Term Paper
History 17B
Spring 2019
Term Paper: Respond to one of the below paper topics.
Washington
--Explain how Booker T. Washington’s advice and direction given to African Americans
in Up From Slavery both complements and challenges the ideology and social structure
of the United States in the “Gilded Age” and “Progressive Era” time periods. Through his
emphasis on uplift, education, and accommodation, how is Washington reinforcing the
existing social order but also seeking to enlarge it?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Bulosan
--How do the experiences of Carlos Bulosan in America’s In the Heart demonstrate how
immigrants in early 20th century America were at once both welcome and unwelcome in
the nation? How might this contradictory experience serve to explain Bulosan’s
complicated relationship to the idea of America?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Houston and Houston
--In what ways is the internment experience of the Wakatsuki family detailed in Farewell
to Manzanar defined through an ongoing and often irreconcilable debate about loyalty?
Consider loyalties to self, family, ideals, and nation as you describe the experiences of
this family in internment.
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All papers must be 4-6 pages in length, computer-printed, and double-spaced with
one-inch margins. Use an appropriate citation style (either footnotes or internal citations).
The use of citations and further manuscript preparation information will be discussed in
lecture and explained in the Guide to Writing Papers provided. Plagiarism in any form
will not be tolerated and will result in a failing grade. If you have any questions please
consult the professor well in advance of the paper due date. You must turn in a hard copy
in class on the due date; do not email your paper to the professor or TA.
Papers are due in lecture on Monday, May 20th. No late papers will be accepted.
General Guide to Writing Papers
The following are points to consider when preparing the final draft of your paper. This guideline
is a general overview designed to help you through the process of writing your paper. If you have
specific questions about content and writing, please consult the professor or your TA.
Read the Prompt: Of course you are going to read the prompt, but do so carefully! Be sure to
respond directly and completely to the key issues outlined in the prompt. Essays that veer off
topic or fail to address these key issues will receive low grades. If you have any questions about
what the prompt is asking, be sure to consult the instructor.
Have a Thesis: Your thesis is the most important element of your paper. A thesis is an
argument synthesized through careful analysis of the evidence that directly addresses the issues
outlined in the prompt. Your thesis statement should be clear, assertive, and deeply analytical. It
should be presented in the first paragraph of the essay and establish the analytical direction your
paper will strictly follow. Imagine your thesis as a clothes line, a cord that stretches across the
scope of your essay upon which you will attach your evidence. An observation such as, “The
Wakatsuki family encountered many questions of loyalty.” is not a thesis. This is akin to telling
me the sky is blue. Your thesis must articulate the significance of the analysis you make and
exhibit an integrated assessment of the evidence. A paper without a clear thesis is not a good
paper.
Support Your Thesis: After your thesis is stated, you must support it. You do this by providing
specific evidence from your sources. Along with providing this evidence, show why these
particular details support your overall argument. Does your evidence support your thesis? If not,
you may have to modify your thesis. When you use evidence, provide proper citations.
However, use direct quotes sparingly. Your paper should center on your analysis rather than
being merely a collection of quotations from the readings. Below is an example of a footnote:
1. Carlos Buloan, America Is In The Heart (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), 186.
Use “Ibid” for subsequent citations of the same text.
Or you may use internal citations: ex. (Bulosan, 186).
Failure to cite sources is plagiarism, a form of intellectual theft that may result in a failing grade.
When You are Done, Reread Your Essay: Proofreading is a must! Papers with spelling and
punctuation errors baldly exhibit the writer’s sloppiness. But proofreading is also important in
determining if you are communicating clearly. Read your paper out loud. Have someone
unfamiliar with the material read it. Does it make sense? Also, have you supported your thesis?
Frequently, writers reach conclusions that differ from their introductions. This is often a sign that
you have given your topic thoughtful analysis. Go back and change your thesis to be consistent
with your final conclusion. Be sure that your thesis does provide that coherent, analytical line
that carries throughout your essay.
A Random Collection of Recommendations and Rules Designed to Aid in Producing Polished Academic
Writing
(Or, How to Help Professor Hawkins Hold On to What Hair He May Have Left)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Book titles, film titles, the names of newspapers, journals, and magazines (ex., The New York Times) all go in
italics. The titles of articles (in both academic journals and the mainstream press) go in quotation marks (ex.
“The Great Debate Over Slavery in the Antebellum South”).
*Follow a consistent citation style. Do not mix internal citations and footnotes. Footnotes always go in a
slightly smaller font than the text of your paper. Only provide a Works Cited page if explicitly required.
*Please do not refer to a non-fiction book as a “novel.” There has been a recent epidemic of this in all essays I
read (an observation shared by my colleagues). It truly drives me nuts. Just because a book is long and does not
contain pictures, does not make it a novel. Novels are works of fiction (ex. Harry Potter, The Shining). Most of
the works you read in a history course are non-fiction, historiographic works.
*Avoid contractions (can’t, don’t) in formal academic writing. This will help avoid any missteps regarding “its”
vs. “it’s.”
*Know the difference between plural (“the cultural of slaves”) and possessive (“the slaves’ culture”). (See
above regarding “it’s and its”)
*Avoid clichés (ex.“at the end of the day”), slang, and colloquialisms (ex.“the ups and downs of life”) in formal
academic writing.
*Avoid block quotes. Paraphrase a long quote or parse it down. If you absolutely must include a long quote and
insist on block quotes (but again, you should not—Don’t Do It), single-space it and put it in a smaller font than
the text.
*Always write out an author’s name and the complete book title at first reference in your paper. After that first
reference it is appropriate to refer to the author by his/her last name only and you may then use a shortened
version (omitting the subtitle) of the book title.
*When referring to the United States as a noun (ex. “the history of the United States” “He traveled to the United
States”) you must write out “United States.” But, when used as a modifier or adjective, you may abbreviate
(exs. U.S. history, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. trade relations).
*Never include “etc.” or ex cetera in a formal paper.
*Never state, “In this paper I will….” This is not a thesis statement but a promise (sometimes later unfulfilled)
of something to come. It serves more as a table of contents than an argument. State your argument in your
introduction. Don’t say what you will do—Do it!
*Contextualize all quotes (ex. Beth Bailey argues, “….”). Never begin a sentence with a quote out of context or
an unattributed quote. Attribute the writer or speaker before using the quote.
*Always proofread your paper before submission.
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bryan.harijanto@gmail.com
AMERICA IS IN
THE HEART
CARLOS BULOSAN
AMERICA IS IN THE HEART
SUPERSUMMARY
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PLOT OVERVIEW
3
CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSES
5
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 10-12
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-18
Chapters 19-21
Chapters 22-25
Chapters 26-28
Chapters 29-31
Chapters 32-34
Chapters 37-41
Chapters 42-49
5
7
9
11
13
15
18
20
22
24
27
29
32
MAJOR CHARACTER ANALYSIS
37
Allos
Father
Mother
Amado
Macario
Eileen Odell
37
37
37
37
38
38
THEMES
39
SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS
41
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IMPORTANT QUOTES
43
ESSAY TOPICS
49
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PLOT OVERVIEW
America is in the Heart is an autobiography told in four parts. A coming of age
story, it begins in the Philippines, ends in America, and spans decades. It is similar
to other social activism classics such as Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, but is
unique in that it portrays the plight of Filipino immigrants in America during the first
half of the twentieth century. Themes of literacy, tradition and heritage, violence,
organized labor, and identity are explored throughout.
Author Carlos Bulosan—who goes by Allos for most of the book—is an illiterate
peasant child in the Philippine town Binalonan. His awareness of his family is
limited to impressions. His father is a hard-working, sad man who is forced to watch
the dwindling of the land he is allowed to farm. His mother is a long-suffering,
perennially pregnant woman with a generous heart but no real aspirations beyond
survival. Allos has brothers whom he has never even met during the first part of the
book.
Allos’s travels—sometimes he will visit three or more towns in the space of a
page—expose him to the middle class, a privileged group of elites who despise the
peasants. He is consumed with a desire to educate himself, but knows that this is
unlikely if he remains in the Philippines. Eventually, after his father loses all of the
family land, Allos goes to America.
Unfortunately, America is not what he had imagined. Filipinos are not only looked
down upon by much of American society, at least in California, but they are
despised. They cannot become naturalized American citizens, which hampers their
upward mobility and aspirations. Allos begins an endless series of trips as he
searches for work, hope, and his scattered family members. The destinations of his
trips rarely matter. Rather, his frantic, aimless wandering shows an utter lack of
roots and purpose in his new country.
With the help of inspirational acquaintances, Allos eventually becomes educated
enough, largely through reading, to write and broaden his perspective of what his
life might be. However, his intellectual horizons are constrained by the frequent
acts of violence that he witnesses and occasionally participates in. Each time he
makes a breakthrough in his education, or his view of himself and his people
begins to improve, he sees something, or experiences something, that sets him
back.
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America is in the Heart is the story of Allos’s search for identity. Until he stops
moving and decides on a course of action for his mind and for his life, he is unable
to gain any true sense of self. He is simply a body in motion, subject to all of the
vicissitudes and whims of life in early twentieth-century America.
Aa the book concludes, Allos is on the firmest ground of his life, even though he is
battling a serious illness. He succeeds in his quest to become a published writer.
Not only that, his writing is of an activist, political bent. He finally finds a way to fight
against a corrupt system that does not require him to bleed or to shed blood.
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CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSES
Chapters 1-3
Chapter 1 Summary
Allos remembers when he was five years old. He is in the field at the family farm in
the town of Binalonan, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. He sees a man
walking towards them. It is his brother Leon, who has returned from the war. Until
that point, he had only seen Leon in pictures. The narrator, looking back from an
adult’s perspective, discusses the tenuous revolutionary spirit pervading the
Philippines. There is tension between the old and their heritage, and the new and
their activist spirit.
