Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The City We Became, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cities and Gentrification
Community, Diversity, and Prejudice
Ethics and Nature
Beliefs, Concepts, and Stereotypes
Art
Abuse
Summary
Analysis
Watching the city from her house’s roof at night, Aislyn is startled when her mother (Kendra Houlihan) joins her. Kendra sits—and asks Aislyn whether she reached the city the day before. Aislyn reflects that she doesn’t get Kendra, whom she used to think “dull” but then realized only acted dull to make men “feel sharper”—something that Aislyn has also started doing. She asked Kendra how she guessed Aislyn was traveling to the city. Kendra replies that Aislyn takes the car, not the bus, when she shops—but “NYPD photographs license plates at the ferry station.”
Kendra acts “dull” to make men “feel sharper,” a detail revealing that she deals with abusive or unfair power dynamics (like the power dynamics sexism creates) by accommodating them, rather than fighting against them. Since Aislyn has begun to act the same way, it seems she has learned her accommodationist tactics from her mother. Kendra’s tacit understanding that Aislyn wouldn’t take her car to the ferry station because Matthew Houlihan might notice her license plate among NYPD photographs shows that Kendra, as well as Aislyn, knows Matthew uses his status as a policeman to surveil and control his daughter.
Themes
Aislyn reflects that Matthew almost caught her despite her precautions. She’s wondering how she can admit that she wanted to visit the city, which her parents hate, when Kendra says she wishes Aislyn had gone. She tells Aislyn that as a young woman, she was a concert pianist with a Julliard scholarship, but when Julliard accepted her she was already pregnant and married Matthew soon after.
Julliard is a highly prestigious performing arts school in Manhattan. Kendra’s former desire to go to Julliard hints that she doesn’t hate the rest of New York City the way Aislyn thought she did. Kendra gave up her musical career for her family, somewhat like Padmini studies finance rather than math to fulfill her family’s goals—yet another example of an individual person’s needs and desires conflicting with the needs, desires, or value of their community.
Themes
Aislyn has heard about Kendra’s miscarriage; Matthew believed the baby was a son and called him Conall. Aislyn asks why Kendra couldn’t have attended Julliard anyway. Kendra admits she aborted her pregnancy to do so—but Matthew’s “heartbroken” reaction to losing the pregnancy convinced her she should sacrifice her dream. When Aislyn asks whether she ever told Matthew about the abortion, Kendra asks why she would—which suggests to Aislyn that Kendra believes her “son-hungry” husband would have responded badly.
Matthew didn’t know the baby’s sex for certain but nevertheless believed it was a son and called it Conall. This fact, together with the description of Matthew as “son-hungry,” suggest that he’s a misogynist who values male children more than female children. This passage seems to be implying Kendra is too afraid of Matthew ever to tell him she had an abortion, which strengthens the reader’s sense of him as an emotionally abusive and maybe violent man. That Kendra felt she had to give up art for Matthew—when good art, in the novel, is a source of joy and power—further underscores Matthew’s negative characterization.
Themes
Kendra tells Aislyn that, given her own sacrifices, she wanted her daughter to leave Staten Island. She admits she ordered Aislyn New York City college brochures for that reason. Aislyn recalls that her father Matthew believed she, Aislyn, had ordered them and yelled at her, suggesting that the city was dangerous and “it was her choice of course but he expected her to make good choices.” Aislyn imagines Kendra as she would have looked in another reality where she became a pianist—elegant, younger-looking, and not as sad. Kendra tells Aislyn: “if the city calls you, Lyn, listen to it. And go.” Then she exits the roof.
Matthew’s fury that Aislyn would consider leaving Staten Island and his refusal to accept her choices unless he deems them “good” once again show his controlling nature. Aislyn imagining Kendra as a pianist reminds the reader that, given the infinite parallel dimensions that exist in the novel, Kendra probably did become a pianist in a neighboring reality—and that, given the value the novel accords to art, that reality is probably better for Kendra than this one. When Kendra urges Aislyn to leave Staten Island for the rest of New York City, it reminds the reader that a person need not remain stuck in their home community if their community isn’t good for them.
