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
Bronca, arriving at the Bronx Art Center in the morning, checks her voicemail and hears a message from the development chair of the Center’s board, Raul, pointing out that though the Center doesn’t want to promote prejudice, the Alt Artistes have ties to “a prospective donor.” Bronca stops listening.
Raul’s voicemail implies that Center’s board cares about funding more than principles, which demonstrates how local organizations might cooperate with the gentrification or other external takeovers of their own neighborhoods. The board’s concern with money also highlights the vulnerability of publicly funded art galleries to individual rich donor’s agendas.
Themes
Bronca, walking through the Center, enters an exhibit of “photographs of graffiti” in the Bronx, which she now believes another avatar of New York City painted. The works include pictures of giant body parts and a “handhold” for an enormous entity. In the exhibit, Bronca comes upon a woman dressed in white business attire (the Woman in White). The Woman is viewing a painting of a young, thin, raggedly dressed Black man sleeping on newspapers, depicted with veneration—internally, Bronca compares it to historical paintings of the Virgin Mary. She thinks, cryptically, that this painting is different than the others: it’s “a self-portrait, but the boy didn’t paint it.”
This passage implies that New York City’s avatar painted the graffiti in the photographs on display in Bronca’s gallery. After all, the “self-portrait” the Woman is viewing matches the vision Manny and the others had of the avatar. That love of art has already indirectly connected New York City’s avatar to Bronca shows the importance of art to community in the novel. In Christianity, the Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ; the comparison of New York City’s avatar to the Virgin Mary implies that he is the “mother” of the living city, since he helped it through its birth, and that the city itself is a kind of god. If the painting is a self-portrait, but New York City’s avatar didn’t paint it, then New York City itself must have painted the graffiti—which hints that the city may have mystical or divine powers.
Themes
The Woman in White says to Bronca that the painting seems to be sending a message. Bronca, thinking the message isn’t for a “random stranger,” asks what it is. The Woman replies, “‘Find me,’” and smiles—baring large, crooked canine teeth out of keeping with her fancy clothes. Bronca, sensing the woman is a predator, says she gets “warning vibes” off the painting—the artist seems to be homeless, as in the painting he’s wearing ragged, anonymous clothes. When the Woman asks whether he's hiding, Bronca realizes he likely is and worries about the other embodiments of the city. She considers—but rejects—the impulse to find them. The Woman asks what the man is hiding from, and Bronca says he doesn’t know.
Bronca’s intuition that the painting’s message isn’t directed at a “random stranger” suggests that some art isn’t meant for just anyone—instead, it’s meant for the artist’s particular community. The Woman’s large canine teeth, coupled with Bronca’s sense that the Woman is a predator, once again imply something merely natural and animalistic about the battle between the Woman and the living cities. Finally, when Bronca squashes her impulse to help the city’s other avatars, it shows both her desire for community and her distrust of it.
Themes
Indicating the artist’s scarred knuckles in the painting, Bronca tells the Woman in White that he (the avatar) may be hiding but he’ll defend himself if attacked. She thinks people who believe New York is “more bluster than bite” haven’t seen its “large canines.”
Bronca thinks of New York City as a predator with “large canines”—much like the Woman in White strikes Bronca as a predator with large canine teeth. The comparison suggests an odd equivalence between the city and the Woman, even though the novel’s protagonists are defending the city and the Woman in White seeks to destroy it. Readers may wonder whether they should root for the city and against the Woman if both are fundamentally just big-toothed predators.
Themes
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Standing beside the portrait and facing off with the Woman in White as a “symbolic” point, Bronca says that small, disadvantaged, dark-skinned, poor people learn to fight because others target them: “Sometimes the abuse breaks them,” but other times it teaches them how to survive. When the Woman says it could also make them “monsters,” Bronca replies that it’s abusers who think fighting back makes victims monsters—because these kids could “fix” reality and bring “the end of all abusers.” The Woman rejects this possibility as idealism: “Cruelty is human nature.”