Leon settles back into family life and is soon married, a joyous event for the family
and town. However, when the newlyweds reach the last stage of the wedding—a
virginity ceremony—things go horribly wrong. Leon carries his wife to their small
home, which is where he will test her virginity. If she is a virgin, black smoke will
come from the chimney. When this does not happen, the townspeople, who were
friendly moments before, drag them out, tie them both to trees, and savagely whip
and beat them. Allos cuts them down and remembers Leon carrying his bleeding
wife into their home again. The couple leave for another part of Luzon shortly after.
An undisclosed amount of time passes before Allos sees them again when he is on
a bus, en route to leaving for America. At that point, Leon has many children and
lives in a small grass house. Allos waves good-bye and thinks how strange it is that
Leon went to fight a war in a strange land.
Chapter 2 Summary
Allos discusses life on the farm. He mentions his other brothers—Amado, Luciano,
and Macario—who have gone to other towns. After Leon leaves, their father brings
Amado back from town to work on the farm. They work hard to raise money to
bring Macario home. He is a high school student in another province. They dream
of bringing him home to become a schoolteacher to help support the family.
Macario visits for a month, then wants to return to school, but money is running out.
Their father sells one of their few hectares of corn to send him back. Macario
keeps asking for more money from school, and threatens to quit if they don’t send
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it. The father sells more land and enters into a moneylending deal, which grants
him more land. However, if he cannot pay, they will lose it all.
During a rainstorm, the family’s carabao—a domesticated buffalo they use as a
work animal—becomes stuck. Amado beats it as he tries to free it from the mud.
His father arrives, takes the stick, and beats Amado with it. As he runs away,
Amado turns to wave good-bye to Allos. He is leaving the farm.
Later, Allos goes to live with his mother. He sees Amado, who gives him a book. He
says that if he learns to read it, he will take him to school, which fascinates Allos.
He says that he has no hope of going to school beyond the third grade, but he
loves the idea of learning and its possibilities.
Chapter 3 Summary
It is nearly the end of Macario’s school year. It is also a national election year. They
go to a market square so that their father can vote. It is also where Marcario will
arrive. When he steps off a bus in a white suit, Allos thinks it is him, but isn’t sure
because he has never met him. Marcario quickly says that Allos should cut his long
hair. He does not look like a gentleman. Allos is ashamed.
They go to their mother’s house and their father kills a goat for dinner. Marcario
says he has three months left in his studies and needs more money. His mother
tries to make him understand how poor they are, but his father says he will sell
their remaining land. He enters into another dubious usury agreement. Allos
describes his father’s faith: he never believed that he would be cheated.
In the summer, they hear that peasants in another province have revolted against
their landlords, who grow richer each year while the peasants grow poorer. Others
follow; however, the revolts are unorganized and easily (and brutally) put down by
the government. This is the situation when Marcario finishes school and finally
begins teaching. He is soon earning the highest salary in town. This means that his
father can finally relax. The family will be provided for.
Then a letter arrives saying that the church is taking the remaining land away from
them. They owe the moneylender too much, even with Macario’s salary. As
Chapter 3 ends, the family has failed to hold onto any of their land.
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Chapters 1-3 Analysis
As Bulosan reflects on the conflicted political and economic situations of his
childhood in the Philippines during the early twentieth century, two major themes
emerge: the inequalities between the lives of the peasants and their landowners,
and the importance of education. The simple fact that Macario is attending
school—at great sacrifice to his family—is enough to practically guarantee him a
prominent position and salary in his community.
Chapters 1-3 also lay the foundation for the changes to come between the young
and politically passionate, and the older generations who cling to tradition and
heritage. Allos is a passive character at the beginning of the story. The tragedy of
the family losing their land will soon galvanize him into action.
Chapters 4-6
Chapter 4 Summary
Now that the land is lost, his father has no choice but to work for other farmers, a
humiliation for him. When Allos’s maternal grandmother dies, they are allowed to
cultivate her small piece of land, but it is stony and growing anything is difficult. He
sends Allos to live with his mother, saying that he will call for him if he needs help.
Allos believes he is now saying goodbye to his childhood.
In town, he works for three months on a highway construction crew. He nearly
drowns in the river while working and comes back to consciousness two days later.
Macario comes home and reads Robinson Crusoe to him. This is the beginning of
their intellectual life together. Allos then begins to help his mother with her small
trading business. He sees that she is a fierce negotiator, but is also capable of
great tenderness to the poor, even though she herself is without money.
Chapter 5 Summary
Allos and his mother go to a new town to sell. At the market, a young, beautiful girl
with two servants walks through. Everyone pays attention to her, but Allos knows
she is there to be seen, not to buy. She calls his mother a “poor woman” and then
purposefully knocks a basket of beans off of her table. This is his first clash with the
middle class and their arrogance. He vows never to grovel to them. On their final
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trip to sell in that town, they are stuck in the river during a rainstorm. His mother
falls, and all of their beans wash away, leaving them with no profit that day.
His father has managed to take back the farm, but still has several payments to
make. Allos and his mother begin visiting a new town, San Manuel. One day, they
see Igorots in the market. The Igorots are a collective group of natives living in the
highlands, and come down into the towns only once per year. They make enough
money in San Manuel that Allos’s mother says he can go to school. He says he
wants to be a doctor.
That night, Allos’s sister Irene begins to scream with pain in her stomach. She
begins to bleed from her mouth and ears and soon dies. In the aftermath, he
decides that yes, he absolutely will become a doctor.
Chapter 6 Summary
Misfortunes begin to befall the family. A young girl arrives at the house with a trunk
and refuses to leave. She has a relationship with Macario that is vague to Allos. She
leaves, but returns quickly, to the outrage of Macario. He does not want to marry
her because it will mean he has to quit helping to pay for the installments of the
farm. His mother gets pregnant again, but Amado returns unexpectedly and is able
to help pay for things. The new baby girl is named Francisca.
While working cutting coconuts, Allos falls and breaks an arm and leg. While
recovering, Marcario reads the New Testament to him. He compares Moses to a
man named José Rizal. Allos says he wants to be like them and fight for his family.
Marcario says that if he moves to a place called Mindanao he will not have to marry
the girl, but she follows him to Mindanao, and soon Macario stops sending money,
even though there is only one payment left. Their mother gets pregnant again.
Amado loses his job. Their father knows that it is the end of the family. Allos
continues to go to school and to read, knowing that soon he will have to stop and
go back to work.
Chapter 4-6 Analysis
Chapters 4-6 reinforce the notions of class division that were hinted at in the first
three chapters. People in the middle class are not only more privileged than the
peasants, they are often vicious towards them. Many of the peasants, such as
Allos’s mother, seem to think that they deserve no better.
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These chapters also suggest the constant threat of violence and death in the lives
of Philippine peasants. Irene’s sudden death is astonishing, not only in its speed,
but also because she could have been helped if they had had access to medical
care. Any disease or injury bears the potential to be catastrophic if allowed to
spread or fester.
Allos’s burgeoning love of learning and literature provide the main glimpses of
hope and optimism. As tragedies threaten to consume his family, he continues to
keep an eye on his future. If he is to escape his situation, education will be the key,
and he believes that America is where his education will truly begin.
Chapters 7-9
Chapter 7 Summary
Allos’s legs begin to swell, and he has to leave school. It takes him a long time to
get well. As he plays with his new sister, they become closer. His father is rarely
home. He has had to hire himself out to work on other people’s farms again.
Luciano, another of Allos’s brothers, returns home from military service in the
Philippine Scouts. One day he brings a wounded bird home and tells Allos that it is
his duty to keep it alive.
Allos tries everything he can think of, but the bird dies. He is inconsolable. Luciano
teaches him how to make snares to catch more birds. They never eat them, but try
to make pets out of them. Allos recalls this as the most pleasant time in his life.
Luciano is responsible for helping Allos see that there is beauty in the world, and
that objects are more than the functions they might serve. Luciano is expecting his
pension from the American military, but it never arrives.
Their father returns and tells Luciano that the moneylenders have finally taken their
land for good. Luciano says there is nothing to be done, and begins to cough; he is
getting ill. When his pension finally arrives, he says he is going into politics. He
becomes the Mayor of Binalonan. But he is unhappy. He encourages Allos to keep
reading good books and says maybe he can become a journalist. Years later Allos
receives a letter telling him that Luciano has died of tuberculosis. That night he
vows to become a writer.
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Chapter 8 Summary
There are more rumors of peasant uprisings in the provinces. Allos’s father’s land is
taken away from him. He spends three weeks in provincial court fighting for the
restoration of his farm, but he loses and is soon driven to drunkenness. His mother
has a new baby, Marcela. Allos and his mother go to Tayug to help with the rice
harvest. Men come to the fields and pass out pamphlets while making impassioned
political speeches. Allos says sees one of them, Felix Razon, in America later. They
are told they have to leave the fields but don’t understand why.
Days later, Felix and men with black armbands return. They persuade Allos’s
mother to sell them a partial share of her field. The men with black armbands are
from the radical Colorum Party, an embittered group of anarchists. Felix says that a
revolt is coming and Allos and his mother leave, but they don’t get far. In town, the
radicals attack the government buildings and Allos and his mother witness the
fighting. When they reach Binalonan they already have heard of the uprising. The
government changes hands four times in the following days of fighting. Allos vows
to leave, but to return when he is able to help the peasants.
Chapter 9 Summary
Luciano is getting deeper into politics. Allos’s father is no longer doing much of
anything. When Allos is thirteen years old, he tells his mother and father that he is
leaving. He can no longer bear the crushing sadness and lack of opportunity. He
says he is going to Baguio to earn money. His father and Luciano walk him to a bus
stop. As his bus leaves, Allos says good-bye to his childhood. Two years later, he
will go to America.
At the Baguio marketplace, Allos cannot find work. An American tourist gives him
ten centavos to undress in front of her. A rice trader finally hires him to carry heavy
sacks. Then he meets an American woman who works at the library, Miss Mary
Strandon. She hires him to cook and clean for her. He meets an Igorot houseboy,
Dalmacio, who lives nearby and works as a servant. Dalmacio says he will teach
Allos English so he can go to America.