Themes
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When Aislyn reenters the house, she finds Matthew laughing in the dining room with a tattooed man who looks to Aislyn like “antifa” or a “commie” and whom Matthew introduces to Aislyn—he calls her “Apple”—as Conall McGuinness. Aislyn, startled by the name, asks her father whether he knows Conall from work. When her father says no, Aislyn senses he’s lying, though Conall doesn’t seem like a police officer to her. Conall says he and Matthew are working on a “hobby,” and both men laugh again.
“Antifa” is an abbreviation of “anti-fascist” and “commie” an abbreviation of “communist.” As Matthew is conservative, he presumably wouldn’t be friends with a man who is either—so Conall’s “antifa” or “commie” appearance likely signifies that some young right-wing men have appropriated countercultural fashions associated with the left. Since throughout the novel, various police officers have abused their power, Aislyn’s intuition that Conall is somehow associated with Matthew’s work immediately make him a suspect figure. That he shares the name Matthew wanted to give to Kendra’s first pregnancy, meanwhile, suggests that Matthew may be using Conall as a substitute son.
Themes
Conall asks about the nickname “Apple.” Matthew says he calls Aislyn his “little apple, here in the Big Apple,” and claims she adores the nickname. Aislyn reflects that she hates it. Matthew yells for Kendra and orders her to ready a room for Conall, who will be staying with the family. Aislyn exchanges glances with Kendra—neither of them is sure what’s going on—and spots a tendril on Conall’s neck. When he notices her staring, she retreats to her room.
Though Matthew has used abusive tactics to keep Aislyn away from the rest of New York, his nickname for her—“Apple” in the Big Apple—ironically highlights her connection to the city. Matthew doesn’t know (or care) that his daughter hates the nickname he gave her and yells at his wife, more details revealing his callous, sexist personality. Given that the reader has just learned that only those sympathetic to the Woman in White can receive her infection, Conall’s tendril-infection hints that he likely espouses a gentrifier’s or bigot’s ideology.
Themes
Aislyn can’t sleep. At 3 a.m. she goes to the backyard to sit by the pool (where she never swims—she’s afraid, despite the fence, that someone will see her in a swimsuit). Conall’s asleep on a pool chair, wearing only pajama pants. As he wakes, she sees on his torso an “Irish trinity knot,” figures she thinks are Norse gods, and a swastika. Seeing her note the swastika, he says she must be a real Irish girl, since she hasn’t run. When Aislyn asks what Ireland has to do with swastikas, Conall tells her “there aren’t enough girls like you out there making the right choices.”
Conall has a swastika tattoo, indicating that he’s a white supremacist neo-Nazi. Though the “trinity knot” has a pre-Christian history, in Irish Catholic culture it represents the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of Christianity. The Norse gods, meanwhile, are pagan figures associated with Scandinavia. The clashing religious and cultural signifiers among Conall’s tattoos highlight that white supremacy is not only evil but conceptually confused, trying to make various, conflicting religious and cultural traditions represent an imaginary “whiteness” and “white culture.” Aislyn’s question about what Ireland has to do with swastikas underlines the conceptual confusion visible in Conall’s tattoos. At the same time, her lack of outright horror at the swastika reminds the reader of Aislyn’s own racism and her tendency to accept it passively when Matthew or the Woman in White uses bigoted language. When Conall replies by describing Aislyn as a girl “making the right choices,” it echoes Matthew’s earlier demand that Aislyn make “good choices”—and suggests that Conall endorses abusive, hierarchical gender roles as well as white supremacy.
Themes
Aislyn spots bottles around Conall’s chair. She’s wondering whether the Woman in White can perceive her through Conall’s tendril when he asks her whether she’s ever had sex with a Black man. The question shocks Aislyn. Conall laughs at her and tells her that since Matthew wants to set them up, he wants to know what he's getting: “I mean, you’re a pretty girl, but you’re from Staten Island.” As he talks, he ogles her. Aislyn becomes ashamed of her modest pajamas, thinking that he’s speaking to her in this way “because she’s dressed like a whore.”
