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
Although he is glad to be out of the hospital, Carlos is fearful of going back to the perilous, violent life he left behind before he got sick. “I had never known peace, except in the hospital,” he observes. When he arrives at his hotel, Victor and Macario try to make him feel at home. Victor and Carlos try to find their own place, but racist white proprietors refuse to rent to them. Macario’s restraint in the face of such prejudice impresses Carlos.
Unable to find a place to live, Carlos seeks out José, who is now married with a child whom he named after Carlos. When José suggests that Carlos pick out one of his sisters-in-law for himself, Carlos obliges, only to be rejected by the woman he chooses. The rejection depresses Carlos, who laments: “I was to run from crying women, because I was afraid they would evoke emotion in me.”
This represent one of the few moments in the novel where Carlos expresses an explicit desire for sex. ,Because Bulosan frequently associates sex with depravity throughout the novel, the lust Carlos shows for José’s sister-in-law frames his return to the outside world as a loss of the purity (and nurturing relationships with women) that he enjoyed in the hospital. .
Themes
Carlos eventually finds an apartment on Los Angeles’s crime-ridden Temple Street. Police raid the building on several occasions to arrest prostitutes, and one night Carlos witnesses an attempted murder following a domestic argument. In the face of such despair, Carlos turns to books of fairytales, which spark an interest in Filipino folklore. He recalls his doctor’s warning that his poor living conditions combined with the effects of tuberculosis mean he has maybe five years left to live. He vows to spend the remainder of his life writing “about our anguish and our hopes for a better America,” with the goal of making a positive impact on the world.
As with Carlos’s previous residence on the ironically named Hope Street, here he is forced into yet another crime-ridden slum. Temple Street is an equally ironic name for a place that’s full of desperation and misery, as opposed to the pristine glory of a majestic and holy temple. Yet even in the face of this setback and the real knowledge of his impending death, Carlos vows to devote the remainder of his life to fostering beauty in the world. Again, Carlos’s story demonstrates that it’s always possible to cling to beauty, even in desolate settings.
Themes
