What are quotes that demonstrates the despair of the protagonist in America Is in the Heart? Please list five quotes.

Father kicked the dirt off his feet and said: "Your brother Leon is still fighting in Europe. Maybe he is dead now. I have not heard from him." He took the rope again and flipped it gently and suggestively across the carabao's back, and the two of them, the patient animal and my father, walked slowly and industriously away, the sharp plow blade breaking smoothly through the rich soil between them. (3–4)

This quote is important for two reasons: first, these are the opening pages of the novel and we are introduced to the idea of a Filipino abroad, thought dead because of someone else's war; second, we see the matter-of-fact tone of the father in telling his son that his older brother is likely dead—as if the father has already been desensitized to the thought.

I felt like running away—anywhere. I wanted to cast off the sudden gloom that shadowed our family, and I thought the only way to do that was to escape from it. I would also be escaping from my family, and from the bitter memories of childhood. (63)

Much of the semiautobiographical novel revolves around the idea of escaping. In this section (chapter 9), our protagonist decides to leave his hometown, which is wrought by peasant revolutions, land-grabbing, and an astounding level of poverty. This quote effectively encapsulates that feeling of wanting to leave and better one's situation—and chase the American Dream.

It was now the year of the great hatred: the lives of Filipinos were cheaper than those of dogs. They were forcibly shoved off the streets when they showed resistance. The sentiment against them was accelerated by the marriage of a Filipino and a girl of the Caucasian race in Pasadena. The case was tried in court and many technicalities were brought in with it to degrade the linage and character of the Filipino people. (143)
I fell on my knees. I heard them laughing. There was a sadistic note in their voices. Was it possible that these men enjoyed cruelty? The brutality in the gambling houses was over money; it was over women among Filipinos. But the brutality of these policemen—what was it? (157)

Knowing that this is a creative autobiographical work of a Filipino immigrant, these two quotes are disturbing, to say the least. I find these to be a good summation of the kind of harassment that Filipinos—and consequently, our protagonist, Allos—experienced in the 1930s.

I sat in the living room and watched lonely Filipinos paw at the semi-nude girls. I felt angry and lost. Where in this wide country could I go? I felt the way other Filipinos felt. I rushed out and cursed the cold night. (273–274).

It took him about a hundred pages, but our protagonist has finally felt disillusioned by the promise of America. This quote presents a character who cannot find his place in this alien country where danger is everywhere. This is the place he thought he could escape to? Allos has run away from the violence and poverty of his home country only to be met with similar (if not greater) violence and poverty in his pursuit of the American Dream.