The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle is a modern novel that depicts the lives of two couples--one a wealthy American couple and the other a poor, illegal, Mexican immigrant couple. The novel is, in many respects, a commentary on the stereotypes, biases and walls Americans have built to separate themselves from immigration. Boyle uses these real and imagined boundaries to expose the social, physical and economic divisions between Americans and Mexicans in the United States. The most obvious boundary in the novel is the wall and its conjoining gate that is put up around Arroyo Blanco. The wall is built in order to keep out the Mexicans and rascals that have become “ubiquitous [and] prolific as rabbits”(158). The wall is seen by many of the neighborhood's
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One of the major instigators of this mentality is Jack Jardine. Jack Jardine is a lawyer who has considerable influence over the community, not only through his role as president of the homeowners association, but also as an actively social member of the community and his keen ability to persuade people to conform to his opinions. Jack believes that the gate is the “single most important agendum”(100) that has been considered during his time as president, and it is his rhetoric that sways the community in the direction of the gate’s establishment. He does this by using logical reasoning and fear to manipulate skeptics, such as Delany, into believing in, or at least accepting, his cause. The Tortilla Curtain is very much a commentary on stereotypes in America, so naturally another major boundary addressed in the book is stereotypes. These stereotypes create a two-sided boundary, with the most obvious side being the stereotypes imposed by Americans on Mexican immigrants. The Americans portrayed in the book have a negative …show more content…
This boundary prevents interaction between the two groups because the Mexicans spend all their time struggling to survive, “sleeping in shifts and lining up on the street corner for work” (26), and do not participate in the same activities or social groups as the affluent Americans. This disgusts the Americans who scoff and say that these Mexicans who are loitering on the streets “[are] death for business”(158). The goals of these immigrants are simple; they desire “[t]he right to work, to have a job, earn [their] daily bread and a roof over [their] heads,” but racism against them makes them, in the eyes of Americans, “criminal[s] for daring to want it, daring to risk everything for the basic human necessities, and...even those were to be denied [them]”(200). Americans see the economic struggles of the immigrant population as a hinderance to their own economic prosperity; this creates a sense of us or them which results in Americans building a figurative wall between themselves and the mexican
One of the major instigators of this mentality is Jack Jardine. Jack Jardine is a lawyer who has considerable influence over the community, not only through his role as president of the homeowners association, but also as an actively social member of the community and his keen ability to persuade people to conform to his opinions. Jack believes that the gate is the “single most important agendum”(100) that has been considered during his time as president, and it is his rhetoric that sways the community in the direction of the gate’s establishment. He does this by using logical reasoning and fear to manipulate skeptics, such as Delany, into believing in, or at least accepting, his cause. The Tortilla Curtain is very much a commentary on stereotypes in America, so naturally another major boundary addressed in the book is stereotypes. These stereotypes create a two-sided boundary, with the most obvious side being the stereotypes imposed by Americans on Mexican immigrants. The Americans portrayed in the book have a negative …show more content…
This boundary prevents interaction between the two groups because the Mexicans spend all their time struggling to survive, “sleeping in shifts and lining up on the street corner for work” (26), and do not participate in the same activities or social groups as the affluent Americans. This disgusts the Americans who scoff and say that these Mexicans who are loitering on the streets “[are] death for business”(158). The goals of these immigrants are simple; they desire “[t]he right to work, to have a job, earn [their] daily bread and a roof over [their] heads,” but racism against them makes them, in the eyes of Americans, “criminal[s] for daring to want it, daring to risk everything for the basic human necessities, and...even those were to be denied [them]”(200). Americans see the economic struggles of the immigrant population as a hinderance to their own economic prosperity; this creates a sense of us or them which results in Americans building a figurative wall between themselves and the mexican