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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
After Jay and Grace go back outside, they walk up to Tito Maning, who is drinking beer and smoking. Grace asks if Jay is sure about what they’re going to do, and Jay nods. Tito Maning steps on his cigarette as they approach but says nothing. Jay asks Tito Maning what happened to Jun. Tito Maning drinks silently, then says that they already talked about this. Jay says that Tito Maning hid the truth, because Jay found that note in Tito Maning’s desk. Tito Maning dismisses Jay as a disrespectful American, but Grace steps up to her father and knocks the beer out of his hand. Jay prepares to step between them if needed; Jay couldn’t defend Jun, but he’ll defend Grace.
This passage mirrors the first time that Jay asked Tito Maning what happened to Jun, but it’s significantly different, because Jay isn’t standing alone anymore. Additionally, he’s outright accusing Tito Maning of lying, even though he still doesn’t know exactly what the note was referencing. Again, he assumes that the truth is simple and that Tito Maning’s explanation will tie all these loose threads together. For his part, Tito Maning once again tries to dismiss Jay’s questions by insulting his American heritage, but this tactic doesn’t make much sense anymore, since Grace is part of Jay’s quest for truth, too. Grace’s actions, meanwhile, are even more courageous than Jay’s—she is more subject to Tito Maning’s control—but nonetheless she now reveals her defiance of him out in the open. Jay is ready to take support Grace, partly because he feels guilty about not helping Jun but also because it’s the right thing to do. In fact, it’s probably what Jun would have done; Jay’s search for Jun has also made Jay more like Jun.
Themes
The family gathers around the three of them, and Jay loudly says that Tito Maning was keeping tabs on Jun. Tito Maning admits this: he knows Jun lived with Tita Chato, left to live with Reyna, ran the website, and ran away when the police caught wind of it. He even knows Grace was meeting up with Jun. Grace says that this means Tito Maning knew Jun wasn’t doing drugs, but Tito Maning says the opposite is true: he knows that Jun was.
All this time, Jay thought he was discovering new truths about Jun, but it turns out Tito Maning was always a step ahead of him. Of course, Tito Maning’s revelation that he knew Jun’s whereabouts all along, and that he knew about the Instagram account and about Jun’s meetups with Grace generates complicated questions: why didn’t Tito Maning intervene? In addition, because Tito Maning knows everything that Jay and Grace know, it signals that his knowledge about Jun using drugs is also true. If Tito Maning is being honest, then Jay may be wrong about why Jun died, and the truth would be more complicated than Jay believed.
Themes
Jay says that Tito Maning had Jun killed because of the Instagram account. Tito Maning responds that Jay is engaged in a conspiracy theory; he says that Americans love heroes, and if there’s no hero around, they’ll invent one. Tito Maning says that maybe he’s the real hero, since he’s ridding the country of drugs. Jay disagrees: Tito Maning murdered his son. At this, Tito Maning grabs Jay’s throat and tries to choke him. He only releases Jay when Lola twists Tito Maning’s ear. Tito Maning says that he never ordered anyone to kill Jun, and that if Grace and Jay don’t believe him, they should ask Tito Danilo.
Despite Tito Maning’s revelations, Jay sticks with the truth that he believes. At this point, that isn’t an entirely irrational position—Tito Maning might be concocting a story to protect himself—but it is noteworthy that Jay believes what he wants to believe. Tito Maning, meanwhile, once more bases his dismissal of Jay on cultural terms, arguing that Jay can’t see the truth because of his American heritage of wanting to find meaning in life and death. Lola’s intervention in the physical confrontation between Jay and Maning—with the stereotypical motherly twisting of the ear—suggests that she is asserting the rules of family over Tito Maning’s pure display of personal aggression. Maning’s reference to Danilo, meanwhile, draws the final member of the family into Jun’s saga.
Themes
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Grace says that even if Tito Maning didn’t pull the trigger, he didn’t do anything to stop Jun’s murder. Tito Maning says that Jun was an “enemy of the state,” and then he storms away. Jay tries to calm himself down the same way he did when he was a kid. He used to look at the night sky, and if a single star was visible, he took it as a sign that things would be okay. But he’s afraid to look at the sky now, because he might only see darkness.
Grace here asserts that Tito Maning had a special responsibility to Jun because they were family; Maning responds that his most pressing responsibility is to the Philippines, which he sees himself as serving. These different arguments also lie at the heart of the different interpretations of the truth that different characters take. Jay’s fear to search for meaning in the stars suggests that he is similarly about a loss of meaning in life: both from what looks like the falling apart of his family, and also because Tito Maning’s revelations about Jun threaten to “steal” the meaning that Jun has taken on for Jay.
Themes
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