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
Hong is explaining that when London was born, it had more than 12 avatars—and then, suddenly, one, after which London was safe. When Hong expresses annoyance that Paolo hasn’t already explained it, Paolo points out he’s had no opportunity and also would have been more sensitive about it.
This passage reveals the significance of Hong and Paolo’s previous comparisons between London and New York City: like New York City, London had multiple avatars. The winnowing of London’s avatars from more than 12 to one suggests that surviving avatar consumed and appropriated the other avatars’ identities—sacrificing diverse members of the London community to save the city as a whole.
Themes
Manny clarifies that Hong is talking about New York City’s avatar eating the embodied boroughs. Hong compares the situation to Sodom and Gomorrah and then adds, “I’m told the Enemy killed the former before the merger was complete.” The resultant disaster killed Sodom, Gomorrah, and two other cities not yet born. Hong says that if New York City’s avatar doesn’t eat the embodied boroughs and protect the city, its destruction will also cause destruction in New Jersey, Long Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and maybe Massachusetts.
In the biblical book of Genesis, God destroys the cities Sodom and Gomorrah due to their extreme sinfulness. This novel repurposes the Biblical story to suggest that the death of living cities caused the destruction, not God. The example of Sodom and Gomorrah serves to illustrate the extreme, mythology-creating levels of destruction that will occur if the embodied boroughs do not sacrifice their lives for the good of the many.
Themes
Manny accuses Hong of lying to manipulate them. Hong replies that he’s informing them of a necessary part of the process: when a “composite city” is born, the “primary avatar” must eat the “sub-avatars” that represent parts of the city to ensure the city’s safety. When Bronca suggests that the eating could be a metaphor for something “spiritual” or “sexual,” Hong says he doesn’t know exactly what happened in London, but the sub-avatars disappeared, and the primary avatar was “traumatized.”
Given the importance of abstract concepts, imagination, and so forth in the novel, Bronca’s suggestion that the “primary avatar” might only need to eat the “sub-avatars” metaphorically, not literally, seems reasonable. Hong’s perception that whatever happened in London “traumatized” its avatar makes his pessimistic take on the process also seem reasonable, but he still may be dismissing Bronca too quickly due to his prejudice against younger cities.
Themes
Manny tells Paolo there’s no way he could have conveyed these facts sensitively. Paolo says that he would have explained why it’s “necessary” for the embodied boroughs to sacrifice themselves. Padmini blows up at Paolo, calls New York City’s avatar “that—thing,” and shoves Paolo into a fridge. When Manny grabs her and prevents her from hurting Paolo, Padmini accuses Manny of wanting the avatar to eat him. Manny insists he wants to live and suggests that, given all the other strange things about New York City’s birth, maybe its sub-avatars won’t die. Hong agrees this is possible but asks whether they wanted him to conceal that in all other composite cities’ births, “the sub-avatars have vanished.” Brooklyn says no—they needed to hear it. Hong nods to her.
Paolo’s claim that it’s “necessary” that the sub-avatars die for the greater good is reminiscent of the Woman in White’s belief that humanity must die to protect neighboring dimensions from humanity’s cities. Both are making the utilitarian argument that it’s ethically right to sacrifice a smaller number of lives to save a larger number. When Padmini reacts by calling New York City’s avatar a “thing,” it suggests that people sometimes stereotype or dehumanize others out of fear. Manny’s hopeful suggestion that maybe the primary avatar won’t need to eat them reminds the reader both that New York City’s situation is unprecedented and that Manny, who is in love with the primary avatar, wants to think the best of him.
Themes
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Padmini starts cursing in Tamil and English. Manny tries to convince her that New York City’s avatar “has no reason to want to kill” them—at which point Bronca interrupts, saying Manny doesn’t know that. Brooklyn adds that what the avatar wants doesn’t matter—if he must kill the four of them to save the city’s entire population, he should.
In this passage, Manny continues to exhibit an intense emotional investment in New York City’s avatar—despite, as Bronca points out, not knowing very much about him. Manny’s perceptions are based on his emotions and beliefs, not objective facts. Meanwhile, Brooklyn reiterates Paolo’s utilitarian logic: it makes sense to sacrifice four lives to save millions.
Themes
Hong tells them they have no more time—traveling from the airport, he saw the tendrils making “structures” and a strange tower on Staten Island. Veneza summons the others to a window and points out a bizarre, organic-architectural structure over Hunts Point—when she saw it earlier, she thought it was art or an advertisement, until she found out a friend of hers couldn’t see it. Bronca worries at how near the thing must be to her house. When Paolo asks what it is, Hong admits he doesn’t know and that Paolo was right about New York City’s strangeness.
