The first is titled "Grand Illusion" by Michael Ventura, taken from his column Letters at 3 am: Reports on Endarkenment. Yamashita chose this passage to easily introduce the reader to novel's setting. "A city named after sacred but imaginary beings" clues to Los Angeles just as "in a state after a paradise that was the figment of a woman's dream" clues to California. That much is obvious. But, I thought the line "...figment of a woman's dream; a city that came to fame by filming such figments" was interesting. The west is notorious for being a sort of promise land, maybe not so much now, but it was in the past. People went west for work, to start anew. But, I was confused as to why Ventura singled out women. I can't help but think of Rafaela when I read this passage. At the beginning of the novel, she's optimistic about her job at Gabriel's. However, this woman's dream is eventually destroyed by the novel's disaster. It's ironic that L.A. was built on filming "such figments" but, in reality, very few people make an honest living there. I like Tropic Of Orange because, even with it's ridiculous plot, it paints a more realistic picture of the western lifestyle than a typical Hollywood blockbuster does. And often it's the blockbuster's that try to construct something realistic, to convince us of California's promising features. They have realistic story lines yet the end is always very unrealistic. In the end of most blockbusters, everything is perfect. The novel does the opposite. It's magical realism indeed. The storyline being the magical part, and the "non-sugar coated ending" being the real part. Ventura's passage takes an optimistic turn with the line, "Its suffering is real enough, God knows. But its beauty is the beauty of letting things go; letting go of where you came from...what you want." This closely resembles Bobby's last thoughts in the novel (about embracing letting go). However, I think the passage goes into further detail. Letting go of where you came from suggests to let go of the Global North vs. Global South conflict. And letting go of what you want means to let go of your ambitions for they may not always work out.
The second passage, taken from Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, deals with the freeway. The passage elaborates of why Yamashita would choose the freeway as the focus of her novel. "...the freeway crowd is a heterogeneous mass - black and white, Asian and Latin, whole families are on the move with babies on backs or perched atop loads in carts, wagons, or bicycle baskets." Since Tropic Of Orange is a novel on race and "movement," the freeway is a great setting. Butler also comments on the laziness of the Law - "It's against the law in California to walk on the freeways, but the law is archaic...Many were armed with sheathed knives, rifles, and, of course, visible holstered handguns. The occasional passing cop paid no attention." Perhaps Yamashita was expressing her frustration with the law in the scene where the authorities open fire on the civilians. Who knows.
The passage "Freefalling Toward a Borderless Future," by Guillermo Gomez-Pena, is pretty straightforward -
"standing on the map of my political desires
I toast to a borderless future
(I raise my glass of wine toward the moon)
with...
our Alaskan hair
our Canadian head
our U.S torso
our Mexican genitalia
our Central American cojones
our Caribbean sperm
our South American legs
our Patagonian feet
our Antarctic nails
jumping boarders at ease
jumping boarders with pleasure
amen, he man"
This beautiful passage is something that I can easily imagine Arcangel saying. Guillermo Gomez - Pena is a performance artist so he may indeed be the inspiration behind Arcangel. Regardless, the passage, again, urges us to let go and strive for a "borderless future."
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