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Kyra Mossbacher, second wife of Delaney Mossbacher and mother of
Jordan Mossbacher, is one of the most important characters in T.C.
Boyle`s novel "The Turtilla Cutain". She represents a
successful estate agent in the middle thirties. Living in a property
in Arroyo Blanco with her husband Delaney she manages a life other
women dream of.
Every morning in her six-day-week she leaves their house after
having breakfast which Delaney prepares for her, in order to reach
her job at Mike Bender Realty, Inc. in her brand new Lexus. There
she works as the indisputed volume leader.
Delaney
Mossbacher goes through a dramatic change in his attitude
towards illegal immigrants, particularly towards Mexicans. First he
is tolerant towards them, but during the course of the book he turns
into a reactionary racist who is completely blinded by his hatred
and willing to hunt Cándido.
At
the beginning he is described as a liberal humanist who actually has
quite liberal ideas and believes. He can be called an
environmentalist.
However
during the novel he has multiple contacts with Latinos, especially
with Candido. These experience let him slowly turn into a racist.
América
Rincón is 17 when she follows Candido,
the former husband of her sister Resurrección, from Tepoztlán,
Mexico to California. Following their individual vision of the
American Dream, the two of them cross the border illegally to seek
in the United States for a new existence. Unfortunately it only
takes them a couple of weeks until reality changes their original
purpose: While they wanted to improve their social situation by
immigrating at first, they are now forced to reduce their standard
of living down to a minimum. During the following weeks and months they
have to experience what it means to be a victim of one`s own poverty.
Being attracted by the labour
exchange at Topanga Creek, they settle down in the canyon since an
apartment or any other shelter is beyond their means. As it is the
safest place for them with regard to crime and deportation they
tolerate this even though it is degrading (cf. p. 26/27) However,
especially América has difficulties to get along with their
situation of living. Throughout her pregnancy she has to sustain in the
Canyon, forced to camp in the open air without clean water and any
other sort of sanitation. Neither do they have any health insurance
for her or the baby nor is there a prospect of moving
to a more human surrounding.
Having arrived poor on the
American side of the border América and Candido Rincón have to
realize very soon that their future and particularly their survival
depends only on the money, they earn by day labour. Therefore, América
scrubbs Buddhas with a corrosive liquid (cf. p. 131) and even endures
humiliation (cf. p. 127). She is willing to work as hard as possible for
the realization of her dreams.
Before leaving their home it
was especially América who created her own vision of the American
Dream. Fascinated by the stereotype American lifestyle which is
conveyed by the movies and novels she has seen and read in Mexico (cf.
p. 233), she is now dreaming of living in a typical American
neighbourhood with trees, sidewalks, shops and markets (cf. p. 127). She
would like to possess some modern appliances like a gas range, a
refrigerator and a TV and in front of her “clean white house“
she could imagine a little yard where she would make a place for the
chickens some time (cf.28/29).
This is what América is
dreaming of when they arrive at Topanga Canyon, but the more time
passes and the more desperate their situation becomes, the more she
has to reduce her dreams.
As a result from their forced
renunciation of any comfort she finally would be satisfied with any
sort of accommodation at all (cf. p. 203).
América can simply not come
to terms with the situation, she finds herself in.
Contrary to Candido she has
never experienced anything similar in her life. Being the youngest
child of eight she has always been protected from poverty, crime and
any other sort of harm. For this reason , particularly América
suffers from their current social situation (cf. p. 130). Without any
prosperity and the security of a community, América and Candido are
not able to defend themselves against criminal acts. Humiliated at
the border and brutally violated by a compatriot she gets to know
what it means to have left the protective surrounding of her family.
Her desperation especially comes clear when she steals fruit from a
garden out of necessity although she has never committed any crime
in her life.
Contrary to her original
expectations she eventually has to realize that she deceived herself
with clinging to a dream which has been caused by media influence
and she is not able to maintain this false belief (cf. p. 233).
