Essay Questions

What does America symbolize?

America is both a symbol of hope as well as an objective that must be achieved. The author/narrator makes a decision to migrate to the U.S. because of the extreme poverty and civil unrest that he experiences growing up in the Philippines. He looks up to America as an ideal nation, embracing egalitarian ideals and where everyone has an equal opportunity to earn a decent living. It is interesting to note that even though the experience of the reality of America jars his belief in the values it supposedly espouses, he still regards the country with great fondness.

How are the themes of racial discrimination discussed in the novel?

The theme of racial discrimination is told through the narrator’s many first hand experiences as a poor migrant worker. He is shocked and badly disappointed in the reality of America: here he faces terrible racial discrimination as the nation is still recovering from the effects of the great depression and the citizenry regard migrant Filipino workers as internal competition for work and resources. The author-narrator describes in great detail how anti-migrant--specifically anti-Filipino--propaganda is often what greets him first when he tries applying for work and how he is only allowed the most difficult, dangerous, and often demeaning work for barely any pay when he does get it.

Is the novel a social commentary or modern tragedy?

The novel is part autobiography, part historical story telling, and part social commentary, but there are definite elements in it that definitely plays out like a modern, Grecian tragedy. In recalling the bitter experiences that he goes through both in the Philippines and America, he learns the hard way what many migrants learn quickly: that the grass is not always greener on the other side. Upon arriving on US soil he is greeted with a heavy assault of racism and socio-economic exclusion damning him to virtually the same life that he was trying to escape in the Philippines, much like a real-life Sisyphus: after rolling the boulder to the top of the mountain the boulder rolls downhill requiring him to repeat the same pointless task once again.