She wanted. Of course she wanted. Everybody who’d stayed behind to dry up and die in Tepotzlán wanted too – hell, all of Morelos, all of Mexico and the Indian countries to the south, they all wanted, and what else was new? A house, a yard, maybe a TV and a car too – nothing fancy, no palaces like the gringos built – just four walls and a roof. Was that so much to ask? (Boyle 35)
But not only do “all the starving hordes lined up at the border” (Boyle TC 229) dream and want, Boyle hereby giving credit to Hochschild on the individualistic nature of the American Dream. The Mossbachers have everything and more than the Rincóns could ever want, but of course they also have dreams and aspirations, as this is part of human nature. However, Kyra’s goals are rather superficial and materialistic, dreaming of herself owning the Da Ros mansion that she knows to be “excessive” (Boyle TC 111), and Delaney’s are a lot more elementary, longing to become a father, but Kyra “wouldn’t hear of it – there was always another house to show, another listing, another deal to close” (Boyle TC 227).
One might take Cándido’s wishing for a son as another manifestation of his machoism and his outdated gender roles (Freese 224), but it might also indicate his awareness that a boy would have it easier than a girl in his harsh world, a factuality that seems to be a reality for the immigrants of the 1990s just the same as for those of the 1890s.
Shortly after the birth of his daughter, he has to accept that “he was no closer to realizing his dream now than he was at the Tijuana dump” (Boyle TC 300), which América soon becomes aware of too, when after the fire she surrenders and tells her husband that she wants to return back home to her father in Mexico because “this wasn’t just bad luck, this was an ongoing catastrophe” (Boyle 322).
América is forced to come to terms that the “paradise of the North [and the] romances about El Norte and how poor village girls and boys made their fortunes” (Boyle TC 182) might not be for everyone. In the end even Cándido, for Boyle according to Freese the “hapless successor of the naïve picaro in Voltaire’s satirical novel Candide (1759), who encounters nothing but ill luck in his search for Leibniz’ best of all worlds” (228; Jong/Boyle 30), resigns and starts to regard himself as cursed.
He managed […] to curse the engine of all this misery in a burst of profanity that would have condemned him for all time if he hadn’t been condemned already. What was it? What was it about him? […] This was his stinking pinche luck, a violated wife and a blind baby and a crazy white man with a gun, and even that wasn’t enough to satisfy an insatiable God: no, they all had to drown like rats in the bargain. (Boyle 350, emphasis in original)
The baby is named Socorro, which bears yet another powerful meaning. “Socorro” means rescue or help, and the fact that she is blind and lost in the end is a very clear sign for the impossibility of Cándido and América reaching their dreams and the unmasking of the idea of the American Dream “as a living myth” (Gleason 97).
Conclusion
Glen Gendzel said that “art, at its best, attains an expansive significance that reaches beyond the time and place of its original creation” (175). There is little to argue with that statement, and I dare say that it may speak for both Maggie as well as The Tortilla Curtain. This paper has shown how both novels powerfully attack and discuss social problems of the authors’ times and societies, but in doing so still remain works of art, keeping the “aesthetic form” (Jong/Boyle 26) without imposing any clear solutions, but rather raising awareness of the troubles.
The meaning of these two works of literature seems to be more relevant today than ever. We live in a world that, quite frankly, can be extremely scary: “We’ve destroyed the ozone layer. […] We’ve altered the weather totally. […] Six billion people – tons and tons and billions of tons of meat for […] all the various microorganisms and parasites that are becoming multiply drug resistant […] to work their way through. […] We live in an increasingly technological society […]” (Jong/Boyle 29), that can be hard to understand.
All these social, ecological, political and economical problems are provoking fear and anxiety, and there simply are no easy solutions. Sadly, shockingly and highly frustrating, there are individuals and groups of people all across the world instrumentalizing these fears for their own use. History has shown, and the present is showing again, how difficult times trigger more radical views, which is in accordance to Freudian theories, who stated that at times, one needs an enemy to distinguish or clarify one’s own identity.
It’s undeniable. The nation of immigrants is turning its back on immigrants once more. […] Yet I have my hopes. […] In turning against America’s liberal values and our identity as a nation of immigrant, we are losing our strength in diversity. Over the years I find it beneficial to look at this country through two different lenses: America versus the United States. The United States is a sovereign nation with permanent interests that is currently waging a war on terrorism.
And it will trample upon innocents in its path, be it at home or abroad, if need be, in order to win it. […] America, on the other hand, has everything you and I ever dreamed of: transparency, freedom, democracy, opportunity, due process, fair play and the promise of progress. […] The two versions exist in a kind of complex dance. In good times, America leads. In bad times, America is forgotten and the United States dances alone. […] I’ll let you in on a secret about this American dream: it is you [the immigrant] who must renew it.
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