The Complex Reality of the Immigrant Situation
The novel became even more timely and resonant in the years immediately following its publication when the Presidential campaign of Donald Trump ramped up the heat on the so-called crisis along the southern border. The characterization of immigrants from Latin American by those supporting the contention that a concrete wall stretching nearly the entire length of the southern border is distinctly at odds with immigrant experiences presented in the novel. The story feature immigrants from several different countries to the south of the United States—Panama and Nicaragua as well as Mexico—and the stories of those people coming to America reveals a complexity to the issue of immigration that simply does not conform to the narrative required to fit campaign slogans, sound bites and slanted ideological messages of conservative media stars. Instead, the immigrant experience in America is presented as one that defies easy answers and simple solutions. As one of the characters puts it, this theme might be expressed as call to respond to scare tactics of isolated incidents by taking “the time to get to know us [so that those who are scared might] realize that we’re not that bad, maybe even that we’re a lot like them.”
Isolation
Ironically, even though most of the immigrant characters live at the same apartment complex, they are each in their own way victims of isolation. This isolation is not necessarily always related directly to coming from another country or culture. Characters are featured in isolation due to working conditions, living arrangements, medical situations, family strife and even—in the case of one non-immigrant character—responding to violence against them by acting out violently toward others.
The Tarnishing of the American Dream
Those who came to this country from another all responded to one degree or another to the lure of the American Dream. The specifics of that dream have never been individualized; in these cases, it is really just centered around the potential of realizing opportunities denied elsewhere. In almost every case, of course, the dream fails to be fully realized, but the author is not arguing that this disappointment is peculiar to or directly related to the immigrant experience. Characters who are American citizens are also presented as failing to realize certain aspects of that mythical dream state.
