America Is in the Heart Characters

One of Macario’s hotel mates. He used to work on a farm but moved to the city and is unemployed. In one instance at the hotel, he fights with José over a Mexican prostitute.

A wealthy young girl whom Carlos and Mother encounter while peddling beans in the Puzzorobio market. Two servants accompany the girl, and she is elegantly dressed. The girl calls Mother a “poor woman” and knocks over her basket of beans. Mother merely reacts by saying, “it is alright.”

Carlos’s youngest sister who is still a baby when he leaves the Philippines for America.

Carlos’s young sister. When Carlos is young, she dies a painful, unexplained death while still a baby.

The chiropractor and witch doctor who helps Carlos heal his broken bones after he falls out of a coconut tree as a child.

A boy on the ship bound for America who gives Carlos water. He is from San Manuel, Pangasinan, where Carlos once worked harvesting mongo fruit.

Marcelo’s cousin in Seattle who briefly meets with Carlos and Marcello before disappearing from their lives.

A graduate of a Los Angeles law school who Carlos meets at the Alaskan fish cannery.

Paulo’s Indian girlfriend who becomes pregnant with Conrado’s baby. When he learns that conceding he is the baby’s father will keep Conrado in Alaska for seven years, Paulo intercedes by claiming he is the baby’s father.

The corrupt contractor at the Alaskan fish-canning company who deducts non-existent “expenses” from the paychecks of Carlos and the other cannery workers.

The shady leader of the apple picking crew Carlos works with in the Yakima Valley. When payday arrives, Paez vanishes with the money, a stunt he has evidently pulled on numerous occasions.

Paez’s bookkeeper with doubtful credentials. Pinoy has an antagonistic relationship with Paez, and he gets into a brutal fight with Julio over apple pickers’ missing wages.

A man Carlos meets in a whorehouse in San Luis Obispo. He speaks Carlos’s dialect.

A former clothing company agent with a pencil moustache whom Carlos meets in Macario’s Los Angeles hotel.

One of Macario’s hotel mates. He works selling tickets in a dance hall, but one night he goes on a whiskey binge and dies in his sleep.

One of Macario’s hotel mates. He does housework in Beverly Hills.

Nick’s girlfriend. She is a college graduate and a teacher.

A starving, sickly Filipino whom Macario brings to the hotel. He wants to be a writer, but he commits suicide by jumping from his apartment window. His passion for writing inspires Carlos.

The leader of the crew of Filipino beat-pickers in Billings, Montana, where Carlos travels seeking work. He nearly beats his wife, Myra, to death when she has an affair with Poco.

Pete’s wife who has an affair with Poco. After Pete nearly kills her, they reconcile much to Carlos’s astonishment.

A Filipino with tuberculosis who has an affair with Myra. In a fit of rage, he shoots both Pete and Myra.

Pete’s cousin who beats him after he savagely attacks Myra. When Poco attempts to kill Pete and Myra, Alfred and Carlos escape from the scene in Alfred’s truck.

A Filipino who claims to be from Binalonan and leads a gang of farm workers in Guadalupe, California. Carlos joins them to pick cauliflower.

A husky farm worker with a voice ruined by a sinus infection. He entices Carlos to go to a bunkhouse, where Carlos discovers that the other cauliflower pickers are having an orgy with a prostitute.

Carlos cousin in the Philippines who informs Carlos of his father’s death in a rice field.

A young girl who works in a grocery store in Buelton. She shows Carlos an impressive wall of books, and Carlos is entranced by her beautiful looks.

A socialist who lives with his wife, Lucille, in Max’s former house in San Luis Obispo. They are socialist newspaper editors who hire Carlos, Gazamen, and José to work on and promote the newspaper.

Pascual’s wife. After he dies, she moves to San Francisco and starts a new newspaper.

A Japanese waitress with money and a car who joins up with Carlos and José for a night of fishing before revealing that she is married.

A white woman who leads the striking lettuce pickers in Lompoc into a police trap. She is a professional strike-breaker who briefly marries José and holds racist feelings towards Filipino laborers.

A labor activist who lives in San Francisco and is mutual friends with José and Helen.

A Filipino who works on Pascual and Lucille’s socialist labor magazine. When Pascual dies, he goes to San Francisco to work with Lucille on a new newspaper. In one instance, strike-breakers beat him severely.

A San Francisco newspaper reporter who works with a Filipino communist to organize workers in Sacramento.

A Filipino who consolidates labor organizing in Seattle after Conrado Torres goes to the Yakima Valley.

A Filipino kitchen helper whom Carlos meets at a hotel in Santa Barbara. He is a passionate writer, but he is unable to sell his stories.

Two young girls who marry sailors in San Diego. Carlos meets them on a bus bound for Medford, Oregon, where goes night swimming with them in a lake.

A Filipino who starts the union in the Seattle fish canneries. Japanese contractors hire men to assassinate him in a restaurant.

A woman Carlos meets in Los Angeles. She is a member of the Young Communist League. She urges Carlos to write poems and believes he can become a great American poet.

The editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. She publishes some of Carlos’s poems and plans to meet him before she dies tragically in South America.

A contributor to Poetry who once fed Carlos when he was a migrant worker. She visits Carlos in the hospital and brings him food.

Eileen’s friend who writes a proletarian novel about the Northwest that features a Filipino protagonist. She visits Carlos and he is excited over her writing.

A Greek patient in the Los Angeles Hospital ward who likes to sweep floors.

A Polish/Jewish patient in the Los Angeles Hospital ward who helps carry trays of food to patients too weak to walk.

José’s sister-in-law. Carlos is attracted to her, but she rejects his advances.

An American poet whom Carlos meets in the Los Angeles Public Library.

A woman Carlos meets at a meeting of leftists in Los Angeles. She introduces him to a man who fancies himself the first Filipino communist in LA.

The leader of Filipino workers at the lemon camp with whom Carlos has a long discussion about attachment to the land.

A wealthy Filipino contractor in Bakersfield who controls over 800 Filipino workers. Carlos sees him an example of a member of an oppressed group mimicking the behavior of his oppressors.

The secretary-treasurer of the striking asparagus workers union.

A foreman for one of the big farmers in Stockton.

Parvenus who control the Los Angeles delegation at the CPFR conference.

Labor delegates from Seattle.

An Italian-American congressional representative from California who introduces a bill in congress proposing Filipino Citizenship.

An attractive, middle-aged American woman who begins appearing at the labor meetings with Lacson.

A woman from San Diego who spends long hours talking about big ideas with Carlos.

The fascist military general and politician who ruled over Spain as Head of State and dictator (caudillo) from 1939 until his death in 1975. During the Spanish Civil War, Franco led the Nationalist faction against the Republican loyalists to the Second Spanish Republic.

A girl from Pennsylvania whom Carlos meets on a bus going to Los Angeles.

Julio’s partner in realm of Filipino crime.

A Filipino hero—and famous author of many books, including Noli Me Tangere—who died resisting Spanish colonial rule. Macario compares Rizal to Moses, the biblical Jewish leader who led his people out from the under the oppressive rule of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

One of Macario's roommates, who ends up marrying a white woman.

The woman who Leon marries in the Philippines. When on the wedding night it seems that she is not a virgin, the wedding guests turn into a mob and beat her. Leon soon moves away to another town with his wife.

A friend of Macario and Carlos's who listens on the radio with the two brothers as they hear about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. All three men worry about what will happen to the Philippines.

After Carlos's father dies, Carlos starts hanging out with a Filipino criminal named Max Smith. Carlos joins Max in committing robberies, but is shocked back to his senses after Max shoots and kills a white man with whom his wife is having an affair.