Patron Saints of Nothing by Leah Sun

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

lsun2026_1_1 — 2024-01-30 13:49:58 UTC

Poetry Connection

lsun2026_1_1 — 2024-01-30 14:11:36 UTC

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes

This poem is Justice by Langston Hughes, which conveys a strong message of justice, racial inequality and discrimination of himself being an African American. Langston describes "That Justice is a blind goddess", which refers to that justice should be unbiased, and that is shouldn't be based on anything that appears on the very surface. He next wrote "Is a thing to which we black wise", which suggests that African Americans are a group that is being treated unequally. In Patron Saints of Nothing, this group of people refers to those Philippines who have been suffering throughout the drug war due to the unfair rules and laws. Moreover, it also refers to the main character Jay, which is an American Filipino, and that he was treated quite rude in some situations during his investigation in the Philippines just because of his mixed identity.

Both these literary works all reveal the inequality of minority groups under political systems, and then speak up for justice to come.

Time and Setting

2024-01-31 14:35:13 UTC

Patron Saints of Nothing By Randy Ribay was based on the War on Drugs in the Philippines from 2016-2022. The War on Drugs was an anti-drug campaign that had killed over 12,000 people. We see this when Jay travels to the Philippines to look into his cousin, Jun's mysterious death. As Jay is immersed into the Philippines he acknowledges the life and culture while the Philippines was going through this crisis and how it lead to his cousins Jun's death.

Art Connection #1

2024-01-31 14:50:38 UTC

"What do you do when the police is criminal?" says the mural up above. This painting on the streets of the Philippines voices about the drug war, and how the police are innocently killing. Philippine people want to get justice, and get the police behind bars.

About the Author ---> Randy Ribay

2024-01-31 14:52:31 UTC

Randy Ribay is an award-winning author who writes young adult fiction. Patron Saints of Nothing earned five starred reviews, and was selected as a Freeman Book Award winner. Randy Ribay was a finalist for the National Book Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and many more. Some of the other books that he wrote are Project Kawayan, After the Shot Drops, and An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes.
Randy Ribay was born in the Philippines and raised in the Midwest. He earned his Bachelor's in English Literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his Master's in Language and Literacy from Harvard. Randy currently lives in San Fransisco with his wife and dog.

Art Connection #2

2024-01-31 14:58:20 UTC

This piece of art is connecting to the drug war. The people on the bike are leaving behind the person on the ground, after killing him. Just like the drug war when police are killing people and leaving them and their families with so much questions and grief.

Visual Connection

2024-01-31 15:03:58 UTC

-In 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte announced a “war on drugs” in the Philippines, launching a wave of violence and murder targeting thousands of suspected drug dealers and users. With unprecedented, intimate access both to police officials implicated in the killings and the families destroyed as the result of Duterte’s deadly campaign, On the President’s Orders is a shocking and revelatory investigation into the extrajudicial murders that continue to this day. Entering a murky world of crime, drugs and politics, the filmmakers have managed to capture the clear trajectory of what depths those who wield excessive power can reach, when attacking those who have the very least.

-The searing story of President Duterte's bloody campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines, told with unprecedented and intimate access to both sides of the war - the Manila police and an ordinary family from the slum.

Literature Connection

bcox2026_1_1 — 2024-01-31 15:12:20 UTC

The Hate You Give follows the story of a high school girl named Starr, who is forced to witness her childhood friend get murdered by a police officer simply for being black. She spends the majority of the book trying to find justice for his death. Patron Saints of Nothing follows nearly the same plot. Somebody close to being mature and needing to move on to the next chapter of their life until their oldest friend, whom they've grown apart from, is killed for unjust reasons. Alongside the main plot of the books, both Starr and Jay have culture and identity crises throughout their stories. Jay feels guilty for leaving his home country and being phased out of the traditions his family still follows back home. Starr feels guilty for leaving the neighborhood she grew up in and distancing herself from the problems back home. Both have to endure challenges they never thought themselves worthy of completing and, in the process, realize they'll always have a part of their homes in their hearts. While both feel they need to do their cultures justice, Starr and Jay defy their family's expectations in different ways. Starr, being the middle child in an entirely black family, secretly has a white boyfriend. When confronted by her dad, she refuses to change things for him to be happier. Jay, the child of two doctors and a relatively intelligent student, is expected to enter engineering or some medical field. Despite his parent's concern and expectations for him, Jay decides to wait on college and see what he wants to do with his life. The two books share direct connections in plot and character arcs while beautifully depicting teenagers' emotions and thought processes in painful situations.

Essential question

lsun2026_1_1 — 2024-02-01 16:22:45 UTC

How does the difference in cultural identities affect people’s path in seeking for the truth and justice?
We are shown several of Jun’s letters – what do they reveal about him? How complete is the picture of Jun that they present?

Non-Fiction Connection

bcox2026_1_1 — 2024-02-02 14:03:13 UTC

As previously stated, Patron Saints of Nothing is about the Philippines drug war that started in 2019 and is ongoing today. In June 1971, President Richard Nixon announced to the U.S. Congress that drug addiction had become a national emergency and declared drug abuse the public number one enemy. Not only are both these situations referred to as a part of the global War On Drugs, but both have had positive and negative effects. In the U.S., there's clear evidence that fear tactics and strict laws have heavily affected the number of dangerous drug users. The negative part is the undeniable racial discrimination within law enforcement that continues to this day. For example, possession of five grams of crack cocaine, which was disproportionately consumed by African Americans, triggered an automatic five-year jail sentence, whereas 500 grams of powder cocaine, which was mostly consumed by richer, white demographics, merited the same punishment. Today in America, black people are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession. Over 80% of Americans feel the drug war failed, and over the last 15 or so years, many laws regarding criminal punishment for drug use have been done away with while 24 states have fully legalized marijuana for recreational use. The parallel in The Philippines is their own unjust and far more depraved system of punishment. At least 12,000 people are suspected to have been killed for illegal drug use or possession. When a president's campaign promise is to kill tens of thousands of drug users, it leads to extreme mistrust and hatred for the government by those inside and outside the country. Our government never won against and continues to struggle with drug epidemics killing Americans. The Philippines has had a much shorter and darker experience than us, and there's no way of knowing how it will end.