Set in the 1950s in the Philippines,[3] Tree was the story about an unnamed Filipino boy, the son of a plantation manager and “subjugator of other Filipinos”,[3] who grew up in an Ilocano town known as Rosales, Pangasinan. He was surrounded by acquaintances beneath his social class, relatives, and servants.[2] He was described as a youth who “searched for parental love” and a “place in a society with rigid class structures”.