Patron Saints of Nothing

Of the handful of Filipino-American authors that I’ve read, I liked Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing the best. It was meaty, and it was really a journey of self-discovery for the main character, Jay, who is Filipino but not quite Filipino as he grew up in America.

Jay travels home to the Philippines to find out more about the untimely death of his cousin, Jun. As he does, he starts to question who he is and his place in all this. As he visits one relative after another, he realizes that the world around him isn’t what he thought it was. He is neither fully accepted as Filipino nor American. Though written for the YA (a.k.a. teen crowd), I do believe that adults can enjoy this story as well. Many immigrants who are in limbo about their identity and sense of belonging can easily identify with Jay.

What I liked about this novel is that it doesn’t paint the Philippines as a tropical paradise that the Department of Tourism would tout for the international lenses. It shows the gritty reality of poverty and how it affects not just the poor communities but other sectors of society as well. Father Danilo, Jay’s uncle, who represents the influential Catholic Church in the Philippines seems to be helpless in the face of the scourge that plagues Filipinos. Tita Chato, whose NGO work in trying to help displaced women caught up in human trafficking, is but a drop in the bucket as they try to do what they can in a seemingly losing battle against poverty and injustice. The book does not end with a happily ever after, but it ends with a hopeful note that as Filipinos continue to make their voices louder, it will end with a crescendo that politicians can no longer ignore.

The book also talks about the reality of censorship in Duterte’s war on drugs. A press that is compromised reflects a tyrant government trying to hold on to their power. This last statement is not just for the Philippines but also in other countries where censorship has been quickly gaining traction. It is subtly done because people have also been conditioned to think that the taking down of content on the Web is justified. This book, if anything, should also be a warning to any country where disagreements to the mainstream narrative are censored.

Randy Ribay’s style of writing is at times poetic, as it draws in the natural elements that mark the Philippine seasons–hot and muggy, and then overcast and rainy. Jay goes through his musings in similar fashion as he goes from murky and unclear to sunny and hopeful at the end. It was a pleasure to read a book that is set in the homeland without it just being a reference to food and beaches. The Filipino story has a lot more to offer to the world, and I believe Randy Ribay’s Patrons Saints of Nothing did just that.

Parental Advisory:

Language

Same-sex attraction

Drugs