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Chapter 48
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in America Is in the Heart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Beauty in Despair
Race and American Identity
Education vs. Ignorance
Poverty
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Carlos deposits Macario’s money in the bank and gets on a bus bound for Portland. He watches the pea-pickers in the fields and hears church bells ring in the distance. As the bus rolls on, Carlos looks out of the window and realizes: “No man—no one at all could destroy my faith in America again. It was something that had grown out of my defeats and successes, something shaped by my struggles for a place in this vast land.”
The final scene in Bulosan’s novel includes several symbols of America itself: the workers in the fields, the beautiful scenery, and the bus that takes Carlos into the next stage of his life. Carlos’s parting lesson reinforces the idea that at its best, America is both a place and a state of being. What a person chooses to make of America is what America means to that person, and Carlos concludes his story by claiming the American dream for himself at last.
Themes
