Gender Roles In The Tortilla Curtain

The racism and poverty found in T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain is quite inhumane, causing people to doubt that anyone could really live such a destitute lifestyle. This novel is about two completely different couples learning to survive and thrive in Southern California. América and Cándido are both illegal Mexican immigrants who have come to the United States in search of a better life. América, young and pregnant, has to provide for Cándido, her ailing husband, who originally forbade her to find work, after he is hit by a car. They have to work together to figure out how to survive in the woods of California with almost no money. The other couple in the novel, Delaney and Kyra, offers a more stable and practical state of life; therefore, adding a different view of gender roles. They live in a nice little private subdivision with Jordan,

While he is willing to let his pregnant wife care for him, he is determined to not let his wife provide for their family. He questions his physical abilities and is angry in his inabilities to fully support his wife, “What good was he?” (26), yet he still finds his traditional male image to be of the upmost importance. Although he is very close to death due to his severe injuries, he still believes that what is truly worse is that “she was going to earn his keep”(26). Though he is adamant that she has to stay in the woods, América leaves the woods to try and earn money to care for her husband. The exertion on her pregnant body earns her very little money, however she is able to use this money on medication and food that began to heal her husband. The shift of her traditional gender role was brought on, in this particular instance, by necessity instead of choice. Furthermore, even as Cándido begins to heal he begins to accept that América can work to help support them, and this necessity becomes more of a