Bronca’s “symbolic” body language highlights the power of symbols in the novel. Her claim that people can derive survival skills from suffering abuse, meanwhile, makes sense given how Bronca has discovered her own strength by fighting back against abusers—but it may make the reader wonder whether Aislyn, whose father Matthew seems emotionally abusive, will learn strength or be broken. The Woman and Bronca’s disagreement about whether abuse victims could become “monsters” when they fight back points to an ethical question: if someone is abusing you, are you justified in doing absolutely anything to end the abuse? The Woman seems to think the answer is no; Bronca, that it’s yes. That may be because the Woman thinks you can never bring “the end of all abusers” because abuse and cruelty are “human nature,” whereas Bronca thinks fighting back against abusers can end the cycle of abuse once and for all.
Themes
Bronca denies the existence of fixed realities like human nature and concludes: “People who say change is impossible are usually pretty happy with things just as they are.” She means this to insult the Woman in White, whom she intuits is one of the “Beckies”—racist white feminists, tax-evading philanthropists, and doctors who sterilize Native American women on reservations. She resolves not to call Yijing Becky again—she’ll only use it on people deserving of it.
Bronca and the other avatar derive power from essentializing concepts like “Bronx-ness” and “New York-ness.” It’s interesting, then, that Bronca thinks the essentializing concept of human nature is ethically suspect, an alibi for people who are “pretty happy” with an unjust status quo. In that case, are the Bronx stereotypes and New York City stereotypes that empower Bronca ethically suspect as well? Although the Woman in White is an extradimensional alien, Bronca identifies her as a “Becky,” a quintessential racist white woman—which reminds the reader that the Woman is clearly using human prejudices and racist power structures as weapons in her battle against New York City.
Themes
The Woman in White, catching Bronca’s meaning, smiles toothily and introduces herself as “White.” Bronca is confused. The woman clarifies—she’s “Dr. White” from “the BNY Foundation”—and says that Bronca spoke yesterday with artists she knows. Bronca says the Alt Artistes’ paintings broke the Center’s anti-prejudice rules, and “art should be more layered” than tired old bigotries.
By noticing Bronca’s coded insult and introducing herself as “White,” the Woman in White shows that—although an alien—she has learned to understand and manipulate human racial hierarchies for her own purposes. The reader can guess that “BNY Foundation” stands for “Better New York Foundation,” the same organization that stole Brooklyn’s family’s brownstone. Rather than battling the avatars directly, the Woman seems to be using money and institutional power to attack the local phenomena that give them strength—brownstones, a neighborhood art gallery, and so forth. Meanwhile, Bronca’s claim that “art should be more layered” than bigotry is suggests that bigoted art is bad not just ethically but aesthetically, because bigotry is simplistic and anti-innovative.
Themes
The word “layers” seems to strike the Woman in White. Appearing tired, she says: “So many layers to existence.” Then, suggesting they simplify matters, she shows Bronca a check for 23 million dollars and says the donation has conditions. When Bronca asks whether the Woman is joking, the Woman says Bronca should have received a call from a board member about the prospective donation. Bronca remembers Raul’s message. When Bronca asks about the conditions, the Woman says the Center must display a few works from the Alt Artistes—non-prejudiced ones—and take down the photos of the unknown artist’s (the avatar’s) art. Bronca, shocked, asks why. The Woman claims to dislike the avatar’s artwork.
The word “layers” may remind the reader of Bronca layering her hands, one over the other, to illustrate parallel dimensions for Veneza. The Woman’s exhaustion with existence’s “layers” hints that the diversity of realities is a problem for her—but does not reveal why. The Woman’s prospective $23 million donation through the Better New York Foundation again shows how powerful outsiders can use money as a weapon to strongarm a community into changing to suit their preferences. That the Woman is targeting the avatar’s art, meanwhile, implies that the avatar’s art gives the city strength while the Alt Artistes’ art would weaken it.
Themes
The Woman in White requests that Bronca tell the board that day whether she’s accepted the donation and offers her hand. Thoughtlessly, Bronca shakes it—and feels a strange pricking sensation. After showing the Woman out, Bronca examines her hand and sees weird marks. As her post-embodiment knowledge tells her the Enemy has never appeared as a “passive-aggressive white woman,” she concludes her suspicions about the Woman are paranoid.
