What does it mean to be an American? Today, the answer is under debate and up for grabs. Carlos Bulosan, a Filipino poet and writer, asks a pointed question: Why are Americans so kind yet so cruel? Taking up Bulosan’s telling question, Fumitaka Matsuoka probes the meaning of American peoplehood in a time of stark division and polarization. Matsuoka explores how how Americans read and understand their history and how they treat their neighbors given the oppositional stances now consuming their culture and society. Arguing for the very soul of America, Matsuoka considers the habits of the heart that move people, the beliefs and practices that shape character and give form to social order. These are often expressed as liberty, equality, and justice. But to truly achieve a better version of these ideals, Matsuoka maintains that Americans now desperately need “counter-habits of the heart,” to be learned not least from “minority” American ethnicities who are too often treated as unaccustomed strangers. Americans are people of contradictions, both kindness and cruelty. Only when they acknowledge their history and life of contradictions can they genuinely appreciate and reclaim their soul of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