Dalmacio reads him a story about Abraham Lincoln. Allos can’t believe that a poor
boy became the president of America. He asks Miss Strandon about Lincoln, and
then, as his reading improves, he begins reading about him. He enjoys his time at
the library. The proximity to books enriches his mind. A year passes, then most of
another year. Allos is homesick. When he leaves, Miss Strandon says she would
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like him to visit her one day in Spencer, Iowa. One day, he will visit Spencer, but
she will already have been dead for ten years.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Chapters 7-9 focus on the political strife facing the country—and the peasant
class’s ignorance of many of the uprising’s particulars—and the development of
Allos’s aesthetic sense. The revolts show a country in frequent turmoil. Peasants
who are brave enough to revolt are no match for government soldiers.
Amidst the conflict, Allos learns that beauty and knowledge can exist for their own
sake. The kindness of Luciano towards the birds shows Allos that not everything
has to serve a function—or possibly, that beauty itself may be the highest function
of an object or animal. When he meets Miss Strandon and is exposed to the
library—and to the story of Abraham Lincoln—Allos begins to see what might be
possible. Before these chapters, his lofty aspirations have the ring of childish
naiveté, but once he learns that an uneducated boy named Lincoln—who Allos
sees as equivalent to the peasants—could become the president, he begins to see
the value of planning, learning, and commitment.
Chapters 10-12
Chapter 10 Summary
Allos goes home to Binalonan and sees people on their way to church, both
peasants and the middle class. If the peasants get in their way, the wealthier
people whip them and spit on them. When he gets to his house, it is empty and
dark. He does not know what has happened to his family. A sudden clamor erupts
in the town and soon he hears people shouting “Happy New Year!” He goes out
into the crowd, and Luciano finds him.
Luciano says that their father sold the house months earlier and bought a small
piece of land in Mangusmana. Their mother and the girls are there and their father
is very ill. The next morning Allos walks there and thinks of Leon on the way. He
imagines the feeling of homecoming Leon experienced after returning from the war
was similar to what he now feels. Everyone is glad to see him, even his father, who
is indeed ill.
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A cousin invites Allos to a dance. He dances with a girl he likes, as does his cousin,
but in the morning, the cousin appears and says they have to leave town. He is
worried that the girls will want to marry them. That afternoon when he goes home,
Francisca says that their mother wants him to leave for a while. The two village
girls, who are sisters, are talking to his mother. He goes to a place called Lingayen
with his cousin.
Chapter 11 Summary
Allos moves into a boarding house with fourteen other boys and begins working
for a fisherman. Despite their illiteracy, he finds much to admire in the fishermen:
they are wise and hard-working; they know the sea inside and out; their knowledge
is valuable, though it doesn’t come from books.
When fishing season ends, Allos agrees to go to school with his cousin. His English
teacher sees Allos as a chance to strike back at the privileged classes. Because
Allos is a peasant, the teacher gives him higher marks than the other students,
even though he hasn’t earned them. He scores so highly—fraudulently—on a
critical exam that he
acquires modest fame, which soon becomes a nuisance. He is happy when fishing
season resumes.
One night he hears a baby crying. It has been left in the schoolyard. When he gives
it to his landlady, he sees a student named Veronica inside. Veronica has always
treated him with hostility. The landlady urges him to leave, saying that she doesn’t
want him to get in trouble. Allos does not understand, but he returns to Binalonan.
Chapter 12 Summary
Luciano is married now. Allos meets his wife and daughter. His mother, father, and
the girls have gone to live again in San Manuel. They go to see their old house and
learn that a gambler has bought it. Allos promises to come back and buy it one
day. The next morning, he visits his family in San Manuel. After saying good-bye—
he is truly ready to visit America—he returns to bid farewell to Luciano. Then he
leaves on a train for Manila.
On the train, Allos meets a university student named Juan Cablaan. He gives Allos
advice on how to not look like a peasant, and gives him a pair of shoes. After
settling into another boarding house, Allos goes to watch a cockfight. He is
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surprised to see Juan appear. Juan says he visits the slums to remember his
heritage sometimes. He asks Allos if he has ever been with a girl. He shows Allos a
prostitute and asks if he wants to try her. Allos runs away and cries in the
boardinghouse. The next morning, he gets on a boat leaving for America.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
The collapse of the family life is complete. Allos no longer feels any pressure to
remain. Chapters 10-12 show that their unfortunate cycle will replicate itself
endlessly. His mother will have more children. His father will grow increasingly ill.
The government will continue to change hands. Education will never be prioritized
among the peasants, except as a means to have more money. While leaving Manila
on the boat, Allos’s ambitions become a reality. He, at least, will have a chance to
forge his own path. If he had remained behind, his path would largely have been
chosen for him, as was the case with most members of his family.
Chapters 13-15
Chapter 13 Summary
In the steerage compartment beneath the ship, Allos begins to second guess his
decisions. To cheer up, he and some of the others go topside to sit in the sun. This
angers the first-class passengers. The peasants are driven below decks again and
are not allowed to come back up until they have passed Hawaii.
There is an outbreak of meningitis that primarily affects those below decks in
steerage. The sickness and confinement are so extreme that Allos feels he will go
mad. He meets a boy named Marcelo who is from San Manuel. Their regional bond
is familiar enough to comfort Allos. While sneaking into the sunlight for relief, Allos
hears a young white woman call them “half-naked savages.” It is a sentiment he
says he will hear oft repeated in the United States.
Allos arrives in Seattle with twenty cents. They stay in a hotel that night with other
Filipinos. In the morning, Marcelo receives a telegram stating that his brother died
one week earlier. As he cries, the hotel owner bursts in and asks for payment. They
have no money. A man named Jake enters and says that they are all going to
Alaska. He has sold them to work in the fish canneries there for five dollars each.
The work is miserable and their overseers are brutal drunks.
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Chapter 14 Summary
Allos and the other workers return to Seattle when the season ends. They are
immediately told that they barely made any money, after the shady accountants
tally up a bunch of charges that they have accrued. Marcelo and Allos go to a
dance hall, where a fight erupts over one of the girls. Marcelo is dancing with her
when one of her admirers hits him with a lead pipe. There is a gunshot and the club
erupts. One of Marcelo’s friends is hit. He escapes and hides in a church down the
street where he meets a man who offers him a job. They drive to a small town
called Moxee City and begin working as apple pickers. The leader of their crew is a
shifty man named Cornelio Páez.
There is a lot of tension among the Filipinos on the crew, but they share a common
enemy: the white people of Yakima Valley, who would love to drive them out. Allos
becomes friends with an old-timer named Julio. One day Páez goes to get their
paychecks and never comes back. Julio beats Páez’s bookkeeper, whom no one
trusts, and tells him that he better get that money. Seeing this level of violence in
America is perversely comfortable to Allos. It is familiar.
One night during a party on their employer’s lawn, a group of armed white men
attack. One of the girls is shot. Allos jumps into the fight but is pulled away by Julio.
By morning they are in the desert. Allos tells Julio that he wants to go to California,
but Julio says it is too hard to be Filipino there. He has experienced it. They take a
train to Sunnyside, and Julio says he is leaving for just a moment. He never returns.
Allos realizes that Julio has done him a favor by trying to keep him away from
California. He promises himself that he will never be unkind to another Filipino.
Chapter 15 Summary
Allos is riding on the train when a dozen men jump on. He notices that there is a
girl with them. Later, in the dark, he sees one of them assaulting her. When Allos
gets up to help her someone knocks him unconscious. When he wakes, the men
jump off and the girl sobs, looking for her brother, but he is gone. When they get to
Portland, they get off the train and walk together. They board a train to California
and Allos falls asleep.
When he awakes, there is a black boy playing a harmonica. Allos stares because
he has never seen a person with black skin. The boy tells him that they are near
Reno, Nevada, far from California. Allos boards a new train for Stockton, California,
where he has been told that there are thousands of Filipinos. He is in a gambling
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house drinking tea when a Chinese man shoots a Filipino man. As Allos runs down
the street, he sees a burning building. It is the Filipino Federation building. A
Filipino man tells Allos that it is burning because the town is controlled by Chinese
gambling lords. His name is Claro. He takes Allos to a restaurant that he is
watching and cooks for him. He tells Allos to steer clear of the Chinese whenever
he can. Allos gets on another train.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
Disappointment is at the heart of Chapters 13-15. Allos arrives in America, but his
romantic ideas fail to result in anything good for himself. He quickly realizes that his
life will be exploited by unscrupulous men if he does not learn how to take care of
himself. His experiences in Alaska, Seattle, and Stockton show that Filipinos in
America are viewed both as commodities and vermin, creatures to be used,
shunted aside, or eradicated with impunity.
There is a feeling of helplessness in all that he does. He cannot stop the girl from
being hurt. He cannot navigate the train system without accidentally heading to
Reno. The simple act of drinking tea in a gambling house is interrupted by violence
and gunshots. His new existence in America is tenuous and he will have to rely
heavily on other Filipinos for support. As long as he continues to meet Filipinos
who have his best interest at heart, he will have chances to grow, but it is obvious
that there are no guarantees for his prosperity or safety.
Chapters 16-18
Chapter 16 Summary
Allos is afraid of being alone on the trains, but seeing how dangerous the people
who ride the trains can be, he is also relieved. When the train stops near Niles, he
hides in a grape vineyard from three detectives. He soon boards another train to
San José, then exits and takes another train that is headed south. He eventually
arrives in San Luis Obispo, where he finds a Filipino named Doro who takes him to
the center of their community. Allos sees the familiar huts where prostitutes do
business. Doro asks him if he wants to ride with him to Lompoc. On the way, they
are stopped by white detectives who search the car. Doro says they think every
Filipino is a pimp, and they’re searching the car to see if they have a white woman.
Allos realizes that American society hates Filipinos, and in turn, many Filipinos like
Doro come to hate American society.
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In Lompoc, Allos sees a man in a gambling house and follows him. Something
about the man draws him. When he follows him into another house, someone hits
him, but before he can do too much damage, Allos recognizes his brother, Amado,
and cries for help. Amado asks him questions to prove that he is who he says he is,
then embraces him. Amado calls Allos by his Christian name, Carlos. He and his
companion, Alfredo, are bootleggers. Their world is brutal and dreary to Allos, and
he knows he will not be able to stay long. Amado tells him that he never should
have come to America. Allos is heartbroken at how small and unhappy his brother
seems. He asks God to make sure that American never changes him the way it has
changed Amado.
Chapter 17 Summary
Allos arrives in Los Angeles. As he walks the streets, hungry and cold, he thinks he
sees his brother Macario, but it isn’t him. Allos wonders if his entire life will simply
be flight from one fear to the next. He goes to a Filipino poolroom and talks with a
man. Two detectives enter and shoot a Filipino boy in the back. Most of the people
in the room go back to their game. Others wonder why the boy was shot. A man
tells Allos that the detectives sometimes shoot Filipino’s for fun. Allos says if they
beat him, he will kill them. Then he sees Macario.
Allos asks him why the boy was killed. Macario says the he will understand one
day, and calls him Carlos. He takes him to a hotel where there is a wedding party in
progress. Everyone urges Allos to drink, but he won’t. He and Macario walk the
streets and Allos is unsure of how to express the love he feels for his brother. They
return to the hotel and lie down to sleep amidst the unconscious partygoers. Over
the next week Allos is weighed down by the cynicism of Macario and his friends.
They are hopeless and it quickly exhausts him.
Chapter 18 Summary
When Leon, one of the men in the house, dies, the landlord makes them leave.
Macario, a friend named Nick, and Allos move to Hope Street, which is a red-light
district. But their lease expires soon as they have no money to stay longer. They
sneak onto a bus without paying, and two black men behind them take the blame.
Allos feels guilty but it is a good lesson: minorities are always persecuted when
there is a misunderstanding.
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Allos works when he can, but every day is full of loneliness, hunger, and pain. Then
he meets a man named Estevan, a starving Filipino who dreams of being a
published writer. He is the first writer Allos has known, but Estevan jumps out of a
window, killing himself. Allos takes a story that Estevan had written about the
Philippines and carries it with him for many years.
Macario gets a job keeping house for a movie director and starts making good
money, but Allos feels guilty about letting his brother pay for everything, especially
when he sees how rich the people are for whom Macario is working. What looks
like a high salary to the Filipinos is nothing to the Americans. Allos overhears the
men in the library talking about how all Filipinos are sex-crazed and opium addicts.
Afterwards, he goes upstairs and sees the lady of the house, naked, admiring
herself in a mirror. She yells at him to get out and he leaves. He is furious that
Macario has indentured himself to such people.
Chapters 16-18 Analysis
In Chapters 16-18, Allos struggles to find a sense of community with his own people
in America. Ironically, the Filipino situation, if anything, is even more violent in
America than it was in the Philippines. Crime and destitution are the backbones of
their industry in America. Because white society looks down on them so
shamefully, it is unlikely that their aspirations will amount to much. It is difficult to
advance within a system that is predisposed to reject them. Allos feels a small
solace in each Filipino community, but cannot afford to trust anyone but family.
Violence underlies everything, and his life is becoming a relentless series of aches
and regrets.
The writer Estevan provides a glimmer of hope, even though he commits suicide.
When he speaks of becoming a great writer, Allos recognizes his passion, because
he feels it as well. However, while Estevan remained unpublished, though driven to
write, Allos will not suffer the same fate. Years later, when he reads the story
Estevan wrote, it will be a metric to gauge how much sharper his own intellect has
become.
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Chapters 19-21
Chapter 19 Summary
A mixed-race marriage—a Filipino man and a Caucasian woman—occurs in
Pasadena. Because Filipinos are considered mongoloids, this is illegal according to
California statutes. Anti-Filipino sentiment is high in the aftermath when Allos
arrives in Sand Diego with his new friend, José. He is quickly beaten several times.
They take a train to a small town called Holtville where they hear that a Filipino
labor organizer has been found dead. Allos wants to leave immediately but José
convinces him to work through the season. One night, a Filipino man enters a
restaurant with his American wife and baby. The owner calls him names and the
Filipino beats him. However, the white men in the restaurant assault the Filipino
and thrash him until he is nearly dead.
Allos and José leave for Bakersfield with a man named Frank. They work for
several weeks before hearing that a Filipino camp has been burned. There are
rumors that white men are coming to attack them. They make it to the freight yards
but the train cars are already full. Detectives are pulling men off of the train and
beating them with blackjacks. José tries to escape and falls from the train. When
Frank and Allos find him, one of his feet has been severed and the other is
dangling by a thread of flesh. An old man picks them up and takes them to a
hospital. Allos is surprised at the kindness they are shown there. Doctors practice
their craft despite the race of their patients.
Allos takes trains to Fresno, Idaho, and Montana before settling briefly in Helena.
He sees a man named Pete beating his wife, Myra, after suspecting that she is
cheating on him. Allos tries to defend her but Pete knocks him unconscious. When
he awakes, they have reconciled, but her lover comes in and begins shooting at
them. Allos and a friend named Alfred jump into a car and drive west. Allos reflects
that he is headed back to his beginnings in America, having made no real
progress.
Chapter 20 Summary
Allos reflects on the brutality and tenderness of the Filipinos in America, and
wonders how much responsibility American society shares in shaping them. He
travels to Seattle again and commits his first deliberately dishonest act: he steals
the sheets from a cheap hotel and sells them. He feels no guilt. Allos witnesses a
picket line and is given 25 cents to hold a sign and march. The strike is soon called
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off and he does not think of it again for a while. Near Chinatown a man gives him a
ticket and an address for a place that will give him free food and lodging. It is a
shelter.
He has difficulty sleeping in the room with all of the men, but the food is satisfying.
One night a man begins caressing his legs and Allos runs into the street. He
boards a train to California but gets off at Klamath Falls, Oregon. In a restaurant,
two detectives enter, grab him, and interrogate him. They beat him badly when he
says he is Filipino and then leave him in a cell. It all seems completely senseless. In
the morning, they force him to walk to the California border and then leave him.
After three days of walking he catches a train to San Francisco, but then he quickly
leaves for the small town of Guadalupe.
He meets a man named Cortez who connects him with a farm crew for the
cauliflower picking season. The work is hard but not unbearable. One night, a
worker named Benigno invites him to the bunkhouse for an evening of fun. They
pin him down while a Mexican woman tends to him sexually. When it ends, he runs
from the house, ashamed.
Chapter 21 Summary
Allos returns to Lompoc when the season ends. He joins a lettuce crew and then
stays on to pick winter peas. Amado is there, and is increasingly involved in crime.
He drinks and cheats, and Allos begins to lose respect for him. One night while
working in the kitchen at the Opal Café, Allos is mocked by a businessman for
reading books. When he protests that he reads them to escape from the lurid
reality of the town, the man hits him with a bottle. Allos grabs a knife and gets him
to back away. Mr. Opal fires Allos, who then goes into the street screaming that he
will kill the white man.
Allos’s cousin sends him a letter from the Philippines. His father has died. This is a
turning point for Allos, who now believes that love is an illusion. He agrees to give
in to hate, to teach America a lesson for its harsh treatment of him. His friend Max
asks him for a gun. Allos watches him mug a Japanese man and take his money.
He begins accompanying Max to commit crimes every night, then has the idea to
rob a bank. First, they go to San Luis Obispo to have fun. While they are there, Max
shoots a man who was sleeping with his wife. Terrified, Allos takes a train to New
Mexico.
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Chapters 19-21 Analysis
The glimmers of hope from previous chapters are all but snuffed out in chapters 1921. Allos cannot reconcile what he calls the tenderness and brutality of the Filipino
community. His attempts to learn, to distance himself from the criminal and violent
elements of America seem naïve to him at this point. He commits his first,
deliberate dishonest act and feels nothing. A numbing takes place, which becomes
more obvious when he begins tagging along with Max, a hardened criminal.
Although Allos’s participation is not enthusiastic, he is not sufficiently revolted by
Max’s actions (until the shooting near the end of Chapter 21) to leave him, but
neither does he benefit from them in any real way. The foundation of Allos’s
aversion to sex, prostitutes, and drinking are not yet clear, but they are the
indulgences that most of the criminals blow their money on.
Chapters 22-25
Chapter 22 Summary
In Santa Fe, Allos receives a letter from Amado, who is serving a jail sentence in
Santa Barbara. He gets on another train and returns to California. He calls Macario
to ask for legal advice and is shocked to learn that Filipinos cannot practice law in
the state. Amado serves six months for being implicated in a Lompoc robbery. Allos
feels that he should stay near him and spends the six months working grueling jobs
nearby. He continues to think that his life is without a plan and without meaning.
Although he is simply in motion, he does not see this as a negative.
When Amado gets out of jail, Allos gives him money to start a restaurant. It does
well for a while, but then has to close. Allos learns something valuable from
watching Amado: he takes pleasure, first and foremost, in his friends. Allos
continues to wander and work in different towns at various menial jobs. When he
meets Judith, who has books, he is thrilled to spend time with her and to study
literature. Soon he is working in a restaurant where, defending a Filipino man from
abuse, he gets fired. He says good-bye to Judith and leaves town.
Chapter 23 Summary
In Pismo Beach, he lives with Mariano in a cabin. When one of their companions
dies of tuberculosis, Mariano burns the cabin down and Allos returns to Seattle. He
finds Julio, who gives him a lesson in gambling and picking pockets. Allos says he
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wants to work, not steal. He goes to a gambling house and plays a game called PiQ. An elderly man leaves after losing his money, then returns with a gun and
begins shooting. By the time the police come, he has killed eight people and
wounded sixteen using the gun and a knife.
The next day Allos takes a bus to Los Angeles, then a train to San Francisco. He
has money to rent a room, but all of the hotels refuse him. He goes to a clubhouse
and plays Pi-Q, winning money through skill and cheating. Allos reflects that he is
becoming hard and uncaring. He takes a Mexican girl to a room with intentions of
having sex with her, only to be interrupted by his friend Frank. He returns to
Stockton and writes a long letter to Macario. In a giddy flush, he realizes that he
can write understandable English. Now, at last, he can express himself in writing.
Allos claims that no one will ever be able to silence him again.
Chapter 24 Summary
Allos wakes full of conviction for his writing. He walks to the house where Max said
he shot his wife’s lover. There, he meets Pascual, a socialist and a lawyer, who
gives him a briefcase. Pascual has started a newspaper and is passionate about
truth in journalism. Pascual’s friend José had helped start a Filipino union. Allos
travels the streets with Pascual, who encourages him to write news stories about
everything he sees. Slowly, Allos hones his writing skills. Pascual sees writing as an
act of fighting, and his conviction is infectious. Pascual has a stroke and his legs
become paralyzed. José and Allos take over the editorial work in the aftermath.
One day they go to Pismo Beach to try to sell advertisement. They meet a girl
named Chiye who takes them for a ride in her car. That night they sleep in a rented
cabin. Chiye wakes up crying, saying that her husband is waiting for her. José and
Allos leave, walking to San Obispo. Pascual’s wife tells them that the pea pickers
are striking in Pismo Beach. José is arrested for participating in the strike, but is
released shortly afterwards. He tells Allos that he needs to tell him the story of his
life in America, starting from the beginning.
Chapter 25 Summary
Pascual’s condition is worse every day. He dies after telling Allos that they must
always write for the workers, to improve their situation. After he dies, Allos takes a
bus to Los Angeles. He finds that Macario and Nick have started a literary
magazine with a man named Felix. They spend long nights talking about the
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promises and perils of America, which they see as a great land of opportunity that
grind them to dust if they let it.
Chapters 22-25 Analysis
Allos’s intellectual kindling is the centerpiece of Chapters 22-25. As the violence in
his life grows, he feels liberated now that he is committed to working with his mind
and his pen. Although the socialist and political ideas of the men he meets in these
chapters are vague and abstract to him at the time, he blossoms in the company of
passionate minds. It is Pascual’s insistence that they write with “blood and thunder”
(183) that allows Allos to turn his self-loathing into something constructive. The
moment when he realizes that self-hatred is unnatural is a major turning point. As
Pascual languishes and then dies, Allos inherits some of his passion and sense of
mission. His life is not planned out, but it has now been given a structure that will
mean more than his previous, aimless train hopping.
Chapters 26-28
Chapter 26 Summary
Allos meditates on the fact that what he calls the “old world” (193) will die.
Everything will pass away, including the stifling conditions that he arose from. The
next few months are the first of his true intellectual freedom. Their magazine, The
New Tide, comes out. José and Allos distribute 100 copies and feel that it is a
victory for the Filipino people. It goes out of print quickly, but the passion that gave
birth to it remains. Allos sees its death as the death of old ways of thinking.
Allos returns to the Santa Maria Valley and finds that one of the prominent workers
unions is dissolving. He attends various lectures and protests and finds that
government resistance to their cause is fierce. Allos plans a union meeting
between a prominent Mexican and a Filipino farm-labor contractor, but the meeting
is disrupted by deputy sheriffs. They move the meeting to an empty barn outside of
the town of Oxnard. During the meeting cars arrive outside. Allos covers himself
and José with manure and they escape detection as white men search the barn.
They escape unharmed.
On their way to Ventura, they are arrested for vagrancy, but released after three
days. They go to Lompoc and find that a strike is in progress among the lettuce
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workers. At their hotel, Helen knocks on their door saying that she is looking for
José. She says that Mr. Magna recommended him.
Chapter 27 Summary
Allos takes a position as a union secretary, but the strikes are all broken quickly
and violently. Helen encourages them to use firearms and violence during the
strikes. She is soon revealed to be an agent working for anti-union interests. She is
being paid to fracture the unity among the union workers. The more agitation she
can drum up, the more reason the authorities will have to put the strikes down with
force, rather than negotiating. He hates the influence that she has over his brother
Macario, with whom she lives as “husband and wife.” Allos goads her until she
admits that she hates Filipinos. Then he strikes her in the mouth with a telephone.
Afterwards, he reflects not on his own violence, but on Helen and her duplicity.
Chapter 28 Summary
Terrorism descends upon the Filipino Workers’ Association. The civil liberties of the
farm laborers are systemically removed. José, Allos, and other workers meet in San
Francisco with a reporter named Millar. Afterwards, they scatter to various parts of
California to continue to labor for workers’ rights. The dream of a better America
consumes him, and he claims to have forgotten himself completely. He also hints at
an illness that will change the course of his life.
In Santa Maria, Allos receives a letter from Millar. Trouble is coming to San José.
The lettuce workers have had their wages cut drastically. When the Filipino
workers strike, the bosses import Mexican laborers who are willing to work for
lower pay. Allos and José go to talk to some of the Mexican workers to encourage
them to strike with the Filipinos. The Mexicans are enthusiastic and agree to help.
However, that night, five white men arrive at a meeting and take José, Allos, and
Millar away in their car. They drive them into the woods and then let them out.
They dump tar on José’s legs and set it on fire. They beat Millar on the ground.
After tying Allos to a tree they beat him savagely and squeeze his testicles. He
cannot understand why they are so brutal. Millar gets close enough to tell Allos that
he has a knife in his shoe. Allos manages to cut his ropes and escape while the
white men are drunk. He makes it to San José.
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He hides in a house when he sees a police car patrolling. Marian, the woman who
lives there, feeds him and lets him sleep. In the morning, she puts him in her car
and drives him to Los Angeles.
Chapters 26-28 Analysis
In these chapters, Allos moves from burgeoning political thinker and writer to a true
participant in the workers’ struggles, paying the price. Writing is an act of
resistance, but it can be done from a relatively safe remove. Actually participating
in the organization and strikes places him in harm’s way at a new level, as
evidenced by the abduction and torture Millar, Allos, and José experience near the
end of Chapter 28.
Helen is a pivotal character in that she is the only white woman who takes such an
aggressive, racist stance towards the Filipinos in the book. Her attitudes go beyond
those of the young white woman who referred to them as savages during Allos’s
voyage to America. Helen is aggressive, uses her sexual abilities as tools of
manipulation, and blatantly states that she hates Filipinos. When Allos strikes her
with the phone, he apparently feels no remorse. Hating Filipinos, and acting as she
has acted, is enough of an affront to merit a beating without regrets.
Chapters 29-31
Chapter 29 Summary
Marian tells Allos that she used to be a college student. Then she fell in love with a
gypsy man before finding out that he was married and had three children.
Afterwards, her life took a bitter turn. She met another man and married him, but he
died in an automobile accident. Now she feels that it is too late to return to school.
He tells her that he would like to take care of her. When he awakes in a hotel that
night, she is there and goes to sleep immediately. In the morning, she says she
wants him to go to school in Los Angeles. He tells her all about his life and feels
that he is no longer afraid of anything. When they stop in San Luis Obispo, he
meets his old friend Ganzo, who claims their work is going to be crushed. He has
given up all hope for workers’ rights. He says their mutual friend Gazamen has
been caught, and begs Allos to do something for him. Allos can’t do anything, and
in the morning he and Marian continue their drive.
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Allos meets Florencio, a young writer who says he will be the greatest novelist of
all time. However, Florencio’s writing is motivated by hate, and Allos fears that he
will suffer the same fate as Estevan. When they arrive in Los Angeles, Allos spends
three days alone in a hotel trying, and failing, to locate Macario. When Marian
returns, she gives him a roll of money and says he can use it to go to the university.
They go to a famous night club in Hollywood to celebrate. He can’t believe how
tolerant everyone is. No one seems to care that he is there with a white woman. On
the way home she faints. A doctor says that she is very sick. She dies within days.
The doctor tells Allos that syphilis was the cause.
Chapter 30 Summary
Allos buys a one-way ticket to Seattle. But he drinks a pint of whisky in Bakersfield,
starting a dark pattern. He turns heavily to alcohol and cannot understand exactly
why. He gets on a bus and begins talking to two girls, Rosaline and Lily. They had
run away from home without telling their parents and both of them had married
sailors. Now they are going home to give their parents the news. They invite him to
stop in Medford with them and he accepts.
After a pleasant dinner, during which he feels accepted by Lily’s family, they all go
to a lake. As he swims, he thinks of Marian. When he gets back to his hotel, he
drinks a bottle of liquor and feels a great loneliness.
When he arrives in Seattle, he meets Conrado, who says that the Japanese and
Filipino contractors have hired thugs to find, and possibly kill, Dagohoy, the man
who started the union in the fish canneries. While they are leaving the restaurant,
Dagohoy and two other Filipinos come in. As soon as Allos and Conrado are
outside, they hear shooting within. Inside, Dagohoy and his two men have been
shot. All of them die.
Allos travels to Santa Maria to meet José, who is planning a resistance campaign.
Allos returns to Los Angeles to continue the work. He finds Macario there. Macario
knows Dora Travers, who says Allos would be useful to the Young League. In the
morning, Allos reads a poem to her. She says he will be a good American poet.
Allos feels he has become a new man. However, this is when he begins to cough
and takes to a sickbed. He says that the years of hunger have found him at last. He
begins coughing and can’t stop. There is blood in the sink when he is done. A
doctor comes and diagnoses him with tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his
brother Luciano.
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Chapter 31 Summary
Allos is unsure how the disease will affect him. At first, all he wants to do is get
back to work. Macario brings him food and takes care of him. Occasionally, Dora
stops by to listen to Allos read poems. One day she tells him that she is going back
to the Soviet Union, where she was born. She is pregnant and believes her baby
will have a better life there. Allos is shocked at this dismissal of America.
Several of Allos’s poems appear in an edition of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. He
feels proud and vindicated, and even more so when Harriet Monroe, the editor of
the magazine, says that she wants to arrange a scholarship for him at a university.
Allos does not tell her about his illness. Harriet goes to South America to attend a
meeting and dies somewhere in the Andes Mountains.
A young woman in Hollywood, Alice Odell, sees Allos’s poems and writes to him.
She is also a writer. She wants Allos to look at a novel she is writing. He is
conflicted. His landlord will not allow white women in the building. Finally, Alice
wears him down, and he agrees, despite his illness, to meet her at the Los Angeles
Public Library. Allos is almost too weak to walk. He is self-conscious and writes a
note to her, rather than speak. She responds with a note of her own. Eventually
they begin to speak and tell each other of their lives. Alice has a sister, Eileen, who
teaches school in Nebraska. Eventually she comes to Hollywood as well.
Alice sneaks into his room one day and reads to him from Thomas Wolfe’s Look
Homeward Angel. The boy in the novel reminds them both of Allos. Soon this
tranquil period ends, and Allos is transferred to a Los Angeles hospital that is
above the hospital jail. Alice visits later to tell him that she is returning to New York.
After she leaves, she sends him books. Allos writes a series of poems and sends
them to her just before he undergoes a surgery. The next time he hears from her
she is en route to the Soviet Union.
Chapters 29-31 Analysis
Chapters 29-31 show Allos finally making the human connections that he has
longed for, and which enhance his life to a previously unknown degree. His insight
that he would be happier with someone to care for, and with someone to care for
him, is critical. When Marian dies it makes the loss all the more wrenching, but she
leaves him with hope. He does not shut down.
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Sadly, Allos’s illness robs him of much of his physical vitality just when his spirits
are at their most stable. Alice, for a time, fulfills the role that Marian had played, but
their involvement is short lived. Even though his surgery is successful at the end of
Chapter 31, he no longer has the personal connections he did at the beginning of
Chapter 29.
Chapters 32-34
Chapter 32 Summary
At Alice’s request, her sister Eileen comes to visit Allos, bringing books and food.
Eileen is different from Alice: she is not sentimental or sensual, but an intellectual
pragmatist. Allos begins to dream of a life with her and wonders if he can will
himself back to health for her. She visits him every week, but they do not speak
much. He sees the books that she gives him as containing the words she would
speak if she were more comfortable with verbal speech.
Allos’s knee—injured in the attack with Millar and José—begins to pain him greatly
and he is unable to sleep or eat much. He is transferred to small room along with
two men who are waiting to die. The doctor has put his knee in a cast but it brings
little relief. He undergoes an operation that may help. When he comes out of
surgery he sees a brave little boy who has undergone an amputation. The boy’s
courage makes Allos resolve to face his situation bravely. Eileen continues to visit
and continues to bring him books.
Felix visits and tells him that he is going to Spain to help fight for the cause. Allos
never learns of Felix’s fate, but he promises himself that if is ever well enough to
fight, he will do so in the Philippines. He cannot see the sense in fighting on
another continent.
Chapter 33 Summary
Macario visits. He is also going to Spain to fight. Allos admires his conviction and
fears for him. Eileen comes to visit him constantly and their conversations about
literature deepen and become more satisfying. He feels a particular affinity with
William Faulkner, whose books speak of a decaying South where children lack
ambition and prospects.
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Chapter 34 Summary
Allos undergoes three more operations to halt the progress of a lesion on his left
lung. After the third surgery, he has no more ribs on his right side. The doctor tells
him that he will live for a while yet. Allos stays abreast of political turmoil and
conflict in America, but spends most of his time lost in books. He begins making a
serious study of Russian authors, followed by an analysis of American writers
including Mark Twain and Jack London. He begins to see that all writing comes
from the same source.
Chapter 35 Summary
Allos makes friends with John Custer, a boy in another hospital ward. John asks
Allos to write to his mother in Arkansas to tell her that he’s doing well. He begins
writing, not only of John, but of his own life. He learns that John never learned to
write and this breaks his heart. Here is an American boy who has worked most of
his life, and yet Allos is more educated than he. Years after leaving the hospital,
John writes a letter to Allos, saying that he took his advice and educated himself.
Macario comes to visit. He wasn’t able to get a visa to travel to Spain. Macario and
his people have continued to work for social justice. For the first time since taking
ill, Allos feels the urge to work with them again.
Chapter 36 Summary
Allos and some of the other patients begin to fixate on a tree near the building. It is
the only tree and they all feel that it has some sort of healing properties. Allos
begins to enjoy his time on the porch near the tree. He reads, he has Eileen, and
he enjoys the company of some of the other patients. He begins to feel a kinship
with American writers such as Walt Whitman. He worries that if he is ever well
enough to leave the hospital, he will not be able to function in the real world with
its attendant brutality.
Allos petitions to be sent to a sanitarium where he would have a better chance of
making a full recovery. His petition is denied, and he returns to his studies.
Because he came to America as a minor, he has no legal guardian and no one can
sign the transfer papers for him. A social service worker comes, ostensibly to hear
him out, but instead tells him that Filipinos should just go back to their own country.
Allos is no longer offended by this attitude. He has read enough to know where her
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ignorance comes from. Macario arrives and says he is going to get him out of
there. Two weeks later Allos leaves the hospital.
Chapters 32-36 Analysis
It is ironic that Allos finally finds a sense of real communion with people he will
never even meet. His kinship to the authors and the reservoirs of creativity from
which their work flows sustains him as no other relationships have. Even as his
health deteriorates and his physical pain increases, he is able to feel increasingly
liberated in his mind. Before being hospitalized, he was desperate to find and
sustain a human connection. Now that he is too incapacitated to be a part of the
outside world, he feels closer to humanity as a whole. His intellectual maturity is
evident when he does not respond angrily to the racist social worker. Allos has
gained the ability to synthesize many viewpoints and perspectives and can now
think before acting.
Chapters 37-41
Chapter 37 Summary
Allos is afraid to leave the hospital. It is the only place where he has known peace.
When he arrives at Macario’s hotel, Victor arrives and takes him upstairs. Macario
decides that they need to move. The stairs are too difficult for Allos. The owners of
the first three homes they try to rent will not rent to Filipinos. One day, José knocks
on the door of the home in the crime-ridden district where they are living. José is
now married and has a little boy he named after Allos. Allos goes with him to meet
José’s family. His wife has many sisters, and José says they are all single except for
one, but nothing develops.
Teresa, one of the sisters, drives them to a place on Temple Street where Allos had
seen an apartment for rent. It is known as a brothel. One night, a Filipino in the
apartment across from theirs shoots his American wife in the stomach. Then he
shoots himself in the chest. Another night, Allos finds Teresa asleep on the steps
outside. She is unhappy with her husband.
Allos begins reading fairy tales and folklore as an escape. He realizes that Filipino
lore has never been collected and assigns himself the task. A doctor visits and tells
Allos that, based on his examination, he may only live for another five years. Allos
contemplates what to do with the remainder of his life. He thinks about how badly
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he wants to become a writer, immortalized in words. Macario says he will sacrifice
what he needs to in order to help Allos fulfill his dreams.
Chapter 38 Summary
Unsure of what to do, Allos escapes to the library. He begins to read books written
by authors like him, writers who try to cast a light on social ills. He meets Ronald
Patterson, an American poet, who loans Allos many Leftist publications, which Allos
reads, or which José reads to him. Ronald takes him to a progressive meeting
organized for the unification of minorities. Allos takes José to one of their meetings
in Boyle Heights. It is led by a man claiming to be the first Filipino communist in Los
Angeles. He says they will not help the Filipino cause unless they join the
Communist Party. Allos proposes a separate Filipino party, and he and José
organize a meeting.
At the meeting, they outline the questions they believe all Filipinos must ask. They
listen to community feedback and do their best to answer questions. Shortly after,
Anna Dozier visits them with the Filipino communist and says they can’t start their
own party. Allos protests that he is not prepared to commit to the overall party
direction and must think more. He leaves for the north on a workers’ rights
campaign.
Chapter 39 Summary
Allos stops in San Fernando and visits a Filipino laborers’ camp. He goes to visit
the camp’s leader, and is asked to wait inside by his wife. She is university
educated, but says there is no way for her to use her education. Also, she is
familiar with his poems. When her husband arrives, he and Allos sit on the porch
and talk. The man is very lonely. Despite his marriage, he has been here for fifteen
years, laboring in relative solitude. His inability to become an American citizen has
severely limited his options.
Allos takes a bus to Bakersfield. In Bakersfield, he visits Cabao, a contractor who
helps control the grape industry. Cabao’s wife enters and looks familiar to Allos.
Cabao sadly tells him that she was a prostitute before they married. This is why she
looks familiar to everyone. Allos boards a bus and realizes that, despite Cabao’s
money and large house, he pities him.
Allos arrives in Stockton during a strike. He sees his friend Claro amidst the quiet,
orderly strikers. Claro is overflowing with idealism and passion. Allos stays with the
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strikers for a time and listens to a talk by an influential Filipino union figure. He
feels that he is doing the right thing, and has all of the tools he needs in order to
continue fighting.
Chapter 40 Summary
Allos talks with Percy Toribio, the secretary-treasurer of the striking union. He is a
university graduate who wants, above all, to write a novel. Allos is suspicious of
him. Percy hedges in his speech, not wanting to fully commit to any position
regarding the unions and their various factions. Allos accuses him of simply not
wanting to lose his job.
Claro brings him a newspaper article about a Filipino communist leading a strike.
Claro believes that it refers to Allos. A man named Steve enters and says the
authorities are looking for Allos. They recommend that he leave the city. They get
in Steve’s car and drive towards Oakland. They are stopped by a patrol, but Steve
messes up Allos’s hair and the officials do not recognize him. On a bus, Allos has a
dream of his mother and siblings, and wakes with tears on his face.
He falls asleep again and has a complicated dream about his father. In the dream,
Allos speaks to a man who speaks of a Filipino who left for America to write songs.