The strange sensation Bronca feels and the marks on her hand imply that the Woman in White tried and failed to infect her with a tendril, much as the Woman earlier tried and failed to infect Aislyn. The revelation that the Enemy has never appeared as the Woman in White before means that the Woman is using unprecedented tactics in the battle against New York—and, thus, that the beliefs and concepts about the Enemy that Paolo could share with the city’s avatars are outdated. Paolo may not be able to give the embodied boroughs the information they need, even if he's able to find them.
Themes
Raul calls Bronca and tells her the board is abuzz about the donation. Bronca protests that taking the Woman in White’s deal would violate the Center’s ethics. Raul says the Better New York Foundation wants to improve the city’s reputation. When Bronca calls that “gentrifier logic. Settler logic,” Raul implies that if she doesn’t cooperate, the board will fire her.
By calling the Better New York Foundation’s mission “gentrifier logic” and “settler logic,” Bronca is linking the Woman in White’s invasion of New York City to the city’s real-world gentrification, as well as to the European settlers’ theft of the land from indigenous peoples. Raul’s response shows how money can coerce locals into cooperating with gentrifiers.
Themes
Bronca asks what the Center would signal if it took down the avatar’s art for art by “neo-Nazis.” Raul suggests she watch the Alt Artistes’ new videos, check her email, and call back. When Bronca accuses him of choosing racists over her, he tells her he understands—he’s Chicano and his parents immigrated illegally—but a lot of board members doesn’t care about racism, only their affluent lifestyle.
Bronca’s anguished question about what an Alt Artistes’ exhibit at the Bronx Art Center would signal implies that the art in a given community represents that community. Thus, if the Center took down the avatar’s art for the Alt Artistes’, it would be a symbolic gesture aligning the Bronx with racism and against diversity. Raul’s response—that some board members only care about their lifestyle, not racism—indicates that for some people, engaging with art has neither ethical nor aesthetic value but is only a way to signal to other people that they have money.
Themes
Yijing, Jess, and Veneza are now in the Center. Bronca puts Raul on speakerphone so they can hear the call. Raul tells Bronca that he resisted the board’s decision, he doesn’t want her to get fired, and he hopes she takes care because the situation has deteriorated quickly. After the call ends, Yijing tells Bronca that since the Alt Artistes posted a new video about the Center, she’s been getting online racist messages and rape threats. Jess says harassers have been calling her home phone. Veneza mentions that, since she’s not on the Center’s website, she’s so far been spared.
The online harassment that the Center’s employees experience mirrors the real-world online harassment that women and people of color disproportionately experience, especially when they are public figures in creative fields.
Themes
Veneza tells the others they’ve been doxed and shows them a forum on her laptop. Yijing, scanning the dates on the posts, realizes the Alt Artistes planned the hate campaign before they came to the Center. Veneza says this means the steps the women took to protect themselves online came too late. Showing them Bronca’s number and address posted on the forum, Veneza offers again to let Bronca stay with her.
Yijing’s realization that the Alt Artistes planned online retaliation against the Center before Bronca rejected their work shows that they did not come in good faith. They always intended to turn the rejection of their bad art into a racist and sexist anti-diversity campaign.
Themes
Yijing says that the Center needs to start its own online campaign to counter the Alt Artistes. Jess contacts artists associated with the Center who have a substantial online presence, and Veneza asks her “art-school buddies” to contribute. These actions concentrate and amplify support for the Center already occurring online. Meanwhile, Yijing calls reporters and tells them Bronca may lose her job for refusing to remove the avatar’s art in favor of bigoted paintings. Eventually, thousands of people are posting on the Center’s side of the controversy.
In this passage, the novel demonstrates that online communities are not exclusively bigoted and destructive. Some, like the groups that come together online to support Bronca and the Center, can support diversity and effect positive change.
