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Some Small Rebellion
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Patron Saints of Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Adolescence, and Justice
Responsibility, Guilt, and Blame
Culture and Belonging
Death and Meaning
Summary
Analysis
Jay suddenly wakes up to someone shaking his shoulder. It’s Grace, calling him to dinner—Jay napped for eight hours. When Jay goes downstairs, the whole family is at the dinner table, Tito Maning included. He’s wearing his striped police uniform and tells Jay that they’ve been waiting for him. Jay feels panicked at the sight of his uncle. He remembers the righteous speech he was going to make, demanding the truth about Jun, but he can’t say anything. He looks away instead, the same way his dad always did.
Jay’s encounter with Tito Maning proves that simply demanding “the truth” is going to be difficult. Tito Maning is clearly a dominant presence—and his constant wearing of his police uniform communicates his strong ties to the Duterte regime. Jay is suddenly in his dad’s position, unable to contradict his uncle. Jay is forced to experience that open communication isn’t as easy as Jay thought it would be.
Themes
Jay sits down and starts to serve himself, but this is the wrong move: the family has to join hands and pray before eating. Everyone is silent for a long time, and it’s a weirdly formal meal—at home, Jay’s family usually eats at different times. But here, everyone eats together and seems to be waiting for Tito Maning to speak before talking themselves. Eventually, Tito Maning asks Jay about his flight and about Jay’s dad. Tito Maning also worries aloud that Jay’s mom spends too much time away from home and can’t raise her children. Tito Maning also asks about Chris and his engineering work, then says that Grace will be even more successful than Chris. However, he says, Angel is lazy. Finally, Tito Maning dismisses Em’s graphic design study as useless.
Jay’s faux pas once again highlights his disconnection from his Filipino family and culture. Once Tito Maning starts speaking, the way that he wants the culture to be is obvious: he is conservative, believes that women should be in the home, that science is more important than design, and that his own opinions carry so much weight that everyone should accept them as truth. And, yet, beneath Maning’s bravado is a hint of insecurity. His bragging that his family will surpass his brothers (i.e. Jay’s dad’s) suggests how important it is to him that this turn out to be true, which in turn highlights the discord between the brothers.
Themes
Tito Maning has heard that Jay got into the University of Michigan and asks why he isn’t going to Harvard like Chris did. Jay says that he didn’t get in, and Tito Maning nods—Grace will get in, he says. Jay is amazed that Jun dealt with this kind of treatment for so long. Tito Maning asks what Jay will study: engineering, medicine, or law? Jay says engineering just to appease Tito Maning, even though he actually wants to do something related to video games. Jay wants to bring up Jun but finds that he can’t. He wonders if he’ll be less scared once it’s just him and Tito Maning.
Tito Maning defines success conservatively and narrowly, and in doing so excludes anyone who doesn’t agree with him. Meanwhile, Jay had thought that he was going to forcibly demand truth from Tito Maning, but he can’t even stand up for himself now by telling the truth about his own aspirations. Jay still doesn’t acknowledge that the truth about Jun’s death might be complicated, but he does acknowledge that getting that truth will be difficult.
Themes
Tito Maning begins to ask questions to everyone else in Tagalog. He announces that Grace will take Jay to a historical site tomorrow. He assumes Jay knows nothing about Philippine history. Tito Maning explains that that when Jay’s brother, Chris, was an infant, Tito Maning told Jay’s dad to teach him Tagalog. Jay’s dad refused because he believed it would confuse Chris, but Tito Maning says that you don’t know yourself if you don’t know your “mother tongue.” Jay wants to defend his dad but doesn’t. Tita Ami warns Jay to stay out of the sun so his skin doesn’t darken, which sounds prejudiced to Jay.
Tito Maning’s use of Tagalog seems to be a purposeful effort to make Jay feel isolated, and Tito Maning’s comments about knowing your “mother tongue” imply that he is trying to make Jay feel isolated because he believes that Jay’s dad cut himself and his whole family off from Filipino culture through his choices. Maning’s actions, then, are a mixture of pride in his culture and insecure anger at the way that Jay’s dad’s choices called the value of Filipino culture into question. Meanwhile, Tita Ami’s prejudices about dark skin imply a similar kind of pride and insecurity about what it means to be Filipino, and who “counts” as Filipino.
Themes
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Jay tries to leave the table, but his uncle refuses to let him until the food is gone, reminding him that this isn’t the U.S. Jay wants to disobey, but Tito Maning is naturally authoritative, so Jay just stands there. Tito Maning wonders whether something is wrong with the food—he says that María is stupid and doesn’t speak Tagalog, but she’s a good cook. Jay claims his stomach is upset, and Tita Ami encourages her husband to let Jay leave. Jay asks to take his plate to the sink, and Tito Maning agrees.
Again, Tito Maning tries to impose his cultural values on Jay. By now it seems clear that in fact Maning relishes imposing such values on his brother’s son, since he feels that his brother betrayed those values. But even as Tito Maning promotes his cultural values, he excludes other Filipinos, such as Maria, on the grounds that she doesn’t speak Tagalog (she likely speaks a local dialect). For Tito Maning, it seems that the strength of his culture is dependent on his ability to exclude others from it.
Themes
In the kitchen, María takes Jay’s plate, though Jay says he can wash it himself. But she doesn’t understand because she doesn’t speak English, so Jay has to hand it to her. He notices that her skin is much darker than the family’s skin. After dinner, Tito Maning distributes the items in Jay’s balikbayan box even though Jay was supposed to do that. Jay returns to Jun’s room, feeling like he betrayed Jun. Jay can’t even distribute his dad’s gifts, so how can he confront Tito Maning?
Once again, Jay is confronted with subtleties about Philippine culture, such as the prejudice about skin color and its connection to social hierarchy. Meanwhile, Tito Maning continues to find ways to assert that Jay also is not truly Filipino by cutting him out of normal rituals, though it’s worth noting that his dad also didn’t allow him to pack the boxes. Both of these men’s actions suggest that they don’t see Jay as being truly Filipino, though perhaps for different reasons.
Themes
Jay has a hard time falling asleep—there are lots of noises in the house and neighborhood, unlike at home in Michigan where it’s quiet. He reaches for his backpack to read one of Jun’s letters, but he can’t find any. Jay grabs his backpack and searches harder, then checks his suitcase, then his backpack again. But all of Jun’s letters are all gone.
Jay feels so out of place in the house, neighborhood, and even country—he can’t even manage to fall asleep—so it makes sense that he seeks out Jun’s letters, which were a connection to a Filipino person to whom he did feel connected. The loss of the letters therefore amplifies Jay’s isolation. At the same time, the disappearance of the letters deepens the mysteries surrounding Jun and his death.
Themes
