Woodhead CCQC 1#

Dylan Woodhead

A Confused Quesadilla

In T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain, the casual portrayal of innocence in white people, especially Delaney, a white columnist for the local Arroyo Blanco community, plays a huge role in the underlying tone of the depiction of American citizens. Delaney, whose license plate reads “PILGRIM,” is the quintessential representative of the clueless, ignorant American who virtually cares for no one but himself. He is first introduced as the victim of the car accident, the author questioning “Why him? Why did this have to happen to him?” (6) He thinks the “five-foot-nine.. a hundred and sixty pound” man was a member of a gang, “faking accidents and then preying on the unsuspecting, law-abiding, complaint and fully insured motorist.” (6) Delaney is so entrenched in his misfortune, he fails to fully recognize the huge catastrophe the injury is on Candido, who is not only bloodied and beaten, but also forced out of a way to make money because of his own personal injuries. Even after he pays a meager twenty dollars for physically hitting a man with his car, Delaney still feels cheated out of his money and outraged at Candido’s predicament. This idea is supported by the symbol of a Pilgrim, which is ironically found on Delaney’s license plate and the title of his column, “Pilgrim of Topanga Creek.” By describing Delaney as a pilgrim, an innocent, honest, relatable character, the author takes away from Candido, who is arguably the genuine “Pilgrim” of the story. Boyle’s ironic symbol of the Pilgrim flips the accepted view of the characters, adding to a more intricate and complicated storyline between the average white American citizens and Illegal Immigrants.

Boyle’s subtly used, but powerful satire is not only found throughout his book, The Tortilla Curtain, but also conveys a message that directly applies to our personal lives as citizens of Marin County. The problems that litter the lives of members of the Arroyo Blanco community, chiefly Delaney, seem puerile when compared to the complications found in the lives of Candido and America. The Mossbacher’s obstacles, which include arguments over Granola (36) and diet, the debate of a community gate, and house odors (69), that they are forced to overcome are trivial compared to the mountains and ravines Candido is forced to climb everyday to even scrape the bottom-most level of the American dream. Working for half of minimum wage is a blessing to the family, who lives between a rock and a rusted car down a steep, dry, narrow ravine. The same family who crossed the border not once, but twice and had their “home” vandalized and their possessions destroyed by white teenagers looking for mischief. With his comparison between the two families alternating chapters, Boyle satirizes Delaney’s first-world problems by comparing to the problems of Candido and America, displaying how childish our hardships are. This idea can easily be applied to our home, Marin County. Many students around the district worry about “breaking a dollar,” [the act of paying a large bill for an inexpensive object and getting a large amount of change in return] when others not 5 miles away in the canal community work for any sum, everyday of the week. We pick and choose what we want to eat and complain that we are “soooo full,” when others, who are starving, cherish anything they can get a hold of. We worry about the most trivial things in comparison to others’ problems locally and around the world. We children of Marin County are truly privileged to be born into our circumstance, and yet many of us are have not fully recognized that yet.