Belonging and the American Dream Theme Analysis

Through his exploration of the four protagonists’ desires, Boyle presents a unique picture of the frequently invoked “American Dream.” In Boyle’s view, there is a depth to this dream that tends to go unacknowledged. On the surface, the “American Dream” is one of economic prosperity, social mobility, and overall self-sufficiency—goals all firmly rooted in an ideology of individualism. Both of the novel’s main couples desire these aspects of the Dream for themselves. But Boyle shows that underneath these more practical desires, there exists a deeper desire to feel that one has found one’s place within a community. In this way, The Tortilla Curtain shows that an oft-overlooked aspect of the American Dream is the dream of belonging.

As Cándido reflects on his home country of Mexico, he thinks that everybody there wanted, as he did, “a house, a yard, maybe a TV and a car too—nothing fancy, no palaces like the gringos built—just four walls and a roof. Was that so much to ask?” Cándido and América both hope for economic stability in the States, but América also articulates a more complex, emotional aspect of this dream. While in the neighborhood of Canoga Park, waiting alone for her husband, América reflects on how badly she “wanted to belong in one of those houses.” She thinks of how the people who live in those houses “were home, in their own private space, safe from the world.” On the one hand, the desire América expresses here is consistent with the more individualistic and materialistic aspects of the American Dream: she wants privacy, ownership, autonomy. But on a more nuanced level, América’s desire to feel that she belongs speaks to her yearning to feel at home in the United States itself, to not feel like an outsider.

Boyle shows that even Delaney and Kyra, who have ostensibly achieved the Dream, given their affluent lifestyles, experience this deeper longer for a sense of belonging. At a neighborhood meeting that Delaney attends in order to speak about the death of his wife’s dog Sacheverell, he realizes that he doesn’t recognize many of the people in attendance. He experiences a “faint uneasy stirring of guilt” and tells himself “he should be more rigorous about attending these meetings […] he really should.” The only character Delaney claims as a friend is Jack Jardine, whom he initially dislikes due to his openly racist views. These details speak to Delaney’s loneliness and his unspoken yearning to feel that he is actually part of a community, but they further suggest that perhaps his desire to feel a greater sense of belonging fuels the bigotry he increasingly exhibits over the course of the novel. Meanwhile, Kyra’s attachment to the Da Ros house (a property she is attempting to sell) represents a similar need for belonging; Kyra feels more at home at the Da Ros house, it would seem, than anywhere in Arroyo Blanco, as evidenced by the fact that she finds herself daydreaming about never leaving the Da Ros house, “not ever again.” Thus, even the characters who have already attained the superficial aspects of the American Dream hunger for this deeper aspect of it.

Boyle’s depiction of the American Dream exposes the deeper drives and desires that animate what might otherwise seem to be a purely material striving. He suggests that beyond desiring “four walls and a roof” and economic self-sufficiency, Americans of all races and economic classes wish to feel that they belong in their communities, in their families, and in their country.