Themes
That evening, Raul calls Bronca again. When the call’s over, she tells her coworkers that the Center’s board has decided to turn down the Better New York Foundation’s donation and keep Bronca as director. While Veneza is overjoyed, Yijing is angry, pointing out that the board was only bowing to internet pressure. Bronca tells her coworkers they should leave and thanks them for keeping her from getting fired. Yijing, awkwardly, offers to let Bronca stay with her. Bronca turns her down but thanks her. When Yijing asks where Bronca is going to stay—given that the Alt Artistes have posted Bronca’s address online—Bronca says she’ll stay at the Center with the keyholders. Veneza decides to stay too, in solidarity.
While gentrifiers and other invaders like the Better New York Foundation can use money to control and change local communities, communities that come together to resist gentrification, homogenization, and diversity—like the online community that forms to protect Bronca’s job—can sometimes succeed. Yijing and Bronca’s truce, here, represents people who may dislike each other putting their personal feelings aside for the sake of principle and community—something the boroughs’ avatars may need to do in the rest of the novel.
Themes
That night, the city wakes Bronca with a mental danger warning from where she was sleeping on the Center’s third floor with Veneza and the keyholders. She hears a man laughing and liquid splashing. Running downstairs, Bronca sees the murals along the walls have been somehow “erased.” She hears a familiar-sounding woman (the Woman in White) crying, yelling in pain, and pleading with someone. The Woman says she’s a “good creation” and concludes, “I am only what you made me.” Then she stops speaking.
That the murals on the walls are “erased” on the same night the Woman in White invades the Center suggests the Woman is responsible for the erasure—which suggests, in turn, that the Woman is hostile to art, presumably because it’s essential to the city and gives the city power. The Woman’s tears and pained noises hint that someone—the entities that “made” her, whose “creation” she is—are torturing her. This torture makes the Woman, like Bronca and Aislyn, a victim of abuse—another unexpected similarity between the Woman and the avatars she’s attacking.
Themes
Bronca enters the Center’s ground level and sees that intruders have taken down the avatar’s art and poured lighter fluid on it. Someone has scribbled over the face in his self-portrait. When Bronca says, “you motherfuckers,” she hears a voice—which she now recognizes as the voice of the woman (the Woman in White) she heard on the stairs and, previously, in the bathroom stall—comment that many fewer people have sex with their mothers than she expected relative to the frequency with which they use that swear word.
That someone would take the trouble to deface the avatar’s art ironically highlights the power and value of his art to the city. The Woman in White’s throwaway comment that she’s surprised more humans don’t have sex with their mothers given how often they call each other “motherfuckers,” meanwhile, shows that despite her intuitive understanding of some human concepts (like racial privilege), the Woman is still an alien and an outsider who has trouble with other human concepts.
Themes
Bronca hears breaking. Part of the wall begins to “peel back […] like something computerized,” to reveal a white room that looks very far away. She recognizes it as similar to the white space she saw in the bathroom stall earlier. Something shoots out of the white room to the Center’s floor and transforms into the Woman in White. Although she doesn’t look like the Dr. White Bronca met—who, according to the Better New York Foundation’s website, is named Dr. Akhelios—Bronca intuits this is somehow a truer appearance.
Previously, the novel has compared the Woman in White and her various manifestations to natural phenomena: tentacles, plants, pigeon feathers, predators, infections, and so on. Now, however, the novel compares the Woman’s manipulations of our reality to something “computerized”—which reminds readers that in addition to being part of nature, the Woman may come from a highly technologically developed society of intelligent aliens.
Themes
Three Alt Artistes, including Manbun, appear and block the exit. Defiantly, remembering the begging she heard, Bronca asks the Woman in White whether she’s in trouble. The Woman replies: “We all have a board, of sorts, to answer to.” Bronca, unexpectedly empathizing, says she prefers her own board.
The Woman in White’s admission that she “answer[s] to” someone or something else reveals that she did not decide to attack New York City or the other living cities on her own. She is the creation and tool of another entity or entities. Bronca’s empathy with the Woman suggests a similarity between the two characters: both have been abused, and both are subordinate to those who may not deserve their authority.
Themes
The Woman in White says it’s good to meet the Bronx face-to-face. When Bronca insists on her own name, the Woman says that names are “meaningless” but that she understands why Bronca cares about hers, given how hard humans, especially humans like Bronca, have to fight not to be “consumed into the mass.” Then she laments “what must be done.”
