In the following essay excerpt, Kim discusses Santos's focus on Filipino laborer exiles who came to the United States after World War II.

The theme of the immigrant as permanent exile has held a special fascination for Filipino immigrant writer Bienvenido N. Santos, whose short stories set in the Filipino immigrant community in America are attempts to give voice to the exile in Asian American literature. Santos is writing as one of them. He had come to this country as a cultural envoy immediately prior to World War II. Forced to extend his sojourn because of the war, Santos traveled widely in America. During this time, he says, he was profoundly moved by the lives of his Filipino compatriots here. Although he was supposed to work towards cultural understanding between the Philippines and the United States and to study English and American literature, he "studied instead the...