Book review: The Tortilla Curtaion

The novel “The Tortilla Curtain” is written about immigration from Mexico to the USA that is illegal and deals also with racism, which is the reason and for many social problems. We see basically two stories in the novel, or better to formulate, stories of two families whose ways coincide. The first family consists of Delaney, who is a journalist for a nature magazine living together with his second wife Kyra. She is a very successful real estate salesman. They have a son named Jordan, who is six years old. They have a house in Arroyo Blanco very near to nature, however in neighborhood close to Los Angeles so that they exploit the advantages of both parts.

The father of the other family is Cándido Rincón. He has a wife named América. She is seventeen years old and pregnant. América and Candido Rincón wanted a better life and to achieve this goal they crossed the border to the US. They planned to try their luck there. However, they forgot that poverty existed nor only in Mexico but also in the US. The only difference was its level. They did not even think that it could be worse for them. They only dreamt about a better and more comfortable life. There were many disadvantages, which were fully ignored by them. They did not consider that the US were a society, where a person as an individual may not improve his or her wealth. The reason for this was the fact that the social mobility was more important in the US.

After their move to the US, the fates of Cándido and Delaney were coincided. Because of the car crash, in which Cándido was hit by Delaney, Cándido was not able to work properly any more. The life of family Rincón became more difficult and they had to survive every day. It was a fight for survival. At the beginning, Delaney was a humanist who was open to every mind and race. He had a very big love to nature. In the novel, we see that the nature was damaged by the Mexicans. This caused that Delaney started hating Mexicans.

At the end of the novel, a big fire comes out in the forest, which was caused by Cándido. Delaney with a gun in his hand but without aiming to kill him followed Cándido up to their home. At that moment a landslide occurred. Kyra’s new born daughter, Socorro, died. Cándido and América saved themselves, and at the end Cándido helped Delaney rescue.

I have liked the novel. The ethnic problems in an unknown country and difficulties for immigrants are described in a very clear manner. These problems can occur, or better to say, have occurred already in Germany. I can observe many similarities.