A Rockwellian re-envisioning Thanksgiving

Roosevelt had articulated these freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want) to rouse support for Great Britain in its war with Nazi Germany and to define values that could help motivate and guide America’s own war preparedness. Inspired by Roosevelt’s vision, Rockwell’s paintings and Post covers gained instant popularity, and the paintings toured the country in an exhibit that helped raise millions in war bonds.

What is less remembered, however, is that each of the Post covers were accompanied by essays composed by well-known writers, including the labor activist, poet, and novelist Carlos Bulosan. Bulosan’s brief essay on freedom from want is particularly worth reading today, for he not only presented a vision of America starkly different from Rockwell’s; he also prophetically addressed issues that continue to vex the nation today.

Though Bulosan alluded to the fight against fascism, he devoted most of his essay to the struggle within America: a struggle for economic justice and human dignity. Coming to the U.S. as a teenager in 1930, he had experienced first-hand the hardships of agricultural labor as well as the racism directed at him as a Filipino immigrant.

Addressing his readers in the plural first-person, as “we,” Bulosan wrote from the point of view of working people – individuals who didn’t view freedom as an abstract value, but as a concrete manifestation of economic just sice:

“…we are not really free unless we use what we produce. So long as the fruit of our labor is denied us, so long will want manifest itself in a world of slaves. It is only when we have plenty to eat — plenty of everything — that we begin to understand what freedom means.”

Bulosan made itclear that such freedom is not a “gift” that is philanthropically bestowed. It must, he said, be struggled for: “But sometimes we wonder if we are really a part of America. We recognize the mainsprings of American democracy in our right to form unions and bargain through them collectively…”

And he posed a challenge to the America that had been for him a less than hospitable home: “We are the mirror of what America is. If America wants us to be living and free, then we must be living and free. If we fail, then America fails.”

Today, the challenge posed by Bulosan is more sharply defined than ever, with 33 million Americans living in households that are don’t have enough food to eat, with indications pointing to a deepening crisis of homelessness, and with the extreme inequality of American society continuing to rise.

Carlos Bulosan died tragically young (mid-40s) in 1956, of pneumonia complicated by tuberculosis, but not before producing many other works, including his powerful and moving fictionalized memoir, America is in the Heart. The message in his “Freedom from Want” essay is as important to recall this Thanksgiving as is the radiant image in Rockwell’s painting.

Rockwell conveyed the joy of human gathering, a joy recognized by later artists whom he inspired to recast his Thanksgiving tableau more inclusively. Their versions honor America’s rich diversity of ethnic, racial, and gender identity and expression, expanding the representations of the holiday moment – when time seems briefly and joyfully suspended.

Bulosan, on the other hand, calls his readers to the work yet unfinished – to the journeys yet to be taken on a true road to freedom.

– Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a professor emeritus (English, Nonviolence Studies) at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona