America Is in the Heart: Chapter 32 Summary & Analysis

Shortly after Alice moves to New York, her sister, Eileen, begins visiting Carlos nearly every day for three years. Like her sister, Eileen brings Carlos books and various kinds of food. Carlos writes that he “yearned for her and the world she represented.” He writes poems about her and vows to “get well” for her. They also exchange letters when apart, and Carlos uses the process of letter writing as his own personal “course in English.” Eileen gives him several books about politics, history, and society, and he is overjoyed at the opportunity to learn “the great discoveries in the life of man.”

Carlos and Eileen grow closer, learning about their mutual hardships, and she “[weeps] silently when [he] suffer[s] pain and loneliness.” For Carlos, Eileen represents the America that is “human, good, and real” because she fulfills his “insatiable hunger for knowledge and human affection.”   

As Carlos lies in the hospital, the knee injury he sustained from the anti-union attackers causes him searing pain, and he finds it hard to eat. He observes his suffering roommates as they die painful deaths, and he thinks about how hard it is to die. He undergoes a knee operation, and afterwards, Eileen brings him more books by great authors such as Franz Kafka and Federico Garcia Lorca. The suffering these authors endured further inspires him to overcome his own suffering and become a writer.

One of Eileen’s friends, Laura Clarendon, is writing a proletarian novel with a Filipino protagonist, and Carlos gives her advice on the character. Soon, Felix visits to tell Carlos he is going to Spain to fight the fascist regime of Francisco Franco, and that Macario and Nick are going with him.