That Veneza can see the tendril structures emphasizes that she has a special relationship to New York City despite technically living in New Jersey. Hong’s admission that he doesn’t know what’s going on, meanwhile, reveals once again that he and Paolo lack the experience and concepts to guide the embodied boroughs’ actions.
Themes
Bronca, horrified, points out six Latino teenagers on the street outside, three of whom are infected by the tendrils. She announces she’s going for a walk to see what’s happening. Manny insists on going with her. Veneza comes too. As they walk, they spot many New Yorkers infected by the tendrils. They come to an empty lot where a building has recently been demolished and Veneza, shocked, laments “Murdaburga,” a burger restaurant she calls “a Bronx institution” that seemed to be doing well financially. Bronca goes to investigate and finds a poster explaining someone is building condos on the lot. She further explains that the families who used to live above Murdaburga must have been evicted.
The destruction of “Murdaburga” is a clear example of gentrification—a local restaurant and “Bronx institution” destroyed to make room for condos, which will presumably be homogenous, cookie-cutter structures rented by higher-income people. That the destruction of Murdaburga also involves the eviction of longer-term renters strengthens the association the novel is drawing with gentrification. Since Bronca, Manny, and Veneza discover Murdaburga’s destruction while investigating increased tendril growth, the novel is linking the real-world phenomenon of gentrification to the novel’s science-fictional alien invasion.
Themes
Veneza indicates to Manny and Bronca the tendril growth is all over the now-empty lot. Bronca, furious, says that the Woman in White must have been readying her attack before the city’s birth, since it would take more than a day to obtain the relevant construction permits. Manny asks whether the Woman knew that New York City would be born. Bronca says she doesn’t know, hits the poster, and notices the name Better New York Foundation on it. Manny examines the Foundation’s logo. At first he thinks it includes the Manhattan skyline, but then he realizes the skyline is wrong—there’s a building in it that resembles “Seattle’s Space Needle,” but lumpy, with a “polyp-like” structure on top.
The Better New York Foundation uses money and power to gentrify and homogenize cities. The Foundation’s logo hints at this homogenization by including a building that resembles “Seattle’s Space Needle” in Manhattan’s skyline, an indication that the Foundation wants to make every city like every other city. Given that the Woman in White has previously been compared to a sea creature, the “polyp-like” structure in the skyline represents the true nature of gentrification and homogenization in the novel: alien invasion. That the empty Murdaburga lot is full of tendrils shows how gentrification and homogenization weaken cities, making them susceptible to further invasion by exploitative outsiders.
Themes
Bronca tells the others that the Better New York Foundation is the organization that offered the Bronx Art Center a strings-attached donation and that the Woman in White claimed to work for. Manny says it’s also the organization that stole Brooklyn’s brownstone. He explains the eviction letter Brooklyn received to Bronca and says that Brooklyn’s lawyers have found cases of other buildings being sold off on pretexts or without cause. Bronca has an epiphany that the Woman in White has set “traps” all over the city, not because she knew when New York would be born, but because she knew it would be born at some point.
The Better New York Foundation is setting “traps” to catch quintessentially local organizations and buildings—the Bronx Art Center, Brooklyn brownstones—and subvert or destroy them, thereby gentrifying and homogenizing the city. According to the novel’s science-fictional world-building, the Foundation thereby weakens the city by reducing its uniqueness. The Foundation exemplifies how outside money can suck the authenticity and life out of cities by gentrifying them.
Themes
Veneza speculates that maybe the Woman in White has constructed similar “traps” in any city she suspects may come alive. Manny looks up the Better New York Foundation on Wikipedia and discovers it was founded in the 1990s, with property all over the globe. When he skims some news articles about the Foundation, he discovers that its major activities have only been taking place for about five years. Veneza says something must have awakened the Foundation. Then, looking at Manny’s phone, she notices a mention of the Foundation’s “parent company TMW.” Manny, following the link, discovers that TMW stands for “TOTAL MULTIVERSAL WAR, LLC.”
The Better New York Foundation’s true identity as part of a global organization, not a local nonprofit, shows how money can hide its source and gentrifying agenda by falsely claiming local ties. The name of the Foundation’s parent company, “TOTAL MULTIVERSAL WAR, LLC,” makes blatantly clear that the Woman in White or her creators founded the company to do battle against cities whose births are destroying nearby dimensions in the multiverse—and since the phrase “total war” can refer to warfare waged with no ethical restrictions, the name also makes clear that the Woman and her creators will use any means necessary to stop more cities from being born.
