After coming home to a country on the brink of becoming a dictatorship, the farm-laborer-turned-artist shifts his paintings from abstractions to didactic political art to better reflect the rebellion that he eventually joins. Didacticism also facilitates his meditations on the impact of leaving his birthland to become a powerless Manong and then impoverished artist of color in New York.

The Balikbayan Artist takes readers from the early 20th century to the present day where Vance Igorta's art is being discovered anew. His legacy is validated for allowing his art to address the tensions of his time instead of keeping it solely entrenched within aesthetic concerns. The artist's choice reflects what Vance Igorta learned as a voraciously self-educated person- that in circumstances where power corrupts, what makes anyone and everyone dangerous is love.

This novel is inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912-2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong generation.