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
Mia and Jay meet Mia’s journalism professor, Brian Santos, at the edge of the slums. The area is even more crowded than it appears in photographs: shacks are built on top of other shacks, buildings “cobbled together,” and safety hazards are everywhere. Mia tells Brian Santos that Jay speaks hardly any Tagalog, which makes Jay feel bad. After hearing Jay’s name, Brian Santos realizes that Jay is related to Chief Inspector Reguero (Tito Maning). He offers condolences Jun’s death.
Much like Jay realized that the photos of the drug war didn’t fully represent the Philippines, it seems that photos of the slums don’t fully represent the slums, either. Once again, Jay is deeply insecure about his inability to speak Tagalog, even though Mia is only telling Brian Santos this information for practical purposes. Brian Santos’s immediate recognition of Tito Maning’s name makes clear Tito Maning’s stature. His condolences about Jun’s death indicate that, even if Tito Maning has erased Jun’s memory, other people know of the connection. The condolences also just make Brian Santos seem like a good person.
Themes
Mia explains that Brian Santos often guides foreign journalists around the Philippines (and gets little credit for it). He’s also an investigative journalist and wrote the piece about trafficking that made Mia want to pursue journalism. Brian Santos acknowledges that journalism in the Philippines is dangerous because people in power don’t want inconvenient truths to get out. Recently, he says, a colleague of his wrote a critical piece about the drug war and was arrested on fake charges. The government can’t stop foreigners from publishing stories and they can’t technically stop domestic reporting either, but they keep a close eye on journalists. Brian Santos suggests that Jay think about becoming a journalist, since Jay cares about the truth. Jay feels both proud and guilty, since he wouldn’t care if it weren’t for Jun.
The fact that Brian Santos is willing to guide foreign journalists around without being properly credited in their articles demonstrates how important he thinks it is to report the truth about corruption to the public. Earlier Tito Maning claimed that only the government told the truth; now Brian Santos is saying that the government is doing what it can to stop journalists from telling the truth. That Brian Santos recommends a career in journalism to Jay suggests that he sees some of his own determination in Jay. Jay’s realization that his motivation has been more about Jun than about a broader interest in the truth is important, but also could be grounds for future growth..
Themes
Brian Santos guides Mia and Jay through the streets and says that he’s familiar with Jun’s address, since he’s done reporting around there. He asks what Jay will do if he learns the truth about Jun today, and Jay doesn’t know. Brian Santos says that he receives death threats every day. Every time he reports a story, he asks himself if he’s willing to die to tell the truth. He asks if Jay is prepared to die to find out the truth about Jun. Jay thinks about his insignificant life: he goes to school, plays video games, and helps no one. He tells Brian Santos yes. Brian Santos asks Mia the same thing, and she also says yes.
Jay has been play-acting at being a detective. In this moment, Brian Santos presents him with the real stakes of what he is looking into—is he willing to risk his life to find the truth—and Jay accepts. Jay wants Jun’s death to have meaning, to impact the world in some way. And, in this moment, he decides that he wants to impact the world, to help people.
Themes
The three of them walk further into the slums and the streets grow narrower. Jay notices dogs, roosters, cats, and the sound of TVs. Most of all, he notices people everywhere, playing basketball and heading to work. Ashamed, Jay realizes that he expected “more misery.” In reality, everyone here is just making the best of things, the same as anyone else. Still, the safety hazards are real, and Jay feels conflicted.
Jay’s realization that life in the slums isn’t as awful as he believed it would be mimics Jun’s realization in his long-ago letter to Jay. Earlier, Tito Maning told Jay that Western media sensationalize the Philippines. While his assertion was partly an attempt to rationalize the drug war, Tito Maning is right that someone like Jay—who has only seen the slums in photographs, which were probably taken by foreign journalists—can’t get the full story about the Philippines from Western media. That said, Tito Maning also misrepresents the slums, with his emphasis on crime and drugs and his disdain for the people there.
Themes
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Brian Santos leads Mia and Jay to a structure built atop a basketball court. They knock on the door and an old woman answers it. The woman, Brian Santos, and Mia converse while Jay stands there, feeling useless. Eventually, the woman agrees to let them in and they climb a rickety staircase. After they pass a few levels, the concrete steps become wood planks. They knock on a door at the very top and a young woman peeks through the lock. Mia begins speaking to her in a language that Brian Santos identifies as Bisaya (the dialect from Mia’s region). Jay is impressed that Mia is fluent in so many languages, when most kids in America speak just one or two.
Once again, Jay’s inability to speak any Philippine languages or dialects leaves him feeling distinctly out of place, and shows him the cultural differences between the United States and the Philippines. The passage also highlights the poverty in the slums, with the rickety structure built above a basketball court.
Themes
Mia asks Jay to show the woman the photo of Jun that Jun’s friend sent. Jay does so, and the woman immediately looks grieved. Jay realizes that this woman must know Jun very well and isn’t just someone who took over his apartment. She opens the door for them and Jay notices that her skin is darker than theirs. He also notices a small child at her feet.
It seems that the pieces of Jun’s life after he left Tita Chato’s are falling into place, since this woman must have known the tattooed version of Jun. Her skin is dark, which might mean she’s a lower social class than Jun was, since Jun’s family looked down on the darker-skinned María. It's not clear whose child this is, but it’s worth wondering whether it’s Jun’s.
Themes