The implication is that it will be Allos and his poetry. When Allos encounters his
father in the dream, his father says he must never run away again. Another
passenger shakes Allos awake and says he was crying in his sleep. Allos realizes
that it was not a dream, but something that had actually happened. He had been
dreaming of a true memory.
Chapter 41 Summary
Allos meets José in Los Angeles. They send a letter inviting well-known Filipino
labor leaders on the west coast to a meeting. The goal is to form a committee that
can work on behalf of the cause, without regard to the affiliations of each group.
The new organization takes as its main goal the right of Filipinos to become
naturalized American citizens. Afterwards, Allos is agitated in his sickroom. He
wants to be out among the others, fighting.
Allos begins speaking before large groups of Americans in Southern California.
After one meeting, he meets a white woman who takes him to her house. There is
a knock on the door. She forces Allos to hide in the kitchen. He wonders if she is
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ashamed by his presence in her home. When he leaves the house, he is surprised
to find that he is craving some of the opulence it offered, such as the luxurious rug.
The bill they had sponsored regarding citizen’s rights is killed by anti-Filipino
groups. This destroys Macario’s spirit. All of his savings had gone into the
campaign. He comes home sick from work. The next day, a man from his job
comes and demands that he return if he wants to keep his job. Allos grabs a knife
and rushes upstairs, threatening to kill the man, who leaves shortly after. Macario
takes to his bed again. He has sacrificed so much that Allos wants to return to
work, just to allow Macario a chance to rest. Allos wanders the streets with a gun in
his pocket, wondering if he will return to his old life of crime.
He sees an open house, darts in, and steals a diamond ring. He sells the ring to a
gambler, promising to redeem it and buy it back when he can. Allos uses the
money to summon a doctor for Macario and buy him three months’ worth of
groceries. Allos feels that he must leave, otherwise he will steal again.
Chapters 37-41 Analysis
Allos becomes more involved in the struggle. The inability of Filipinos to become
naturalized American citizens has begun to look like a noose. The strictures it
forces on Filipino’s are suffocating. Allos is invigorated at the effort and passion
that goes into crafting the bill that would change it, if passed as legislation. But
when it fails he is crushed. He wonders if all of the effort was for nothing. Macario’s
illness fills the void of purpose the bill had given to Allos. Now he has someone to
care for. Nurturing Macario gives him a sense of mission. He is even willing to steal
in order to put his brother at ease. However, their struggle against white American
society has never felt so difficult. Now, as illness threatens to claim another of his
family, Allos is once again confronted with the tenuous nature of life itself. No plans
are a foolproof bulwark against death.
Chapters 42-49
Chapter 42 Summary
A series of women appear in Allos’s life after the campaign dissolves, including
Jean Lawson. Jean comes to discuss humanity and philosophy for hours. Allos
cannot see where the women are coming from, and wonders if there is some
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undercurrent of pro-Filipino sentiment of which he is unaware. She tells him that
she went to Manila once to help found the Philippine Writers’ League.
Macario is growing worse. Their roles have reversed. Now Allos cares for him and
reads to him from Thomas Wolfe. Allos decides to try and locate Amado. If Macario
dies, he wants them to have reconciled first. But to find Amado he must go into the
Filipino criminal underworld. He learns that the gangs have far more influence upon
daily Filipino life than he ever would have guessed. Allos decides that he has to
leave for good. He has saved two months’ worth of money for Macario, which will
allow him care and food.
Chapter 43 Summary
Allos takes a train to Bakersfield. There are no longer hoboes on the cars. He
thinks of how young and strong he was in the past, and how frail and ill he now
feels. In Bakersfield, he finds Amado in a gambling house. He looks old, haggard,
and as if he has been roughly handled. Amado tells him that he came to visit and
donated a pint of blood for one of Allos’s operations. Amado is not well. He says
that something is cold and hard in his chest when he coughs.
The next morning Allos tells him about Macario. Amado says he will go to Los
Angeles and get a job to help with expenses. Allos gives him enough money to go
and they say good-bye. Allos thinks about how much he used to hate Amado, and
that now he only feels pity for him. He is also angry at his own inability to help his
brothers.
During a quick stop in Portland, Allos has a coughing fit in the morning. Nick brings
him food and then rushes him to a doctor. Allos remembers that the doctor had
told him he might live for another five years, but now he is worried that the end is
near.
Chapter 44 Summary
One night Allos drinks wine with Nick and weeps. He promises that he will wring
every last drop of satisfaction and activity from all of his remaining minutes. While
taking a bus to San Francisco, he meets a young girl named Mary. When they
arrive, he invites her to share his cab and they ride to Allos’s apartment. Vitor,
Amado, Ganzo, and José are all there. Their political movement seems to be falling
apart, but Allos takes solace in Mary’s company.
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The days are dark, filled with drinking, poverty, and hunger. Amado has not worked
as hard as he said he would, and he begins bringing suspicious characters home.
Shortly after, Mary leaves. Ganzo and Victor also leave. Macario is working, but his
condition seems worse every day. Allos is once again filled with rage at his inability
to affect any meaningful change for them all.
Amado and Macario have a fight about Amado’s friends. Amado grabs a knife to
stab Macario and Allos hits him in the head with a frying pan. Amado leaves,
heartbroken. He tells Allos that he should not have hit him. After he is gone, Allos
believes that he has sinned against Amado. It is a bad omen.
Chapter 45 Summary
In order to avoid falling back into violence and crime, Allos returns to books. He
begins reading with an eye specific to democracy. After Allos begins writing stories
about his early life in America, Filipino magazines begin publishing him. The money
he receives, and the usefulness of his writing, invigorate him. He claims that he is
no longer afraid of his life.
Allos and his brother have to move after their landlady dies and a new one takes
her place. They begin living in a hotel room. Then Allos is invited to attend a dinner
in honor of a Filipino educator. During the dinner two detectives break in and hit
the educator because he refuses to raise his hands in obedience. After they leave,
the educator asks his countrymen if there is no way for them to gain the respect
that they willingly give to Americans. Allos is furious. He goes home and gets his
gun, but Macario wrestles it away from him.
Once again, Allos sees his writing as futile; he craves action and violence, because
they are all that violent people understand. He reconnects with Julio, who is
running a check cashing scam. While on a bender, Allos is found by Ganzo, who
takes him to his room and gives him a bath. Ganzo tells him he must write his
stories and not drink again. Allos worries that if he fails to remain respectable this
time, he will become the most vicious Filipino thug the country has ever seen.
Chapter 46 Summary
Allos can’t find a job in Los Angeles, only manual labor positions that he is
physically incapable of performing. He begins working in a fish cannery in San
Pedro. On the second day, he meets Nick again. Nick takes him to a workers’ rights
meeting. They have to meet in secret, but it appears that their dream of equality for
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Filipinos has not died. Allos feels the old passion stirring inside him. He realizes
that every version of their fight comes down to one common enemy: fascism.
When fishing season ends, Allos goes to the town of Nipomo to work with a crew
of pea pickers. He begins offering school courses for workers, teaching them
American history. The instruction gratifies both the students and Allos. Before the
fishing season ends, he goes to Betteravia, another small town, and starts another
class for the beet pickers. He repeats the process in Pescadero before going to
Monterey, where he finds José again. José has been teaching a class in unionism.
They have become even more alike than they realized.
Chapter 47 Summary
The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. As he watches José’s son and ponders the
threat of another war, he wonders if the boy will eventually be lost in this new
conflict. Allos, José, and their friend Joe go to an apartment and get drunk. Soon
they are all shouting about the coming war. They go into a bar and drink more.
While there, they witness an attack on a man who grabbed a performer. They
escape as the bar erupts into fighting.
A few days later they all go to the recruiting offices to enlist. They are all refused
since they are not naturalized American citizens. When Allos hears that Binalonan
has been crushed by a tank detachment that is moving towards Manila, he goes to
another recruiting office and is turned away again. Allos contacts many of the
delegates from the unions and strikers, and drafts a resolution insisting that
Filipinos be allowed to serve in the armed forces. President Roosevelt signs the
order and Filipino regiments are formed in Hawaii and various parts of the United
States. It is a huge victory for Allos.
Chapter 48 Summary
A small publisher asks to publish an edition of Allos’s poems. After sending in the
manuscript, he puts together an anthology of contemporary Filipino poetry. When
the advance copies of his first book, Letter from America, arrive, Allos is proud and
happy. He goes to Amado’s hotel to show him, hoping that it will thaw the chill
between them, but Amado is not there. He finds him with two girls in a bar. One of
the girls scoffs at his book and begins tearing pages out of it. Amado beats her and
returns the book to Allos.
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Days later, Amado visits and tells Allos that he is joining the Navy. When he leaves,
he gives Allos an envelope containing twenty-five dollars and a letter. The letter
thanks Allos for his generosity, and urges him not to judge Amado too harshly. He
says that he lived his life his own way, and he hopes that his darkness will allow
Allos to see that he and his work are a contrasting light.
Macario leaves as well, having joined the Army. He asks Allos to pay the bootblack
across the street for him when he leaves, since he forgot to pay him ten cents for a
shoeshine that day. Allos is now alone. After saying good-bye, he finds an
envelope with $200 from Macario. He gives the bootblack, Larkin, his payment.
They share a glass of beer in a bar. Larkin tells Allos that he will remember
Macario’s face every time he sees an American dime, because his brother kept his
word and paid him.
Chapter 49 Summary
Allos goes to the bus station after putting Macario’s money in the bank. From the
bus, he waves to the field workers and thinks that nothing will destroy his faith in
America again.
Chapters 42-49 Analysis
The book’s concluding chapters show the culmination of Allos’s ambitions. His
book is published and he becomes an author of note in certain circles, with the
implication being that he will go on to write more and to bear witness to the Filipino
situation in America. However, when political changes come——the inclusion of
Filipinos in the armed forces——it is largely because of the war effort. If the
Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor, the petitions of the Filipinos may never
have been given serious contemplation. Now, they have gained a substantial right,
but it may result in them simply becoming grist for the American war machine.
