America Is Not the Heart

Occasionally I have need to refer to "a past life", but I doubt I'll be able to use that turn of phrase or that frame of mind without a deep disquiet thanks to Elaine Castillo, a mighty poet-goddess:

“Hero couldn’t imagine Teresa at eight or nine, gorging herself on tiny oily crablets, but the fact that Hero couldn’t imagine it said less about Teresa and more about Hero. Teresa had been that girl, too, in another life. No—not in another life. The same one. Hero was starting to figure that out, too.”

Forgive me, this is ridiculous but in trying to both describe Castillo's novel as well as my path to it (and through it), the following formula presents itself: Garcia-Márquez, minus magical realism thank god, plus some "Trese", plus "Scrubs", plus a lot of Mao, plus my life in the California Bay Area?

Because, yes, here's a profound portrait of the Filipino American immigrant experience. The scene with Paz on an international call, shouting at relatives, "anger her last fortification against fear", is one that I instantly recognize from my childhood (though we came from South Asia).

But I cannot stop thinking about the many side-quests Castillo has given us: an incredible portrait of the Communist rebel life that I'm dying to learn more about (Hero's story reminded of that generation of mujahideen who had lived their entire lives in the mountains, entering Kabul in 1992, and marveling at the glories of a city). The universal professionalism of nurses and doctors. Bruhas and folk healers (that "Trese" reference). The Bay Area dialect circa 1990s—I can hear Rosalyn and Jaime's repartee almost exactly around me, though today they'd have more beautiful Black English grammar, like dropped "be"'s.

Then there's the languages. Oh, linguistics lovers are in for a treat—

“Hero opened her mouth, still unsure of whether to use English or Tagalog when talking to Paz. Paz had a habit of speaking to Roni in a mixture of English, Tagalog, and Pangasinan. It felt like Roni didn’t really know the difference between Tagalog and Pangasinan, and moved between the two interchangeably as if they were one language. Nobody had told her otherwise, Hero supposed. But for Hero, listening to the mixture was like listening to a radio whose transmission would occasionally short out; she’d get half a sentence, then nothing—eventually the intelligible parts would start back up, but she’d already lost her place in the conversation. But when Pol would come in, they’d switch to English, and like adjusting a dial to get a sharper signal, Hero would be able to tune in again.”

And the food, oh the food—

“She brought things that Hero recognized but rarely ate in Vigan, afritada and adobo and pancit, which Hero associated only with festivals and holidays. She brought the foil-wrapped meat loaf Hero thought of as embutido, but which Paz called morhon.”

There are also important omissions. Like Octavia Butler who in many novels didn't have men even as villains, Castillo totally decenters white American culture, and the negative space gives the novel so much completeness. Thankfully childhood bullying is only hinted at.

Yeah, not a book I'd recommend to just everyone—nobody asks me anyway—but one that I suspect I will be shaped by in unexpected ways for a while to come.