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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
Because Tita Chato and Tita Ines have taken the next day off of work, they bring Jay to the beach. Tita Chato tells him that the beach they’ve come to is a good one because it’s mostly Filipino families, not tourists. The three of them rent a hut, and Jay heads out to the water. He watches the tide come in and out, and weirdly, he feels at home. He knows it might just be the fact that he’s in a beautiful tropical environment, but he thinks it’s more than that.
Someone like Tito Maning would lump Jay in with the “tourists” Tita Chato derides, but Tita Chato here implies that Jay belongs on this beach as much as any other Filipino. Jay may feel at home on the beach simply for that reason, but he also may feel at home because of all of the experiences he’s had on this trip.
Themes
Usually, when Jay tells someone he was born in the Philippines and moved when he was one, they say that it doesn’t count because he doesn’t remember his home. But now that Jay is standing here, he feels like his first year did matter. Even if he doesn’t consciously remember the Philippines, some part of him does. He walks out into the water until his feet don’t touch the bottom, and he watches the sea.
When Jay first stepped off the plane after landing in Manila, he instinctually felt comfortable and at home. The events that happened immediately after made him feel out of place, but he now seems to be returning to his initial sense of comfort and belonging. Jay here is insisting that his heritage is his heritage, that being Filipino-American doesn’t mean that he is only a hybrid, but that, rather, he is both.
Themes
It begins to rain, and Jay starts to wonder whether he should tell his aunts what he learned about Jun. They’d be happy that Jun wasn’t dealing drugs but might feel that Jun’s relationship with Reyna was inappropriate. Jay thinks about Reyna’s situation and realizes that he can’t claim the good parts of the Philippines, like the beaches, without also claiming the country’s poverty and problems. All of that is part of Jay, because the country is part of Jay. Jay feels angry at Tito Maning, who thinks that a person can’t belong to a place if they didn’t grow up there. The rain picks up and Jay swims back to shore. His aunts are packing up, and Jay asks if they can stay longer, since the place feels “holy.”
Again, telling Tita Chato and Tita Ines the truth about Jun and Reyna wouldn’t be wholly positive: it would betray Reyna’s trust. In this scene, Jay also finally understands what his dad was trying to tell him earlier in the novel: it’s easy to appreciate the good parts of the Philippines, but the bad parts of the country—like the drug war and trafficking—are part of the Philippines, too. It seems like Jay’s dad was never able to reconcile the good and bad parts of the Philippines, because he told Jay to avoid fixating on the country in general. Jay takes a more nuanced here: he realizes that both the good and bad parts of the Philippines coexist,, and he must acknowledge the good and the bad. In doing so, Jay is making a conscious choice to belong in the Philippines. Jay’s sense that the beach feels “holy” likely stems from the fact that he just came to terms with his cultural identity, which happened (in part) because of the beach’s beauty.
Themes
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But Tita Chato thinks the storm will get worse. They get in the car and the rain pounds, which Jay thinks is holy, too. Tita Chato teaches Jay the word baha, which means “to flood.” Jay thanks his aunts for bringing him to the beach and imagines Jun sitting with them. Tita Chato says that Jay reminds her of Jun. Jay silently disagrees: Jun was courageous like a storm, and Jay is passive. Jay says that he’ll ask his parents to donate to Tita Chato’s organization, but Tita Chato says they already do. She adds that Jay’s dad also pays for many of his cousins’ school fees. The storm ends up passing, so the three of them return to the beach.
By suggesting that the uglier parts of the storm are “holy,” too, Jay is putting his new understanding into practice—he can reconcile the good and bad things about the beach and the storm. The fact that Jay’s dad donates to Tita Chato’s organization and supports his cousins is perhaps surprising, since Jay’s dad seems to want to stay out of affairs in the Philippines. Clearly, there’s a lot Jay still doesn’t know about his father..
Themes
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