Excel Maximo

The novel’s protagonist. Excel is a depressed and lonely nineteen-year-old boy who has spent his late adolescence harboring the secret that he and his mother are undocumented. When he was ten, he learned that his family is “TNT,” a Tagalog term that refers to Filipino transplants who live in America without documentation. Because he must keep this secret, he is isolated, anxious, and pessimistic about his future. He has lived in an apartment in Colma, California with his mother, Maxima, and her now-deceased mentor, Grandmaster Joker, his entire life. He has a difficult and resentful relationship with his mother because of their secret, and because of how she handled Grandmaster Joker’s death. While he does not express this until late in the novel, almost three years after Joker died, this feeling heavily influences his distrustful attitude towards his mother.

With few options for his future...