Themes
That night, the embodied boroughs, Hong, and Paolo assemble at the Bronx Arts Center. Manny tells them about the Better New York Foundation—which disturbs Hong and infuriates Brooklyn, whose house the Foundation stole. When Brooklyn demands to hear what Hong knows about the Foundation, he says that he and the other cities haven’t noticed it operating elsewhere. Padmini asks whether they’ve looked. When Hong admits they haven’t, Bronca says that the Woman in White has been using money to preemptively weaken gestating cities—and perhaps prevent cities from getting to the gestation stage—right under the living cities’ noses.
That Hong and the other living cities failed to notice the Better New York Foundation is not surprising—with it, the Woman is weaponizing exploitative human economic systems, much as she also weaponizes human bigotry, against diverse urban communities. Because the Woman is acting like a human and weaponizing human flaws against humanity—because she doesn’t look alien, how the living cities expect her to look—the living cities haven’t been able to see past their preconceptions and notice what she’s been doing.
Themes
Paolo says that even before he learned the Enemy had stolen bodies and begun talking, he informed the other cities that its tactics had changed. He blamed the Enemy for the failures of New Orleans’s and Port-au-Prince’s births, but the older cities suggested that “young cities of the Americas” were just “awakening prematurely.”
It was not only the living cities’ preconceptions about the Enemy/the Woman in White that prevented them from noticing her new tactics. It was also their prejudices against “young cities of the Americas”—potential members of their own community. Because they look down on young cities, the older living cities failed to see that New Orleans and Port-au-Prince weren’t “awakening prematurely” but—more likely—were sabotaged.
Themes
Hong demands to know why the birthing process would suddenly alter. Paolo speculates that some stimulus external to this reality motivated the Enemy to change tactics—but, whatever the cause, the living cities should have looked into it. Paolo expresses regret that he let Hong convince him not to. Hong says he was trying to keep Paolo safe. Paolo, calling attention to his formerly broken arms, reminds Hong that cities aren’t immortal—most die violently—and that he won’t live “ruled by fear of death” or the Woman in White. Manny and Bronca, struck by the “undercurrent” in Hong and Paolo’s conversation, exchange speculative glances.
Although Hong demonstrated worry for Paolo while Paolo was unconscious, Hong has also been rude and dismissive to Paolo and the embodied boroughs, suggesting that he failed to take Paolo’s worries about the Enemy seriously because he shared the older cities’ disdain for Paolo and New York City. In this passage, however, Hong expresses a desire to keep Paolo safe, and Manny and Bronca—the two embodied boroughs the reader knows have experienced same-sex attraction—detect an “undercurrent” in Hong and Paolo’s relationship. The novel thus seems to be suggesting that romantic attachment to Paolo motivated, at least partially, Hong’s desire that Paolo not investigate the Enemy’s new tactics.
Themes
Addressing Manny, Padmini, Brooklyn, and Bronca, Paolo says he’s witnessed a city’s death and never wants to again. Manny asks whether it was New Orleans. Hong says no—the Summit sent him, an older city, to deal with New Orleans because “there are often complications with smaller cities.” During Hurricane Katrina, before New Orleans’s birth, its avatar was shot; a hospital gave her bad medical treatment and kicked her out while she was recovering from surgery because she lacked money. Hong found her and tried to help her, but she was too weak when the Enemy attacked at the city’s birth. Her death caused the levees to break.
Using the medical language of “complications” to describe a city’s birth reiterates earlier comparisons the novel has drawn between cities’ births and human births (as for example when New York City’s avatar was described as a midwife or when his water (mains) broke). During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the levees really did break and cause massive flooding and destruction. By attributing this real-world horror to the Enemy, the novel is insisting on the evil of the Enemy’s tactics.
Themes
Paolo says he was in charge of helping Port-au-Prince’s birth. Manny brings up the earthquake, thinking about how many people died both during the disaster and in the aftermath. Paolo points out that New York is both more populous and surrounded by more large population centers than Port-au-Prince. If the Woman in White finds New York City’s avatar while he’s still asleep . . . Paolo trails off ominously.
Estimates vary as to how many people the real 2010 earthquake in Haiti, to which this passage refers, killed. At minimum, it killed around 100,000; some estimates suggest it killed more than 300,000. By attributing this mass death to the Enemy and arguing she could cause even more death in the New York metropolitan area, the novel is again making very clear how destructive and evil the Enemy’s behavior is.
Themes
Brooklyn says the boroughs don’t know sacrificing themselves will work without Staten Island. Veneza suggests they go find Staten Island and ask for her help. Manny realizes he dislikes the idea and wonders whether he’s succumbing to “Manhattanites’ collective distaste for the littlest, least-loved borough.” All the embodied boroughs look “reluctant”—which strengthens Manny’s suspicion that dislike for Staten Island is clouding their judgment—but Brooklyn suggests they do it.