The Woman in White told Aislyn the tendrils were like microphones and Aislyn could use them to contact her, so Aislyn understandably wonders whether the Woman is spying on her right then. When Conall points out that Aislyn’s from Staten Island as if it’s a mark against her, he seems to be deploying some negative sexual stereotype about women from Staten Island. When Aislyn blames her pajamas for Conall’s sexual harassment and thinks of herself as a “whore,” meanwhile, her reaction reveals how her misogynistic family environment has conditioned her to accept sexist harassment and abuse.
Themes
Conall tells Aislyn that he’s joking and that she isn’t his “type.” Aislyn, angry that a man taking advantage of her family’s hospitality would behave like this toward her “in her own home,” agrees she really isn’t his type, shows him her back, and stays there, so he doesn’t think she’s running away.
Aislyn does get angry with Conall and attempt to stand up to him a little—not merely because he’s sexually harassing her, but because he’s violated the concept of hospitality and the sanctity of the ”home.” Aislyn only allows herself to stand up for conservative concepts like hospitality and home, not more progressive ones like gender equity.
Themes
Aislyn hears Conall move and turns, frightened. Seeing he has an erection, she begins to flee. He grabs her and tells her that if she can’t find a husband, she’ll die living with her parents. Seeing from her expression that she believes him, Conall says he knows she’s a virgin who wants to leave “this shitty island.” Aislyn tells him to let her go. Trembling, she realizes she’s doing so out of rage—because he insulted Staten Island. Conall tells Aislyn to perform oral sex on him, then offers to have vaginal sex with her, and then, laughing, says “anal’s good, too. Doesn’t hurt at all.”
Conall’s erection and his refusal to let Aislyn leave suggest an intent to sexually assault her. His sneering, ironic claim that anal sex won’t “hurt at all” indicates that he doesn’t care whether he physically harms Aislyn. Once again, Aislyn fails to get angry at the threat or insult to herself—instead, she’s angry at the insult to her community, to Staten Island.
Themes
Aislyn is disturbed by the thought that Matthew is friends with Conall because Conall is “also a beer-swilling, controlling boor” who wants to buy up her “emotional real estate” and “double the rent on anything he doesn’t want her to feel.” She reflects that while Conall has correctly diagnosed this dynamic, he’s mistaken about Aislyn, who embodies a whole borough. Aislyn demands again that Conall let go, yanks free of him, and emits an energy wave, throwing Conall through the fence. Looking at the backyard security cameras, she murmurs Matthew’s mantra about people in Staten Island at least trying to be decent. She uses her power to affect the cameras, tells Conall she was never there, and walks through the hole his body made in the fence.
Though Aislyn accommodates Matthew, she knows he is “controlling” and abusive. Interestingly, she compares Matthew’s emotional abuse of her to aggressive real estate purchases and rent gouging—as if Matthew is “gentrifying” Aislyn the way the Better New York Foundation is gentrifying the city. Whereas previously the other embodied boroughs have emitted energy waves to destroy the Woman in White’s tendrils, which represent gentrification, here Aislyn uses an energy wave to defend herself against a sexual predator who reminds her of her father. This incident suggests a parallel between the Woman’s invasion of New York City and male sexual violence against women. It may also prompt the reader to wonder why Aislyn won’t stand up to Matthew, when she’s willing to throw a man who reminds her of Matthew through a fence.
Themes
As Aislyn walks away, she feels Staten Island making sure no one notices her. Behind her, Matthew, with a shotgun, goes to investigate his back yard. She reflects that in Staten Island, people ignore “the indecencies, the domestic violence, the drug use” and use their denial to feel superior to the city. She won’t tell Matthew that Conall tried to rape her, since Matthew has mocked rape victims before—hence her decision to alter the cameras so the figure struggling with Conall won’t be recognizable. She reflects she’s jealous of Matthew’s ability to fool himself that “evil comes from elsewhere” and resides in “other people.”
