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Pao Coronel
Professor Filbeck
English 091
2 December 2014
An Immigrants Sorrowful Journey
T.C. Boyles The Tortilla Curtain narrates the stories of two families in the 1990s and
the tragedies that they face as they pursue for the American dream. One of the families in the
story is a couple that illegally makes their way to the United States in hope for a better life. With
the illegal status the couples have, Cndido and Amrica tries to survive in the dog-eat-dog
world and through this, Boyle shows what immigrants go through and how hard it is to be
different from the people around you. In T.C. Boyles literary work, The Tortilla Curtain, Boyle
conveys the hardships immigrants go through as they try to cope for a better life in a different
country and these hardships include racism, language barrier, and the struggle to find a source of
income.
The most noticeable message The Tortilla Curtain conveys is the racism towards
immigrants. In Boyles novel, theres a part where Delaney hits Cndido with his car and after
the incident, Delaney thinks to himself, It was people like this Mexican or whatever he was who
were responsible, thoughtless people, stupid people, people who wanted to turn the whole world
into a garbage dump, a little Tijuana (11). Delaney automatically assumes that Cndido is a
Mexican and that Mexicans, in general, are here to trash the world. Even though Delaney was the
one dealing the damage, Cndido is the one thats being judged in the story because of his race.
In another part of the book where Delaney bumps into Jack Jardine at a grocery store, Jack tells
Delaney [Mexicans]re peasants, my friend. No education, no resources, no skillsall theyve

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got to offer is a strong back (101). Jack refers to all the Mexicans as a low life ethnicity with no
purpose at all. Mexicans in this book are looked upon as useless beings, even though the person
criticizing hasnt been in their shoes. Another obstacle an immigrant has to go through when
migrating is the difference in language spoken.
One other hindrance that the book presents with being an immigrant is the language
barrier the person must go through. When the white man Amrica was working for says it was
time for them to go she couldnt escape the feeling that he was criticizing her, urging her to
work faster, harder (94). Due to the language diversity, Amrica didnt know if the man she was
working for was either scolding her or telling her it was time to go because she didnt speak
English and the white man didnt speak Spanish. The only thing she could get a hint from what
he was saying was through his tone of voice and body language, which didnt really help much
because he has an aggressive tone of voice. Later on in the story, Amrica tries to ask for gloves
from the white man she was working for and says escuse, pleese, as she holds up her hands,
followed by saying guantes, pleese, para las manos. In response, [the white man] looked
bewildered, as if hed never seen her before (134). The language disparity made it more
challenging for Amrica to ask for gloves because her boss didnt understand a word she said
and she didnt know how to say gloves in English. If she knew how to say gloves in English, she
wouldnt have to get her hands all damaged by the corrosive she was using. The struggle to find
a job is another challenge an immigrant goes through when moving to a different country.
Based from the books storyline, looking for a job is probably the main conflict an
immigrant has to go through when moving. After Cndido got hit by Delaney, Amrica had to
start looking for a job to provide food and thats when she met Candelario Prez, the headman of
the camp, who told her theres not much work for women here, daughter (56). According to

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this statement, being an immigrant woman means less opportunities of finding a job. Based from
what Candelario said, women cannot do a mans job because he singled out women about not
having as much work available compared to men. This statement from Candelario shows that
women immigrants have a much lower chance of getting a job compared to men immigrants. Just
when Cndido thought things were about to get better for them after three weeks of on-again,
off-again work and the promise of something better, Al Lopez had to let him go (180). Even
though Cndido worked hard and was determined, it was not enough for Al to keep him because
of his lack of legal documents which was a risk for Al. It didnt matter if you worked hard, if you
didnt have any legal documents, you could be let go off anytime and you cant do anything
about it. These are some of the difficulties that an immigrant goes through according to Boyles
literary work.
Boyle wants to send a message in writing The Tortilla Curtain. He wants us, the people
of America, to stop with the racism towards immigrants. He wants to show us what immigrants
go through, what they have to deal with, and that racism doesnt really make their lives easier.
He also wants us to realize that some people in other races may be illegal or commit crimes, but
that doesnt mean that we look at the whole race as vicious people. Like every other person in
this planet, immigrants want a better life and in order for them to do that, some of them take their
chances and cross the border to the United States without legal documents. Now with these
illegal immigrants, just because theyre illegal doesnt mean theyre here to do us harm and
thats the message Boyle is conveying in his book.
The Tortilla Curtains message says that even though immigration is something a person
would do in order to try and have a better life, migrating to a different country would have many
obstacles along the way in pursuing this dream. With pursuing the dream of a comfortable life n

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a different country, the obstacles immigrants have to go through, according to Boyles novel,
hardships which include racism, the disparity between the language spoken, and the pain of
looking for a decent job. In The Tortilla Curtain, our protagonists Amrica and Cndido, goes
through these conflicts in trying to achieve the American dream that they have been longing
for. Through the story of our protagonists, Boyle wants to show us, the readers, that immigrants
are not here because theyre violent and they want to steal what we have; instead theyre here,
like every other human being, struggling and trying to hope for a better life.

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Work Cited
Boyle, T. Coraghessan. The Tortilla Curtain. New York: Viking, 1995. Print.