“The Story of a Letter” is a short story by Carlos Bulosan about a letter from an absent son that occupies the minds his father and younger brother for many years. It’s in English, so they can’t read it. The father has various plans for getting someone to read it to him and carries it with him a long time. Here’s a summary of “The Story of a Letter”.
“The Story of a Letter” Summary
The narrator’s brother Berto ran away to Manila at thirteen. They got a letter from him eight years later from California. It was in English, so they couldn’t read it. His father carried it all summer. He planned to get the priest in the village to read it.
When the farm work of the summer is done, he and his father take a bamboo raft to the village. It’s midnight when they arrive but lots of people are out. The priest has died of overeating at a wedding.
His father holds the letter another year, waiting for his other son Nicasio to come home from school to read it. When the time comes, they wait in the town but Nicasio doesn’t return.
The narrator and his father plant again in the summer. They hear Nicasio has gone to America. Disappointed, the father locks the letter away and forgets it.
When the narrator is almost nine, a young man comes to the village to start a school. The farmers are happy and build a schoolhouse. On the day it opens, the narrator’s father takes him there on a carabao (water buffalo). It stops suddenly, throwing the father into a well. Some of the bigger students help him out. The father asks the teacher if he knows English. He only knows their dialect and Spanish. The narrator and is father leave.
He’s had the letter three years now, and they’re both in suspense. A typhoon sweeps away the schoolhouse soon after. The teacher marries a local and takes up farming.
The narrator feels a desire to see other places, but he won’t leave his father, who’s old. When they lose the farm, he lives in the village with his mother and two little sisters.
The narrator travels to the northern Philippines where he poses naked for American tourists. An American painter takes him to Manila, where he poses for her every morning. The experience of making a living like this makes him laugh for years after.
“The Story of a Letter” Summary, Cont’d
He goes to America where he stays in a hospital for two years. He learns to read English and is no longer afraid to be out in the world. After a year, he writes to his father to send the letter from Berto so he can translate it. It arrives six months later; he translates it and sends them back.
After being confined so long, he feels afraid again. The doctor says he can go. He was brought here when the Spanish Civil War started. With some hesitation, he leaves the hospital.
The narrator looks for his brothers in Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, without success. He goes to Seattle and comes up empty-handed as well. He works in Alaska for three months, then returns and takes a bus to Portland. Outside Tacoma, looking out the window, he’s sure he sees Berto in a tavern. He gets out at the next station and goes back but Berto is gone.
The narrator goes to California and stops at Delano, where he goes to a beer place. Near midnight, he sees Nicasio there, old and emaciated. They go to his hotel where the landlord gives him a letter from the Philippines. This is strange because no one knows where he is, but somehow it’s reached him.
It’s now ten years since Berto had written home. The original letter and his translation have been returned to him, courtesy of the postmaster. His father died before it arrived.
The narrator reads the letter that had been on their mind so long and sent him halfway around the world. He also got a letter today saying Berto was in the Navy. Nicasio is awaiting induction into the army.
He laughs and cries as he reads the letter: “Dear father, America is a great country. Tall buildings. Wide good land. The people walking. But I feel sad. I am writing you this hour of my sentimental. Your son—Berto.”
I hope this summary of “The Story of a Letter” by Carlos Bulosan was helpful.