America is not in the Heart by Elaine Castillo - 2018,468 Pages

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America is Not in the Heart, the debut novel of Elaine Castillo, is a vivid detailed portrayal of the lives of immigrants from the Philippines in the 1990s in pre-Silicon valley California.  The characters are mostly 


hard working, settled in, buying houses and have obtained citizenship.  One of the main characters often works 16 hour shifts as a nurse.  One of the men was a well regarded physician back home but in California he cannot practice medicine and works as a security guard.  Outside of work, they are caught up in a vast network of family members, relatives and friends also from the Phillipines.  Castillo does a wonderful job bringing out the details of their lives, I wish I could have been there for a big lechon feast!  Castillo seems to me to capture her characters conversations perfectly..  The characters mostly speak English but they do sometimes, maybe in moments of emotional intensify, they use expressions not just from the lingua Franca, Tagalog, but from The Regional languages of Ilocano and Pangasinan.  (I do notspeak Regional languages but Family members do and they verified the use of the expressions.)

There is a lot of drama in the plot, mostly generated by a woman born into a wealthy family with ties to President for Life Ferdinand Marcos.  While in medical school she drops out and joins up with communist rebels in the north.  For ten years she acts as their doctor until she is caught by government troops and tortured.  Her Family does not want her back so she has to Choice but to move to California to live with her uncle.

From here things get complicated and I will leave things unspoiled.  

Castillo does a very good job showing how status conscious Filipinos can be.  She also lets us see important where you grew up is to Filipinos.  There are lots of food references.

America is not in the Heart is a very good account of Filipino immigrants lives.  I recommend it highly.  Castillo has a deep understanding of the culture, history and myths of country, a place much more complex than most putsiders realize.

ABOUT ELAINE CASTILLO

Elaine Castillo was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. America Is Not the Heart is her first novel. 

From The publisher’s Website

“A saga rich with origin myths, national and personal . . . Castillo is part of a younger generation of American writers instilling literature with a layered sense of identity.” —Vogue

How many lives fit in a lifetime?

When Hero De Vera arrives in America–haunted by the political upheaval in the Philippines and disowned by her parents–she’s already on her third. Her uncle gives her a fresh start in the Bay Area, and he doesn’t ask about her past. His younger wife knows enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. But their daughter–the first American-born daughter in the family–can’t resist asking Hero about her damaged hands.

An increasingly relevant story told with startling lucidity, humor, and an uncanny ear for the intimacies and shorthand of family ritual, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful debut about three generations of women in one family struggling to balance the promise of the American dream and the unshakeable grip of history. With exuberance, grit, and sly tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave one home to grasp at another.

Featured in * New York Magazine * Entertainment Weekly * Elle * Lit Hub * Shondaland * The Millions * Time Out * Vulture * Real Simple * PopSugar * Paris Review * Cosmopolitan * Southern Living * Buzzfeed * Refinery29 * Marie Claire * Vogue *

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I think anyone interested in the Philippines will love this book

Mel u