Patron Saints Of Nothing By Jay Reguero

There is often a time in Asian Americans’ lives when they experience a cultural disconnect: being too “White” for their Asian relatives, yet too “Asian” for their White peers. These feelings are true for Jay Reguero, the protagonist of Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. Throughout the novel, Jay, a Filipino-American, struggles with feeling like an outsider in the Philippines because he cannot speak his mother tongue and has spent his entire life in the U.S. During his time in the Philippines, he attempts to connect with his culture but he is constantly reminded of how little he knows and understands about the Philippines. Therefore, this novel is about Jay’s struggle with his cultural identity and his feelings of guilt from not connecting

Jay’s struggles begin after his cousin in the Philippines, Jun, dies under suspicious circumstances. Jay wants to discover what truly happened to his cousin, but he cannot do that in America, so he travels to the Philippines to get answers. While in the Philippines, Jay is reminded of his shortcomings as an Asian American when his uncle, Tito Maning, points out Jay’s inability to speak Tagalog. Tito Maning tells Jay that if he does not “know [his] mother tongue, [he] cannot know [his] mother. And if [he does] not know [his] mother, [he does] not understand who [he is]” (Ribay 96). Tito Maning’s words perfectly encapsulate Jay’s situation; Jay cannot speak Tagalog and it is causing him to question himself and his identity. Jay later attempts to improve his Tagalog but it “doesn’t feel right” because Jay’s mouth “feels too heavy, too thick, too slow to produce the right syllables with such ease” (Ribay 176-177). Jay gets frustrated at his parents for not teaching him Tagalog when he was younger, when “the struggle would have seemed more like a fun game than an identity crisis” (Ribay 177). Since Jay did not learn Tagalog at a young age, the words are like an alien language to him. He cannot connect with his culture and is left feeling like he failed as an Asian. Thus, making Jay’s struggle with his identity a key part of the novel and a large motivator for his