Whereas Carlos Bulosan aimed through fiction and personal testimony to advance both Filipino civil rights in the United States and the social transformation of the Philippines, Yen Le Espiritu has set herself the task of recovering life histories of Filipino Americans. Her work brings Filipino Americans of the generation following the 1934-1965 immigration hiatus graphically to life. A special strength is the representation of Filipino American women, who were scarce among immigrants before the 1934 American curb on Filipino immigration but composed more than half of the immigrants to America since liberalization in 1965. Espiritu's subjects document their changing sense of Filipino identity in the United States, much as Bulosan did as a member of the first substantial wave of immigrants.