The motions of the oceans: Circulation, displacement, expansion, and Carlos Bulosan’s <italic>America is in the Heart</italic>.

This paper identifies in Atlantic studies three fundamental “oceanic” motions and their attendant conditions of possibility that seem useful for further developing the notion of the transpacific as both a feature of and a theater for the rise of global modernity: <italic>circulation</italic>/commerce; <italic>displacement</italic>/diaspora; and <italic>expansion</italic>/empire. To demonstrate their utility, this paper shows how these dyads help bring into focus the deep transpacific currents informing the narrative substance and logic of Carlos Bulosan’s renowned autobiographical narrative, <italic>America is in the Heart</italic>. In doing so, it puts forth the notion of the “ethnic picaresque” as a way to further develop a transpacific theorization of literary and cultural production by people of Asian descent in the United States and elsewhere that moves expressly beyond the conceptual boundaries of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]