Tortilla Curtain
Because Boyle has written a fable -- a fiction -- and not an investigative report on immigration and classism, he was able to sympathetically present both Candido Rincon and Delaney Mossbacher, striped to their naked souls. Neither man is favored in the narrative, though readers are likely to form an alliance -- most likely emerging from their political leanings -- early in the book.
A collision of culture and values. Out of the gate, the reader is treated to Delaney's self-absorption: "To his shame, Delaney's first thought was for the car (was it marred, scratched, dented?), and then for his insurance rates (what was this going to do to his good-driver discount?), and finally, belatedly, for the victim….he'd injured, possibly killed another human being. It wasn't his fault, god knew -- the man was obviously insane, demented, suicidal, no jury would convict him -- but there it was, all the same" (p.14). The dust has just barely settled on the collision between man and car when Delaney lets his wondering about the injured man ripen to full outrage that the man was likely living in Topanga canyon...
Tortilla Curtain - by T.Coraghessan Boyle The much-talked-about "American Dream" - that elusive dream of being able to own a house, raising educated and successful kids, earning middle class money, and most of all being accepted as a functioning part of the great diverse U.S. economic and social structure - is but an "American Myth" to many immigrants arriving in this country. It's certainly a myth for many thousands of Mexicans
The enormous number of questions did not only succeed in bringing people to physical exhaustion, but they also confused people to the level where they could no longer think logically and risked being deported, even though they were not attempting to deceit the American system. Most contemporary people express their liberal opinions regarding immigrants in the U.S.T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtain goes at proving how while some have apparently changed their
They cannot even go to the hospital when sick for fear of being discovered -- although, to be fair, America never really gives any of the Garcia girls a complete sense of a female identity and Latina 'self,' while the male immigrants of Boyle's tale find some identity in their roles as husbands and fathers. The U.S. immigration policies of crossing borders are raised in Tortilla Curtain -- the poor
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