Home⇛Psychology and Education: A Multidisciplinary Journal⇛vol. 42 no. 1 (2025)

Cultural Identity Negotiation in Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing

Cynth Carines Malbas

Discipline: theology and religious studies

 

Abstract:

This study examines how cultural identity is negotiated in Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay, a novel that follows the story of Jay, a Filipino American teenager who travels to the Philippines after the death of his cousin. The research aims to analyze how the novel depicts the tensions between ancestry and lived experience, and how diasporic youth navigate their identity in the midst of family silence, emotional conflict, and political unrest. Using a qualitative literary analysis, this study applied reflexive thematic analysis to 487 coded extracts from the novel. Results were categorized under three major themes: 1) identity as being formed through memory, language, and cultural continuity;2) identity as becoming shaped through cultural disconnection, emotional discomfort, and ethical transformation; and, 3) the influence of family relationships and sociopolitical realities in the shaping of hybrid identity. The findings show that identity for diasporic and multiracial youth is not simply passed down, but actively constructed through emotional reflection and ethical positioning of the self. As a result, the study proposes the emergent theory of Fractured Narrative of Ethical Becoming, where identity is revealed not as a diasporic odyssey but as continuous act of transformation shaped by affective, intergenerational, and cultural ruptures.



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