TORTILLA CURTAIN

TORTILLA CURTAIN

On any list of issues of concern to the Hispanic community , immigration must rank at the top . Not only does it affect the largest number of interest groups , but it is also by far the hardest problem to solve . The U .S . - Mexican b may well be the world 's most porous . The legal two-way flow of people across what some call the "Tortilla Curtain " is almost 160 million a year - nearly twice that through the U .S . - Canadian b . The discussion of "Mexicans " reminds us of T .C

. Boyle 's novel about a gated community in southern California . T . Coraghessan Boyle 's novel The Tortilla Curtain (1996 ) is set in a hill-top gated community in Southern California and offers a thought provoking account of the starkness of California 's socio-spatial divide told through the contrasting lifeworlds of wealthy liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher and the Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon

In one passage the protagonist is arguing with the president of the home-owners association about a decision to add gates to their walled suburban housing development .the gate thing is important , probably the single most important agendum we 've taken up in my two years as president "You really think so ? To me , I say it 's unnecessary-and , I don 't know irresponsible somehow . I lean more to the position that we live in a democracy . I mean , we all have a stake in things , and locking yourself away from the rest of society , how can you justify that "Safety . Self-protection . Prudence . You lock your car , don 't you ? Your front door . I know how you feel .but this society isn 't what it was-and it won 't be until we get control of the bs "That 's racist , Jack , and you know it "Not in the least-it 's a question of national sovereignty . Did you know that the U .S . accepted more immigrants last year than all the other countries of the world combined-and that half of them settled in California ? And that 's legal immigrants , people with skills , money education

Does Boyle capture what we are feeling ? Is he showing local attitudes about immigration and the permeable boundary between Mexico and Texas

The lives of Cbndido and Amyrica , his wife , immigrants from Mexico seeking the good life but continually thwarted by circumstance , the malevolence of others , racism , and bad luck is instructive here . T . C Boyle 's novel The Tortilla Curtain (1995 ) is rich with irony and contingency as he creates a contrapuntal narrative of two families - Cbndido and Amyrica and the Mossbachers , quintessential and well-to-do southern Californians who live on the hills above the canyon where Cbndido and Amyrica live and hide from immigration officials . Cbndido and Amyrica have been through innumerable trials , disappointments Herculean efforts to get work , and physically brutal experiences . Now Amyrica is pregnant , due any day (their first child , and suddenly in the canyon - their home - a fire leaps to the trees like the coming of the...