Nature's Creatures in Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle Essay

Written during the year 2000, Virgil Suárez’s poem, “Isla” compares the creature Godzilla to the immigrant experience. The speaker provides a descriptive comparison of himself as an immigrant while comparing immigrants to Godzilla, a monster of Tokyo (Suárez, 2000). Throughout this poem, Suárez’s use of imagery and descriptive phrases elicit sympathy to its readers.

In Our Fear of Immigrants, Smith begins with the story of a fourth grade class in Berkeley, California that is devastated by the loss of their friend, Rodrigo Guzman, whom authorities sent back to Mexico because of an expired visitor’s visa. With the help of their parents, these fourth graders in Berkeley, California sent their friend a comforting video and wrote a letter to their Congressmen in protest against the deportation of Rodrigo. Smith then tells of the protestors in Murrieta, California who blocked buses transporting undocumented immigrants to a holding facility (751).

The film expresses the loss of social relations and traditions of Enrique and Rosa’s Indian culture in Los Angeles. The movie portrays Enrique and Rosa as good and the Mexicans or Chicanos as evil. Is this good versus evil portal accurate? The Coyotes, the Chicanos, and Enrique and Rosa are all making decisions due to economic factors and their social status. Yes, Enrique and Rosa come from a strong Indian culture but they are breaking the law by illegally coming to America. The Coyotes seem to have no loyalty but they have limited options to make money and have no understanding of the importance of family and community. The director, Nava, introduces each episode in short segments that may limit the viewer’s opportunity to reflect upon the social reality of Guatemala, Tijuana, and the economic opportunity of an illegal immigrant in the United States. Can Enrique and Rosa obtain the same economic freedom as American citizens? Throughout the film there is an idea of the North as being the promise land. In the first and second episode of the film the north seems of nothing but happiness. In

In the reading land of open graves by De Leon, discusses the dangers that millions of Mexican and central Americans face when trying to get into the United States undocumented. These people include people who have the dream of living in America and creating a new life where they can support their families. Also for those who have been deported back to Mexico being separated from their families and are in hopes of being reunited with their loved ones. These people face a hard battle ahead of them because they have to travel through the Sonoran desert of Arizona that is one of the largest deserts in North America. And have to deal with not only fighting the harsh desert elements, while only caring as many supplies as they can. They also have to deal with the structural violence that goes under looked that thousands of Mexicans have to face while migrating to the United States.

David G Gutiérrez’s Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity discuss the deep and complex understudied relationship between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. This relationship was a natural consequence of the mass illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States that had constantly been increasing the population of “ethnic Mexicans” and along with it brought tensions between those who were Americans of Mexican descent and had been living here for generations and those who had freshly arrived to the United States and as such did whatever they had to do to make a living.

In Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s book, Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network, she allows us to enter the everyday lives of ten undocumented Mexican workers all living in the Chicago area. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz refers to Chuy, Alejandro, Leonardo, Luis, Manuel, Omar, Rene, Roberto, Lalo, and Albert the ten undocumented Mexicans as the “Lions”. This book shares the Lions many stories from, their daily struggle of living as an undocumented immigrant in America, to some of them telling their stories about crossing the border and the effects of living in a different country than their family, and many other struggles and experiences they have encountered. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s book delves into

Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s, Labor and Legality is a book written on the Mexican immigrant network in the U.S. She centers it on the Lions, a group of Mexican men from Leon, Mexico that all share their lives and help explain the many networks and strategies that are used in order to excel and gain happiness. There have been many different sorts of misconceptions about immigrants, and in recent years about undocumented immigrants from Mexico. The U.S. has made a sort of war on illegal immigrants and has made it a seemingly high priority in the media and in politics. Therefore, many Americans have been mislead and ill-informed about the history of immigrants/undocumented immigrants. Gomberg-Muñoz’s Labor and Legality helps set us straight. She unveils undocumented immigrants for the people that they are instead of the criminals that the media leads many to believe. Although she doesn’t have a wide range of participants for her study, I believe that she addresses many of the misconceptions and just plain ignorance that American people have of people that are undocumented; why stereotypes are supported by the people themselves, why politicians include stronger illegal immigration laws, and everything in between. Many of her topics reveal a sort of colonialism that the U.S. practices on Mexico; the exploitation of undocumented peoples to the benefit of the U.S. through economics, hypocritical laws and campaigns, and the racist and prejudice consequences.

