American Son Blog 5 and Conclusion

In the final chapter of Brian Ascalon Roley's book, the final events showed that the whole family's relatives came to visit.  And when Ika was with her relatives, she becomes the total opposite of her usual self.  She was all happy and having a good time especially when she went to Disneyland and bought a sweatshirt for herself.  Later one her relatives shows off to all of them how great and successful her children are.  Like, "Soon, though, my mother's cousin Tai Pei starts talking about her son who woroks in Silicon Valley, how he bought a new Mercedes and plans on building a guest cottage behind his house for her to live in her old age.  Somehow, the conversation gets on to all their children, the colleges they go to, and their jobs.  I pretend not to listen.  Mom quietly fingers her empty wine glass, her head slightly lowered.  Father Ryan notices this."(192- 193).  This means that his mom is embarassed that her kids did not turn out the way they should be and felt that her relatives are looking down on her on how her kids are a bunch of nobodys.  Conversations like this tends to happen a lot in my family and to be quite honest, I feel the same way Ika and Gabe felt hearing that conversation.  My cousins inherited their parent's very high intellected minds and went to the top schools in the Philippines, graduated with top honors, and worked at high end jobs that make them earn significant amounts of money.  And I am jealous of them because I am everything that they are not I am smart but not as smart as them and I never inherited my intelligence from them as well.  It is really frustrating to hear the conversation over and over again and it makes my ears want to explode.
Later on Tomas comes in not well dressed with his tattoos showing to the family.  One of his cousins comes in and notices that he was stoned, in other words, got high from drugs.  This disgusts Tomas' cousin so bad and that Tomas is now out of control.  Then Tomas was seen forcing his younger cousin to hold hos colt pistol and trying it out.  Tita Dina, the mother complains to Ika of what she saw.  Ika explains to Tomas how disappointed she is on him and Tomas kept on denying what he did and asked Gabe for support but he does not do anything.  Later on the mother that was hit by Ika's continues to harass her by demanding 800 dollars to pay for the damage.  Tomas tells Gabe that they arrived at her house and her son, Gabe's friend, was there alone at the house.  And later, both brothers beat him up and Gabe felt better and stronger about being Tomas's accomplice and he knew that the taste of it was bitter.  Then Tomas theatens the child when he said, "If you tell anybody about this we will come by and beat your mother... Listen to me.  When people ask you who did this, and you are dying to talk, I want you to remember this conversation.  I want you to remember the things you said about my mother and how much we hate you for it.  And I want you to imagine all the things we could to your mom."(215).  After leaving the place, the story ends leaving the fate of the family especially the brother's fate uncertain.
From reading this book, it represents the darkness of embracing gang culture in America and how it can take you away from being successful and being in school.  Blending in with this culture can lead to consequences that cannot be undone and will follow you for the rest of your life.  That's the privilege you get for being influenced by this culture of America.  If you keep your morals and virtues intact and strive hard in school by putting a little bit more effort even through the tough times, you will become successful and you will become a champion not only in school, work, home, but in life.