Personally, Allos achieves his ultimate victory. He vanquishes his fear of himself
and of his past, while solidifying what is now an unshakeable faith in America. As
the book ends, even though Allos is old, weak, and ill, there is a sense that his
choices are finally his own.
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MAJOR CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Allos
Allos is the narrator of America is in the Heart. While still a teenager, he moves to
America, which he has greatly romanticized in his mind. In America, he travels
incessantly while undergoing constant disappointments. He seems incapable of
sitting still. His dreams of becoming a writer make him more ambitious than many
of the other Filipinos he meets in America, and his intellect gives him a chance to
lead and influence the flurry of strikes and union contractors populating the final
third of the book. Above all, Allos is a person who appears to be in a constant state
of either self-doubt or complete confidence. When things are going well, he is full
of passion, but downward trends send him into spirals of worry, fury, and violence.
When he is diagnosed with tuberculosis, he is forced to spend more time in his
mind. This period of contemplation leads to most of his reflective acts, and allows
him to escape from his fear of himself.
Father
From the outset, Allos’s father is a tragic figure, nearly crushed beneath the weight
of his responsibility. He is willing to work from sunup to sundown, but can never
manage to get ahead for long. There is little evidence that he ever views his life
with joy or comfort. When he succumbs to the illness that will kill him, it almost feels
like a relief.
Mother
Allos’s mother plays a similar role to his father in the book, but she is more
lighthearted. She nurtures Allos, jokes with him, and they bond in several scenes,
such as when she takes him to the market to help her with her business. She is
frequently pregnant, but handles her duties and circumstances without complaint.
Amado
Amado is one of Allos’s older brothers. In America, he transforms from being a man
who lives mainly for pleasure into a criminal. He goes from being one of Allos’s
childhood idols to an object of pity. He experiences some redemption near the end
of the book when he enlists in the armed forces and thanks Allos for being so good
to him. Amado is perhaps the clearest example of the negative effect of America
on a Filipino immigrant who is willing to participate in criminal activities.
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Macario
When the book begins Macario is a high school student in another town. He is the
family’s primary hope for financial stability. If he can graduate, he can return and
become a schoolteacher, guaranteeing him the highest salary in town. Macario is
often ungrateful and selfish, showing little appreciation to his father for selling the
family’s remaining pieces of land just to keep him in school. Later, when he
reunites with Allos in America, their relationship is tender and brotherly. They care
for each other during their respective illnesses. Macario’s interest in politics
stimulates Allos’s activist mind, and Allos’s growing interest in literature makes
them perfect sounding boards for each other. However, by the end of the book
Macario is a shell of his former self.
Eileen Odell
Eileen is the sister of the writer Alice Odell. She becomes Allos’s primary confidant
for a span of the book. She provides him with a huge variety of novels and visits
him nearly every week while he is in the hospital. In many ways, she is the opposite
of nearly every other white woman he meets in America. She is not racist, he
manages to feel bonded to her, she has little interest in sensuality, and she
encourages him to think.
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THEMES
Education
Education and knowledge are, in Allos’s mind, the keys to enlightenment and
success, both in America and elsewhere. His inquisitive mind is limited only by the
amount of questions that it can ask. As he learns, he is able to ask better questions,
and thus to find better answers, both for himself and in the realm of political theory.
From the beginning, education is presented as the way to become a celebrity in
the Philippines. The family banks everything on Macario’s ability to finish school,
become a teacher, and provide for them. All of Allos’s thoughts about education
are theoretical, however, until he begins encountering books, and universityeducated people in America who encourage him.
Nationalism
Allos finds it absurd that anyone would fight and die in a war on another continent
on behalf of strangers. The idea of national pride is fairly alien to him until he goes
to America. Once he is there, he begins to see that banging the American drum is
not without its difficulties. It is difficult to stay enthused about any country or
society which is determined to cast one out. As his challenges mount in America,
he grows nostalgic for home, even though the Philippines were sorely lacking in
opportunity for him. By the end, he has struck a tasteful balance of passionate
patriotism, without ever venturing into crass jingoism. He is able to feel pride in his
heritage while gladly becoming a fixture of his new world.
Violence and Death
Death and violence strike haphazardly and suddenly throughout the book. Much of
the violence is committed by simple thugs or racists, but Allos participates as well.
Violence is a fixture in the lives of the persecuted and downtrodden who have few
avenues to make real progress by legal means. Allos witnesses multiple shootings
and is himself tortured by white men, but not all of the death is violent—far from
adequate medical care, Allos’s sister dies of a terrible ailment. Her death scene
begins and ends in the span of a page. His father dies, his mother dies, several of
the women in Allos’s life die. Many of their deaths are treated in an offhand manner
as if Allos stopped thinking about them as soon as they were gone. The fact that
death is lying underneath every day, and potentially in every gambling house,
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brothel, or strike that Allos visits, makes it impossible for him to feel secure. Indeed,
it almost renders the idea of making plans a laughable enterprise.
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SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS
Alcohol
Alcohol is almost always the precursor to trouble in American is in the Heart. It is
unclear why Allos resists alcohol for so long. However, by the end of the book, he
has seen so many violent acts—often precipitated by or associated with alcohol—
that his aversion to it begins to make more sense. Perhaps his resistance stems
from having witnessed similar situations in the Philippines. It is significant that many
of Allos’s darkest times also coincide with times when he is drinking.
Trains and Buses
Despite feeling trapped by the less than ideal circumstances in America, Allos is
never without a temporary escape route. Huge swaths of the book read like travel
itineraries as he bounces from town to town and back again. This coping
mechanism of uprooting himself would not be possible without the prevalence of
trains and buses.
Gambling
Simply living in America is a risk for Filipinos. Those who look most prosperous to
Allos are often those who run criminal enterprises or gambling houses. Because
the wages are so poor for most jobs, gambling represents a chance to make a big
score in order to get some breathing room. However, gambling leads to people
being indebted to unscrupulous characters and often leads to violence. And the
gambling houses are often combined with brothels and frequented by criminals.
There is little good that ever comes to Allos from his forays into the gambling
houses.
Books
Books are the vehicle by which Allos is able to begin educating himself. They
contain not just stories, but methods for thinking. Allos’s increasing maturity
typically scales with the degree and care with which he is reading. He believes that
he hates certain things, and that the world is unfair and uncaring. However, as he
exposes himself to new perspectives through books, and through the experiences
of their authors, he begins to see that struggle is universal, and his situation is not
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unique. This puts him in a position to think objectively rather than react emotionally
to horrible realities such as racism, exploitation, and violence.
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IMPORTANT QUOTES
1. “This crime is that I am a Filipino in America” (Introduction, p. vii).
The traditional idea of The American Dream is implausible for people whose
race or appearance gives American society a reason or impulse to resist
them. Not only are Filipinos distasteful to many Americans in the book, they
are actually detested and sought out for eradication. Being a Filipino is a
crime on par with theft or murder. The attitudes of the time stifle nearly all
attempts at social progress.
2. “For a time, it seemed that the younger generation, influenced by false
American ideals and modes of living, had become total strangers to the older
generation (Chapter 1, p. 5).
Much of the book is spent pointing out the growing rift between the old and
young Filipinos, and the old and new traditions. Ethnic solidarity would
greatly help the situation of the Filipinos in America, but their factions and
differing ideas render them strangers in many cases, making it challenging to
pursue a common cause.
3. “They were like two strong walls protecting me from the attack of an unseen
enemy (moving into my life to give me the warm assurance of their proximity,
and guiding me into the future that was waiting with all its ferocity)” (Chapter
3, p. 21).
Even though they are not overtly affectionate and they are often living far
from each other, there is always a sense that Allos relies on his family
members. When he arrives in America, he seeks them out again, both as
protection and as guides, although he will eventually serve that role for them.
4. “It was this inborn quality, common among peasants, that had kept him going
in a country rapidly changing to new conditions and ideals” (Chapter 3, p. 23).
5. “The bells are ringing for the end of a decade. But they are also announcing
the birth of another decade.” (Chapter 9, p.65).
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America is in the Heart is a book about cycles. Cycles of violence, of crops, of
things being born and passing away. The beginning of every cycle brings the
hope that things may change and the bittersweet realization that time has
slipped by. When Allos’s father says these words, it is unclear as to whether
he views the coming decade with fear or optimism.
6. “English is the best weapon” (Chapter 9, p. 69).
Allos is a fighter throughout the book, but until he learns English, there is no
sense that he has found the perfect weapon, or at least a weapon that he can
wield better than others. Learning English allows him to express himself in
the language of the system that conspires against Filipino progress. Only by
learning English can he find communion with its writers, and work to bring the
system down according to its own rules.
7. “I was to discover that this same regional friendship, which developed into
tribalism, obstructed all efforts toward Filipino unity in America” (Chapter 13,
p. 98).
It is heartbreaking in American to see that many of the Filipinos cannot
depend on each other for comfort or solidarity. The contractors and crime
lords actively work to keep Filipinos in a degraded and desperate state,
making them easier to control and destroying their trust in each other.
8. “The persecuted were always the first victims of misunderstanding” (Chapter
18, p. 137).
Whenever something goes wrong in the communities where whites and
Filipinos share space, the Filipinos will be blamed first. Racists will always
view minorities as the simplest explanation for a problem, and therefore also
the first to be punished.
9. “It was not easy to understand why the Filipinos were brutal yet tender, nor
was it easy to believe that they had been made this way by the reality of
America” (Chapter 20, p. 152).
For much of the book, Allos seems to want to put people in binary
categories. It is easy to see someone as brutal or tender, but not both, even
though he has both of these qualities himself. It is a sign of growing
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intellectual maturity that he is not able to blame the reality of American life for
Filipinos on all of their, and his own, moral failings. He knows that human
nature acts independent of geography.
10. “It was not natural for a man to hate himself, or to be afraid of himself. It was
not natural, indeed, to run from goodness and beauty, wh...
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