” I might have experienced some natural deaths in my life and I am extremely proud and fortunate to be born and living in America; but, reading stories like this, just makes me want to help more people because no one should be experiencing such brutal deaths like the ones mentioned in the story. It truly opens up your eyes and makes you have a different perspective of how lucky people in America are due to not experiencing events like this and it makes me wonder why we don’t try to just help more people instead of always having an assumption that immigrants are bad and dangerous people.