She frequently compares Lena’s home and the city; the blue and the white. “Nobody wanted them there, so nobody made friends with them, but once in a while they made the papers when they did something wrong or showed up; trotting along Broadway, cool as could be.” This passage, taken from page ninety-five, talks about Lena thinking back to the city and the coyotes there, and compares them to the ones that live near the reserve. Lena’s discomfort living in the city becomes more apparent here when she talks about a coyote she saw in a paper that died because it did not know anything about living outside the wilderness. I think on some level, Lena felt like the coyote, lost and confused in the big city.

With the application of imagery, the reader can illustrate a representation of the situation. Many disapproving glances from the white society, meanwhile, this is also shown to be genuine as the result of the author using symbolism once more; a coyote. The significance of the coyote in relation to the story is generally depicted on page three with references such as “ She had known that it hadn't been a matter of animal stupidity, because a coyote always remembered where it had came from” with the extension of “ She thought of the coyotes hanging around in the cities these days. Nobody wanted them there, so nobody made friends with them, but once in awhile they made the papers when they did something wrong or showed up, trotting along Broadway, cool as could be”. Physical objects such as the door and the coyote exhibited unmistakable bond between the overall round and protagonist character, Lena and the objects itself and the author. As a matter of fact, Jeanette Armstrong is a person who grew up on the Penticton Indian Reserve which heavily explains why the story was written in third person; the connection between author and protagonist was more personal.  The fact that nobody wanted to be friends with Lena and used the stigma of First Nations being viewed inaccurately by modern society.  No matter how

In his essay Bajadas, Francisco Cantu explores the physical and emotional landscapes that shift during his time as a United States border control agent. He candidly writes about his experiences, using imagery to describe the physical landscape of New Mexico in a way that mirrors his own emotional landscape and answers the question that he grapples with most. Cantu writes, “There are days when I feel I am becoming good at what I do. And then I wonder, what does it mean to be good at this? I wonder sometimes how I might explain certain things…” (7). This important question is what drives Bajadas; it is what compels Cantu to write so vulnerably. Through a journal-like structure, Cantu details what his job requires of him and the way he treats

In my analysis of this novel, The Adventure of Don Chipote or, When Parrots Breast-Feed by Daniel Venegas, I kept in mind that Nicolás Kanellos put great effort into getting this novel circulated in Spanish and in English. Kanellos argues that Spanish-language immigrant novels more accurately present the “evils” of American society such as oppression of the immigrant workers and deconstructs the myth of the American Dream, which permeates in English-language ethnic autobiographies. I believe Kanellos felt so passionately about circulating this particular novel was due to the fact that in Venegas’ novel we see clear representations of the three U.S. Hispanic cultures that Kanellos presents which are the native, the immigrant, and the exile cultures.

In her book, Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network, Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz describes the lives of ten busboys, she referrs to as the Lions, living and working in the Chicago area. Gomberg-Muñoz provides an insight into the lives of these undocumented Mexican workers. They share their stories of crossing the border, the affects of their absence on family back in Mexico, and the daily struggles of living in a country without the benefits of citizenship. The Lions, as well as other undocumented Mexicans, have to face Americans stereotypes every day. Probably the biggest stereotype the Lions contend with is the belief that all Mexicans are hard workers.

Fear of immigrants and their intentions has always been an issue in america and worldwide and the issue is rearing its ugly head once again here in the United States. “This society isn't what it was- and it won't be until we get control of the borders. ”(104). In this quote Jack is blaming America's problems on illegal immigrants.

Immigrants from all over the world come to America with dreams of creating a new life. While this journey is challenging for many, the opportunities that America harbors is worth the hardships. The experience that many immigrants face after coming to the United States is portrayed in The Tortilla Curtain, a novel by T. C. Boyle. America, the protagonist of the book, demonstrates hard work and determination in hopes of achieving her aspirations. America is an important character used by Boyle, to represent how the hardships of being successful as an illegal, Mexican, immigrant can lead to danger and desperation in trying to find work.

The tortilla curtain is a wonderful book showing a typical life of both a Hispanic family chasing the American and a white family that is born in. The white wealthy stay at home father Delaney mossbacher is faced against life as a modern day America and an immigrant from Mexico, Candido rincon looking for nothing but to fulfill the American dream that for him and his young wife which begins to seem unreachable due to the constant troubles begin to face. These two character throughout the story show very similar traits both positive and negative, while both sharing ways they overcome struggles of living life in modern day America. Both being fathers and/or soon to be fathers, how they