At the beginning of part two Delaney buys his new car at Kenny Grissom's, feeling "violated, taken, and ripped off" (p.151,ll.28/29). He is angry and desperate that no one cares but seems to be very indifferent and that people just "accept the whole thing as if they were talking about the weather" (p.152,ll. 6/7). He does not contradict Kenny Grissom when he says that it's the fault of "everybody": "Mexicans [...], Salvadorians, , I-ranians, Russains, Vietnamese" (p.152,ll.33-36), so one can observe his first steps of the development to becoming racist. 

Afterwards he accompanies Kyra to the Indian restaurant where they meet the very unfriendly jeep owner, which causes him to wonder scandalizedly "why everybody has to be so [...] nasty  all the time" (p.159, ll.51/52). Angrily he drives off into the canyons to have a hike in the mountains, but as he is worried that his new car might be stolen again, he crouches down in the bushes and spends the rest of the day observing his car.

Some days or weeks later, Delaney and his family are sitting in their garden having a barbecue and are happy that things have settled back to normal after they "had been tough for a while, what with the accident, the loss of Sacheverell, the theft of [Delaney's] car" (p.187, ll.52/53). As they talk about the Mexicans at the streetcorner, Delaney's developing racism becomes more apparent, as it reads: "[T]here was no hesistation anymore, no reluctance to identify people by their ethnicity, no overlay of liberal-humanist guilt. Mexicans, there were Mexicans everywhere." (p.188, ll.13-15). Delaney remembers the private meeting he attended with Jack Jardine two nights ago, where they talked about the gate issue and where Delaney tried to talk openly against the gate.  The fact that nobody supports him and that they seem to be serious about it joke to wall the whole community in, discourages him entirely and he suddenly recognizes that this is exactly what all the others want. He compares the Mexicans to "migratory animal species" (p.196, l.28) and one can see that he is quite aware of the situation concerning the Mexicans and the possible consequences of it. Yet, it also becomes apparent how entirely indifferent he is about this issue, for he calls the looming war of species simply "a sad fact, but true." (p.196, ll.31/32). Only minutes later he has to witness how a coyote jumps at Osbert, kills him, and scales the 8 ft. high fence, carrying the dead dog in his mouth.

The next thing we get to read about Delaney is one of his newspaper columns. Starting out with some trivial information on some of his hikes, he quickly turns to making propaganda against coyotes ("I can't help thinking too of the missing pets, the trail of suspicion, the next baby left unattended on the patio" (p.218, ll.6/7)). One can observe the change of his "liberal-humanist" character very well in phrases like "yet, in increasingly, this author has begun to feel that some sort of control must be applied if we continue to insist on encroaching on the coyote's territory." (p.215, ll.58-50). His propaganda against the coyote is in so far interesting, as he says later on in a conversation with Kyra that the incident with the killed baby was "an aberration, a one-in-a-million chance" (p.223, ll.59/60). 

Next we get to know about Delaney's conflict concerning the wall around the community, which ironically was proposed by nobody but himself in the first place (p.193). His conflicting interests are for example that Kyra is so much for the gate and that the quarrel is getting between them, which he doesn't like, for he "doesn't want to be on his own." (p.227, l.57). He is asked by a member of his community, Todd Sweet, an athlete, to help him convince the people to vote against the wall, but Delaney knows that this would get him into trouble with Kyra, Jack, and the other wall- proponents, whom he considers as friends (p.229). 

On his way home Delaney sees Cándido, "the illegal camper, the man who'd soured the first half of one of the worst days of Delaney's life" (p.230, ll.25/26), walking over the lawn of the Cherrystones, and he is immediately convinced that he wants to steal something, as he is Mexican. Delaney's racist attitude becomes most obvious through this. As he realizes that Cándido was only delivering fliers, he is devastated about his behavior, but does still not apologize. 

On page 246, the "liberal-humanist is finally entirely unmasked, as Delaney admits that the thing that really hurt him about the wall was the fact that he wasn't able to walk out into the hills right from his garden anymore. It's not about negating their responsibility by locking themselves away from society, nor is it abuot democracy and the US being a nation of immigrants, as Delaney claimed in Part One of the book (p.106 ff.) - it's only about Delaney's personal hobbies and interests. A little later his character takes even worse turns, as he starts thinking about the pros of the gates, meaning that he would have the hills entirely for himself now because most people wouldn't bother to climb across the wall (p.247, l.67 ff.). He turns to calling the wall issue a "petty thing" (p. 250, l.4) and reveals himself to be just as narrowminded and indifferent as most of the other Americans in the Arroyo Blanco community. 

Vincent, Barbara