Quotation from Carlos Bulosan’s Short Story “The Romance of Magno Rubio”
“Claro looked tentatively at the money. He picked up the crispy bills on the table. He grabbed the jug of wine and went to his room.” (Bulosan, 1979, p. 34).
The above quote from the story depicts the hard economic times experienced by Claro and his fellow workers in various areas where they operated. The story enhances my experience in viewing the documentary as it provides me with the possible negative impacts of resorting to unreasonable alternatives to challenges affecting workers in an institution. Based on the story, the new bills were higher than wages that they had earned the entire month hence they could not manage to pay. In every accession, Carlo and his family members continued to accumulate new bills despite constantly receiving low wages. As a result, they resorted to other illegal means such as robbery and selling drugs to survive. Consequently, the incident is a clear reflection of the Forgotten Heroes of the United Farm Workers Movement underwent in the documentary Delano Manongs. According to the film, most of these workers were subjected to forced labor with little or no wages. In some circumstances, members would spend long hours on the farms leaving very little time to spend with their families. The poor working condition among these farmworkers resulted in the Great Grape Strike in 1965, thus creating the United Workers Union. They had to subject their authorities to work on the best strategies for improving their working conditions. Based on the presented facts, it confirmed that both the story and the film’s characters had similar challenges in their quest for economic progress. Nonetheless, I can confirm that the story enhanced my experience of watching the documentary.
Reference
Bulosan, C. (1979). The romance of Magno Rubio. Amerasia Journal, 6(1), 33−50.
Appendix