Given Aislyn’s racism and xenophobia, the other embodied boroughs could easily find legitimate reasons to dislike her if they met her. That they have avoided finding her for so long, despite knowing the danger the Woman in White poses to her, suggest that Manny is right—their preexisting stereotypes about “the littlest, least-loved borough” may have delayed their decision to accept Staten Island’s avatar into their community. This delay may prove to have been a tactical mistake, since the other embodied boroughs seem to need Aislyn’s help, but the Woman in White has had a long time to manipulate Aislyn for destructive purposes.
Themes
Manny argues they should split up—some going to find Staten Island, the others to find New York City’s avatar. Bronca says she’s surprised to hear this suggestion from Manny. When Manny says Bronca should want the avatar to survive too, Bronca retorts that she isn’t in love with the avatar. Manny is embarrassed but snaps that he wants more from his relationship with the avatar than just to die for him.
This passage again implies that Manhattan has a special relationship to New York City as a whole, of which Manny’s passion for New York City’s avatar is emblematic. That Manny doesn’t want to die for the avatar but live with him, meanwhile, shows that Manny’s concept of love is broader and deeper than just dramatic self-sacrifice.
Themes
Bronca asks who wants to go where. As they assign themselves—Manny to New York City’s avatar, Padmini to Staten Island, and so on—they feel motion in cityspace. Noises sound beneath them, and Bronca orders everyone to get out of the Center. As they flee, Bronca pulls a fire alarm to warn the keyholders. Manny, realizing they aren’t fleeing fast enough, imagines the subway—and a subway car materializes to carry them across the street. Moments after, a giant pillar of tendrils explodes out of the ground, through the Center, into the sky. Bronca wants to save the keyholders, but the others tell her it’s too late.
Where the embodied boroughs choose to go demonstrates their priorities: Manny, in love with New York City’s avatar, wants to go find him; Padmini, terrified New York City’s avatar will eat her, wants to flee to Staten Island; etc. Previously in the novel, the tendrils have needed to find something “sympathetic” in the things they infect to take root. In this passage, however, they destroy the Center despite Bronca having protected it from the Better New York Foundation’s influence. The tendrils’ growing power and violence suggest that while outside forces initially need to manipulate a community’s own internal divisions and bigotries to infiltrate it, once the infiltration is successful, the outside forces can use brute violence to achieve their ends.
Themes
Manny spots a Checker cab driving down the street. It stops, and the window rolls down, revealing Madison. Manny, believing the city sent the cab, asks her to drive them to City Hall Station. When Madison agrees, he asks those going to Staten Island whether they have a car too. Bronca says she’ll drive hers. Brooklyn volunteers to go with Bronca, and Paolo volunteers to go with Manny. When Veneza pulls out her keys and suggests she can drive some people too, Bronca demands she go home. Manny realizes Bronca is trying to drive Veneza out of the city because Bronca believes the Woman in White will win. Veneza reluctantly departs.
Madison’s sudden and convenient reappearance illustrates how, in the novel, true New Yorkers will instinctively come to the city’s aid. When Bronca sends Veneza out of the city, she seems to be implying that this isn’t Veneza’s fight and thus that Veneza is not a true New Yorker, not a part of Bronca’s community. Yet Bronca’s overwhelming concern for Veneza suggests that Veneza very much is a part of Bronca’s community. Thus the novel is once again drawing attention to Veneza’s ambiguous status: she’s technically not a New Yorker, yet she loves the city and is loved by one of the city’s avatars.
Themes
While Bronca unlocks her car, Padmini talks to Aishwarya on the phone, telling her to get the family out of the city. Brooklyn calls her father Clyde and tells him that one of her employees is coming to get him. Watching Bronca, Padmini, and Brooklyn leave, Manny reflects that of all the boroughs, he alone has no one he fears for—except New York City’s avatar. Then Manny and Paolo get in Madison’s Checker cab.
Yet again, the novel is emphasizing that Bronca, Padmini, and Brooklyn have attachments that may conflict with their duty to the city, whereas Manny does not: given his amnesia, his sole strong emotional attachment is to New York City’s avatar. This fact reiterates Manhattan’s special relationship to the concept of New York City. Yet given that the city stole Manny’s memories and thus stripped him of possible previous attachments, it seems to have manipulatively and unethically encouraged Manny’s exclusive fixation on its avatar. This reminds the reader anew that the city, though great, may not be “good” in the ethical sense.
Themes
As Veneza is driving toward her father’s place in Philadelphia, she hears a noise from the back seat of her car.
The noise in Veneza’s backseat suggests that she is in danger—which suggests in turn that she ought not to have left the others, as people are safer together.
Themes