Aislyn’s thoughts suggest that Staten Islanders use the stereotype of decency to ignore actual “indecencies,” including abuse such as domestic violence. Clearly, Aislyn finds herself in one such indecent situation—her abusive father is a police officer who mocks rape victims and might not believe his own daughter if she told him about her assault. This passage suggests that denial about the facts of one’s situation is characteristic of Staten Island—which may explain why Aislyn, the quintessential Staten Islander, seems to move in and out of denial about her father’s emotional abusiveness and the Woman in White’s manipulations. Yet at the same time, when Aislyn muses that her father is deceiving himself that “evil comes from elsewhere” and resides only in “other people,” it may make the reader wonder: isn’t the Woman in White an “evil from elsewhere”? Is this scene then hinting that the Woman in White may have understandable reasons for her behavior? And if evil resides not only in other people, what evils have the novel’s protagonists committed? The reader knows that Aislyn is racist and Manny has a violent past, but what about Bronca, Brooklyn, and Padmini?
Themes
Aislyn, “bitter about all the forces that have conspired to make her what she is,” is trying not to cry when a car stops near her. A non-white man with a cigarette in his mouth (São Paolo) rolls down the car window and calls her Staten Island. Suddenly, Aislyn perceives Paolo as a city. When he tells her to get in the car, she moves to obey—and tendrils jump from the ground to block her path and attack the car.
In preceding scenes, Aislyn has defended herself against attack and reflected actively on the negative aspects of her life and community. Yet she still thinks of herself as a passive object of “forces that have conspired to make her what she is” rather than an agent in her own right. Still, she seems willing to make a change. Although previously Aislyn has reacted with racist fear to non-white men, in this scene she’s willing to get in a strange non-white man’s car because she knows he’s like her—a city. Only the Woman in White’s tendrils prevent her.
Themes
The Woman in White grabs Aislyn, tells her Paolo almost “got” her, and asks whether she’s okay. As an energy wave from the car destroys most of the tendrils, Aislyn demands the Woman let go of her and realizes the Woman is in a different body. Remembering Conall’s tendril, Aislyn concludes that the Woman witnessed his assault on her and didn’t intervene. She angrily points out that the Woman promised to help her. When the Woman says she’s trying to protect Aislyn from Paolo, Aislyn says that one of the Woman’s people assaulted her in her “own home”—the location makes her especially angry.
Previously, the reader has seen how Matthew controls Aislyn by teaching her racist fears and then using those fears to keep her living at home under his supposed protection. Now the Woman in White is using a similar strategy: she says Paolo almost “got” Aislyn and casts herself as Aislyn’s defender. At this point, Aislyn isn’t falling for it: she knows the tendril-infected white supremacist Conall is the one who attacked her, not Paolo. Yet Aislyn is still clinging to her old habits of thinking: she’s especially angry that Conall attacked her in her “own home,” as if the violation of her father’s hospitality is the real problem.
Themes
Paolo exits the car, still holding a cigarette in his mouth, with a business card in hand. Aislyn, realizing he’s not a New Yorker, suddenly perceives him as “bigger and stronger and a man and foreign.”
Paolo’s cigarette and business card—objects associated with his city—remind the reader that stereotypes have power in the novel. When Aislyn realizes that Paolo is “foreign,” it triggers her xenophobia, foreshadowing that she may not see Paolo as an ally anymore. Her fearful reaction to Paolo being “bigger and stronger and a man” makes some sense, given that a man (Conall) just sexually assaulted her—but it also seems like Aislyn is once again directing her fear and anger at the wrong target.
Themes
Paolo tells the Woman in White that they’ve had an ”understanding” with her for millennia—that the Woman would stop trying to kill a city after the city was successfully born. The Woman denies any understanding, because his “kind don’t understand anything.” Paolo asks her to explain, speculating that if she’s “a person” capable of speech then maybe they don’t have to kill each other. The Woman, disgusted, asks: “Did you really need to hear me speak to know that I was a person, São Paolo? Do people have to protest their own assault before you’ll stop?”
