Castillo asks us to reconsider how we think of character, history, and the force of language. That there is untranslated Tagalog, Ilocano, and Pangasinan alongside English in the text and that the protagonist’s name is Hero are not mistakes. Because it also means we’ll never know who we are.” “To suggest that the depiction of a life like mine, a city like mine, a linguistic context like that one, is somehow incompatible with the demands of American literature is to gravely underestimate and impoverish American literature. Those are American realities,” wrote Castillo of Milpitas in an essay for Freeman’s.
The book is many things-a saga, a bisexual romance, an origin story, a historical narrative, an immigrant’s tale-but, as Castillo herself has said, it is also intensely American. Along the way, we encounter an array of characters: nurses, Communist activists, guerrilla fighters, and grouchy children.
She makes a fresh start with her uncle’s family in Milpitas, which is also Castillo’s hometown, and we learn slowly the reason for Hero’s departure. Most book titles are no more than three words, stunningly poetic or adeptly straightforward yet, the title of Elaine Castillo’s 2018 debut novel, America Is Not the Heart, which Alta’s California Book Club will discuss at its January 21 gathering, is not only five words but also a sentence-and an emphatic one.Ĭastillo’s America Is Not the Heart is a sweeping tale that spans several generations but focuses closely on Hero de Vera, who escapes the poverty, political unrest, and martial law of the late-20th-century Philippines for the Bay Area.
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