The Woman in White’s claim that people’s names are “meaningless” suggests that Manny was right when he speculated she has a different concept of singular and plural identity (of “I” and “we”) than humans do. Yet her appreciation of Bronca’s fight not to be “consumed into the mass” surprisingly implies that the Woman—who has used gentrification and homogenization as a tool to weaken New York—respects Bronca’s struggle as a racial and sexual minority who doesn’t want to assimilate. When the Woman expresses regret over “what must be done,” the reader may infer that on some level, the Woman doesn’t want to destroy New York City—but for some reason believes she has to.
Themes
The Woman in White gestures, and murals appear on the walls. Bronca sees painted entities, including one “more radial than symmetrical,” and looks away. The Woman again offers to protect Bronca and her loved ones, guaranteeing that they’ll be “the last to be enfolded,” if Bronca finds “him”—and the Woman gestures to the avatar’s self-portrait.
Whereas human bodies demonstrate bilateral symmetry—we have “symmetrical” left and right halves—other organisms, like jellyfish and flowers, are “radial,” or arranged in a circle. When Bronca sees a “radial” painted entity, she may be seeing aliens from the Woman in White’s dimension, as the Woman and her tendrils have also been compared to sea creatures and plants. Bronca looks away from the murals because the Woman has previously used art to attack her. It’s not clear what it means “to be enfolded,” but from the context, it seems likely to be fatal.
Themes
Bronca, recalling how she found the self-portrait in a South Bronx brickyard, realizes that “the city painted it” for the avatar and that, given that the avatar is hidden, asleep, underground, something has gone wrong with the city’s birth. That’s why the Woman in White was able to attack. Abruptly, Bronca realizes that because New York City “is too much for one person to embody,” the avatar expended too much energy trying to do so while fighting the Woman in White and now needs the boroughs to wake him.
Bronca’s realization that the city created the avatar’s self-portrait reveals that not only does the city derive power from art, it’s a kind of artist itself. Her realization that New York City “is too much for one person to embody,” meanwhile, shows that some communities or concepts are too diverse for a single person to represent them adequately.
Themes
Bronca’s sure that the Woman in White’s portal can destroy her and that to survive she’ll have to cooperate. Yet she knows she’s a fighter—“This isn’t the first time Bronca has been surrounded on all sides by those who would invade her, shrink her borders, infect her most quintessential self”—so she refuses.
Bronca’s figurative language, claiming that the Woman in White is trying to both “invade” and “infect” her, implicitly compares the Woman both to European colonizers who stole land from indigenous peoples and to a disease. The comparison leaves ambiguous whether the Woman, like European settlers, has free will and could have chosen not to invade—or whether, like a disease, she is acting according to her nature.
Themes
The Woman in White says she’s sorry and makes a gesture. Bronca hears a bestial “hunting cry” behind her. Infuriated that the Woman, though not really a white woman or indeed human, has used white privilege to manipulate and threaten her, Bronca declares that she may not know who the Woman is, but she does know “how this works.” Bronca enters another reality where she is, physically, the Bronx. Kicking the ground with her steel-toed boot, she releases a “wave of energy.” The walls clear of strange entities, and the Alt Artistes fall unconscious as the tendrils controlling them are destroyed.
The Woman in White’s gesture, followed by a “hunting cry,” suggests that the Woman has summoned the extradimensional alien equivalent of an attack dog. Bronca’s fury at the Woman for manipulating human bias and bigotry underscore how unethical the Woman’s tactics are. The “wave of energy” that Bronca releases—similar to the waves Manny released on FDR, Padmini in Jackson Heights, and Brooklyn in Bedford Stuyvesant—obliterates the tendrils. As the tendrils represent gentrification and homogenization, the energy-waves that destroy them must represent concepts essential to authentic New York—like Bronca’s steel-toed boots, symbols of her Bronx toughness and her brave fight against abusers.