Paolo thinks that the living cities have had a long-term “understanding” with the Woman and White, but up until recently he and the other cities didn’t even know she could speak. The cities’ ignorance suggests their concept of the Woman is inaccurate—though the Woman’s claim that Paolo’s “kind don’t understand anything” also seems like an unfair stereotype. The Woman’s disgust that the cities couldn’t see her as a person and her reference to people “protest[ing] their own assault” implies that the cities have somehow assaulted, abused, or otherwise harmed the Woman’s species—that her attacks on cities are some kind of retaliation. Yet the Woman doesn’t explain exactly what she means, which leaves the reader’s understanding of the conflict between the cities and the Woman murky.
Themes
Aislyn sees “confusion” but also “guilt” on Paolo’s face. She concludes “this brown foreign man” has wronged the Woman in White or another woman because he felt “entitled.” Aislyn, feeling hatred toward men who act that way, demands to know what Paolo wants. When he looks surprised, Aislyn speculates he didn’t expect self-assertion from her and thinks: “Maybe he’s a Muslim, or some other kind of woman-hating heathen barbarian.”
In this passage, Aislyn seems to be xenophobically redirecting her righteous anger at Conall’s assault on her toward Paolo, whom she thinks of as a “brown foreign man” and a possible “woman-hating heathen barbarian.” This redirection shows how Aislyn’s xenophobia and bigotry prevent her from getting or staying righteously angry at the (white or white-appearing) people who have actually manipulated, controlled, and abused her: her father Matthew, Conall, and the Woman in White.
Themes
Paolo says he was looking for her and “the others” so that they would help the city. Aislyn tells him to leave. When Paolo gives the Woman in White a suspicious look, Aislyn concludes he thinks the Woman must be manipulating Aislyn. Infuriated, Aislyn tells him he doesn’t “belong” and attacks him like she did Conall. The energy wave turns the Woman into a regular red-haired woman, who leaves in a trance-like state—and both breaks Paolo’s arms and causes an earthquake in São Paolo. Paolo, on reflex, strikes back and hurts Staten Island—but she is less damaged than he is. Aislyn demands, one last time, that Paolo leave her alone, and she begins walking home.
Paolo is correct to suspect that the Woman in White is manipulating Aislyn. Due to both her history of sexist abuse and her negative stereotypes about non-white men, however, Aislyn can only interpret Paolo’s suspicions as sexist condescension. She once again reveals her xenophobia when she attacks him with energy derived from a concept of “belong[ing],” a concept that requires excluding those who don’t “belong”(in this case, Paolo).
Themes
At Aislyn’s house, Matthew and Conall are talking to the police outside. No one notices Aislyn return to her bedroom. Through her window, she hears Conall claiming a Black man attacked him. She wishes her father would realize Conall is a terrible person, but she’s sure she won’t get that kind of justice: “the only true justice is having the strength to protect oneself against invasion and conquest.” Reflecting that Staten Island, not the whole city, saved her that night, Aislyn decides to ignore her mother Kendra’s advice and Paolo’s entreaties and stay in her own borough.
Conall, telling the police a Black man attacked him, is relying on racist stereotypes about Black male criminality to hide the fact that he himself was trying to commit a crime, sexual assault. Aislyn’s lack of faith that her father or the other police officers will see through Conall’s racist lie ironically aligns her with the other, less conservative, non-white boroughs, who also distrust the police. Aislyn’s claim that the “the only true justice is having the strength to protect oneself against invasion and conquest” is interesting. The reader is inclined to distrust Aislyn at this moment, since she’s just made the mistake of trusting the Woman in White again and attacking Paolo—yet the embodied boroughs’ whole goal in the novel does seem to be combating the Woman’s “invasion and conquest” of New York City. If the embodied boroughs are not in fact pursuing “true justice” in their fight against the Woman in White, why not?
Themes
As Aislyn sleeps, police and city staff investigate gouges like giant claw marks breaking Staten Island’s subway tracks. While the city is repairing the damage—repairs that will take days—poor people on Staten Island will have trouble getting to work and taking care of family elsewhere.
Aislyn, Staten Island’s avatar, has just decided to isolate herself from the rest of the city. This short passage illustrates how literal, physical isolation—the breaking of the subway tracks that connect Staten Island to the rest of the city—is bad for Staten Islanders. It thus suggests that isolation is also likely to be bad for Aislyn.
Themes