Resulting from the defeat of
having to return from Canoga Park to the Canyon, where she has been
imprisoned in since the rape, América develops a psychosis (cf. p.
249 ).Having been confronted in the city with everything she wishes, she
has to realize now that reality does not fit in the dream for whom
she has left her family (cf. p. 324). As a result she builds up a mental
wall between herself and Candido. She neither talks to him any more
nor does she give him any other signs of emotion. (cf. p. 273).
Although she loves him she makes Candido responsible for her
destroyed illusion as he was the one who promised her a new life in
America (cf. p. 327) During the following weeks the homesickness she has
suppressed with clinging to her dream so far comes to the surface (cf.
p. 273). Lost and isolated in an alien world she wants to return
home to her family, to her own culture where she always has been
protected from dangerous situations (cf. p. 325). The more desperate she
feels, the more homesick she becomes and after the robbery América
would rather die than being forced to live there any longer (cf. p.
277
). After having given birth to Socorro América definitively
would leave Candido if she had enough money to afford the trip home
to Mexico (cf. p. 323).
Candidó
Rincon
Cándidó
Rincón was born in Tempoztlán a small village in Morelos, Mexico
(p.20). As most people in this region, his family is poor and very
religious (p.20f.).
The
first and possibly most traumatic experience he had was the death of
his mother when he was six years old. 27 years later, after he gets
smashed in a car accident he still has horrible nightmares of scenes
that got deeply rooted in his mind showing his dead mother’s body
lying in the coffin.
He
obviously had a very close relationship to her, because when her
corpse was set up on chairs “he sat up with her long after his
father and his sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts and their
compadres had fallen asleep” and was still talking to her through
the coffin’s glass, telling her that he didn’t want to live
without her (p.21).
“His life had been cursed ever since his mother died” and his father
remarried Consuela, Candido’s step mother, he couldn’t stand
(p.322).
He felt unloved by his strict father and hated his father’s new wife.
So it was aunt “Lupe”, his mother’s sister, who sacrificially
raised him (p.167). He was always thankful, loved and respected her
and finally built her a house when he made money in the north as a
migrant worker (p.32).
When he was about 19 years old he started leaving Tempoztlán regularly
for the working seasons on the potato fields in Idaho and the citrus
in Arizona, where he made lots of money compared to Mexican
conditions. In nine months he achieved to make “more than his
father in his leather shop in a life time” (p.50).
At this time he was
respected and admired by the people in Tempoztlán. When he was
twenty years old he married “Resurrección”, his first wife. He
was happy with her, at least for about 7 years until the wait for
Candidó to come back from the north got too long for her and she
fell in love with another man and left Candidň. Candidó got drunk
over that incident. Feeling too ashamed about what had happened to
go back to his aunt’s he wandered around for days till he finally
tried to cross the border, where he was picked up by the immigration
and pitched back to Tijuana. Having spent all his money on alcohol
he was reduced to beggary until he decided to return to his aunt’s.
Some time went by in Tempoztlán and when things had normalized, he
fell in love with “América” (p.52) the youngest sister of his
wife Resurrección. Still ashamed of what had happened, he convinced
her to leave Tempotzlŕn for the United States, even though her
parents were against that decision (p.324). However, he couldn’t
keep the promises of a better life. During their stay in the
makeshift camp in the ravine, some more characteristics of Candidó
become visible. Candidó is the one who basically decides about
their future, therefore América calls him a macho, a “patrón”
(p.55; 24). Candidó feels a responsibility to protect her from all
evils in the world.
Candidó is a
honourable man. Although he doesn’t succeed in getting a real job
he devices useless make-work projects for himself to improve the
qualities of their uncomfortable camp, unable to rest without a
task. Therefore he can’t be
called lazy. Sometimes he feels close to the “vagos”,the people
he basically wants to protect América from. But in fact, he does
never really lose his ideals, although a series of setbacks turns
their journey into a horrible struggle for survival. Throughout
their whole stay in the US they have to face the fear of getting
caught and deported by the INS.
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