Themes
The energy wave doesn’t harm the Woman in White, who tells Bronca she wishes they could have teamed up: they’re both survivors who work alone, live “ in the shadow of their supposed betters,” and want to act morally. When Bronca replies she’s not “a settler from another damn dimension,” the Woman snaps that Bronca puts uncountable dimensions and their inhabitants in danger. Yet the Woman claims not to blame Bronca, since everyone acts according to necessity. The murals vanish, and the hunting cry behind Bronca subsides. The Woman says Bronca won’t have to deal with her “minions” anymore—before the final battle, anyway. Then she disappears.
The Woman in White has already compared the entities that created her and were recently torturing her to Bronca’s board. When she talks about herself and Bronca living “in the shadow of their supposed betters,” it seems she is extending the comparison—and betraying resentment toward the creatures that created her, harmed her, and sent her to do their dirty work. When Bronca calls the Woman a “settler”—once again implicitly comparing the Woman’s invasion to European colonization of the Americas—the Woman contests the description, saying that Bronca is the one threatening others’ dimensions. Although the Woman does not explain how Bronca and the other avatars pose a danger, she has repeatedly suggested that they do—which may make the reader wonder whether the embodied boroughs have chosen the right conceptual frame when they think of the Woman as an unprovoked “settler” or “invader.” The Woman’s claim that everyone acts according to necessity, meanwhile, suggests that the Woman doesn’t believe in free will—which may be how she justifies her own unethical tactics to herself.
Themes
Bronca sees Veneza behind the collapsed Alt Artistes and realizes she must have seen Bronca fighting the Woman in White. Veneza explains that she spotted the Alt Artistes, came to check on Bronca, and witnessed—at this point she stops speaking and looks fearfully at the wall where the hunting cry came from. She asks whether “that White bitch” is Bronca’s real enemy and the Alt Artistes only her stooges. Bronca asks Veneza not to call women “‘bitch,’” to which Veneza replies that she’s talking about a “nonhuman nonwoman.” Overwhelmed, Bronca and Veneza hug.
When Bronca tells Veneza not to call women “bitch”—somewhat hypocritically, since Bronca called Yijing “bitch” earlier in the novel—Veneza retorts that the Woman in White is a “nonhuman nonwoman.” Though clearly a joke, this retort also reveals that the embodied avatars and their allies currently lack the conceptual categories to understand what sort of entity the Woman in White actually is.
Themes
Keyholders come downstairs to check on Bronca and Veneza. Bronca tells them to call the police and says she’ll retrieve the Center’s security footage. Veneza insists on making a copy, since otherwise the police will conveniently lose the footage. When the police arrive, one Alt Artiste has come to consciousness and keeps asking what happened. Bronca doesn’t empathize: she knows the Woman in White only manipulates those with “something sympathetic” in them. Because the Alt Artistes are white, from privileged backgrounds, the police try to convince Bronca not to press charges, but she and Veneza show them the evidence of the Alt Artistes’ crimes. Eventually the police take the men away.
Veneza’s distrust of the police reminds the reader that throughout the novel, the police have served the Woman in White, engaged in racial profiling, and abused their power—though they pose as defenders of New York City, they aren’t. Continuing that trend, the police who respond to Bronca’s call try to protect the Alt Artistes due to the Artistes’ whiteness. The revelation that the Woman can only infect those in some way “sympathetic” to her cause or methods is surprising, given how many New Yorkers (including a dog) she’s managed to infect so far. The Woman’s ability to infect so many suggests that bigotry and a desire for homogeneity are widespread, even in diverse communities.
Themes
Bronca asks the keyholders to return the avatar’s art to the walls. People, hearing about the attack on the Center online, come to help clean up—which makes Bronca hide in her office and cry. She hears a knock on her door. When it opens, she sees—and recognizes as fellow boroughs—Manny, Brooklyn, and Padmini. In a hostile manner, she asks them what they want.
The help the Center receives after the Alt Artistes’ attack illustrates the power of community spirit. Yet while Bronca appreciates community spirit (it makes her cry), her hostility upon meeting Manny, Brooklyn, and Padmini suggests she’s not yet willing to form a community with them.
Themes
