The Tortilla Curtain Summary

T.C. Boyle’s book The Tortilla Curtain, its structure by two stories, one is the views of middle class characters and the other from the immigrant’s perspective. It explores their relationship with issues such as poverty, immigration and of course the American dream. This book was published in 1995, right after California voted against Proposition 187 which would have provided many useful public services/resources to illegal immigrants. The author unfortunately does not provide his personal opposition to either side in this story. The first part of the book tells us of the accounts of the first interaction Candido Rincon, a Mexican illegal immigrant, and Delaney Mossbacher, a middle class citizen, have. Delaney is driving down Topanga Canyon …show more content…
Both of them are from Tepoztlan, Mexico, and had eloped after Candido found his wife having an affair. Interestingly enough, his wife is America’s older sister. America has been job hunting since they arrived, daily she goes to the labor exchange in attempts to find any kind of jobs, even with the protests she continues to do her treks to the labor exchange. Candido does not like his wife visiting the exchange because of the men that frequent there remind him of the men that once raped a twelve year old in Tijuana. America manages to find work with Jim Shirley, her duties are cleaning Buddha statues. Their joy and good luck is short lived when their camp is attacked by some teenagers. This forces the couple to move locations to a different side of the mountain. The first section ends with America returning from her second day cleaning Buddha’s, and Candido failing to meet her at the supermarket she decides to hike down to their camp, alone. She runs into a man named Jose Natividad and another man, they chase her, and rape