Borderlands: Magical Realism and Political Resistance

 

In a 2010 interview with Priya George of BigThink.com, Isabel Allende stated, “I think that life is very mysterious and there are many things we don’t know. And there are elements of magic realism in every culture, everywhere, read Toni Morrison, read South African authors, it’s not only Latin-American. It's just accepting that we don’t know everything and everything is possible.” (Allende) Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita follows several individuals that live in and around Los Angeles and Mexico. The novel takes place in the span of a week where an orange growing with the topic of cancer going through it begins to make its way North to Los Angeles. As the character’s stories begin to intertwine, Sol brings the orange into the U.S. along with the Tropic of Cancer. In the end, all the individuals’ stories collide in spectacular fashion and the lines between reality and magic are blurred and borders are warped. So Far from God, by Ana Castillo follows a family of five women living in a New Mexico border town as they each experience miracles, tragedy and even death in unexpected ways. Both Yamashita and Castillo utilize magical realism in their novels to break down boundaries such as the U.S./ Mexico border in New Mexico and in California as well as societal and cultural boundaries that effect individual lives in the borderlands areas, showing how marginalized peoples can confront and reevaluate the borderlands, ultimately overcoming the harm done by racism, colonial roots, and capitalism.

In Tropic of Orange, Yamashita utilizes magical realism to objectify the U.S./Mexico border.

 As the orange containing the Tropic of Cancer is brought North from Mexico into Los Angeles, it brings geopolitical boundaries with it as well. Yamashita’s work shows the artificiality of political boundaries. In her article, “(Dis)integrating Borders: Crossing Literal/Literary Boundaries in Tropic of Orange and The People of Paper”, Anne Mae Yee Jensen argues that magical realism “has often been a genre that questions hegemonic belief systems by destabilizing the boundary distinguishing “reality” from “magic”” (Jansen 104). Yamashita utilizes magical realism in Tropic of Orange to challenge the geographic and political borders in the borderlands area of Los Angeles and Mexico. The events and characters in the novel question, bend and cross the U.S./ Mexico border as well as boundaries in life circumstances.

One example of border disruption happens when Arcangel and Sol bring the orange across the border with them. “” But this is a native orange!” Arcangel yelled, but his voice was swallowed up by the waves of floating paper money: pesos and dollars and real, all floating across effortlessly—a graceful movement of free capital, at least 45 billion dollars of it, carried across by hidden and cheap labor. Hundreds of thousands of the unemployed surged forward --the blessings of monetary devaluation that thankfully wiped out those nasty international trade deficits.”  (Yamashita) In his article, “Trespassing the U.S.-Mexico border in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange,” Francisco Delgado argues, “Yamashita draws a clear distinction between the effortless and “graceful” flow of capital and the surging masses of the unemployed. While both the capital and the unemployed blur international boundaries, only the former is welcomed wherever it goes.” (Delgado)  Yamashita uses magical realism to show how easy it is for global capitalism to cross borders where people cannot. This argues that international borders persist in preserving racial classes and protect the wealthy instead of preserving cultural and national boundaries. The failure of the geopolitical boundaries shows the reader that the borderlands are volatile and manipulated by authority.

Though Tropic of Orange presents the reader with a massive geopolitical catastrophe,      Castillo’s, So Far from God is much more localized, focusing on the experiences of Chicana women in the small borderland town of Tome, New Mexico where their lives are shaped by the outdated, patriarchal society that they live in.  Sofi and her daughters each experience spirituality, miracles, tragedies, and their cultural identities in a way that they all come together in mestiza consciousness. (Castillo) In their article, “Con un pie a cada lado/With a Foot in Each Place Mestizaje as Transnational Feminisms in Ana Castillo’s So Far from God” Laura Gillman and Stacy M. Floyd-Thomas argue that Castillo’s “location is problematized in relation to the positionality of the Mexican-American woman.” (Gillman and Floyd-Thomas 161) to show the artificiality of national and cultural borders in the novel. Castillo uses location to argue that the emotional and political borders surrounding Sophi and her daughters fracture their identities. This is shown through the moments of magical realism in the novel. When La Loca is resurrected, when Caridad survives and when Sofi creates M.O.M.A.S., magical realism supplies a way for those experiences to show how “Castillo develops characters who, within their insider/outsider Identity, must find the strategies and skills to overcome the marginalization that such barriers pose” (Gillman and Floyd-Thomas 162)Magical realism in Castillo’s novel is survival and resistance, and the borderlands of New Mexico an Mexico become both harmful and abundant spaces for the women’s identities and spirituality to thrive. They use their spirituality as an act of resistance to the patriarchal views of the Catholic church in the novel.

Even though the novels take place is different arenas- with Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange  focusing on the larger scales of transnational capitalism and economics of those individuals in Los Angeles and Mexico, and Castillo’s So Far from God being much more localized in the small town of Tome, New Mexico, both address how capitalism and colonialism influence the life events of those who live in the borderlands.  Delgado states that “Tropic depicts the globalized marketplace gone haywire. Labor and capital move fluidly across the globe even as large portions of the world’s populations remain at the mercy of faceless corporations.” (Delgado 151) When the freeway in Los Angeles is closed due to fires, there are commuters stranded , homeless taking over abandoned cars and goods stalled, unable to be delivered. In this moment, while people are stuck on the freeway, the corporations that affect the economy continue to move forward without issue. This highlights the structural disparities between capitalism and the labor force. Normally, people are the ones who take the hit while the corporate cogs keep turning, protected. Likewise, Gillman and Floyd-Thomas argue that Castillo’s characters “represent the double bind of the Mexi-Amerindian woman who is either marginalized and impoverished…. Or who betrays her own to enter the dominant culture…. marked by a schizophrenic-like existence” (Gillman and Floyd-Thomas 163). Such as when Fe goes to work in the factory and does what her supervisors ask of her with the chemicals, not realizing that they are poisoning everyone around, including her, causing the cancer that kills her. These arguments show that both authors position the borderlands in their novels as places where there is ongoing subjugation of marginalized communities, which is not accidental or a one-off occurrence. Capitalists specifically design the instability of the borderlands between the U.S. and Mexico to keep marginalized communities in a vulnerable, exploitable position. Both Yamashita’s and Castillo’s novels use magical realism to illustrate the forms of oppression that are made invisible by normalization.

Lastly, both Yamashita and Castillo utilize magical realism in their novels to criticize the limitations of the predominant forms of knowledge. Jansen argues that “magical realism’s history both inside and outside of the United States is an important factor in its continued usefulness; it has often been a genre that questions hegemonic belief systems.” (Jansen 104)As Jansen indicates, magical realism pushes readers to consider whose reality is authentic. This is important in areas like the borderlands, where the approved narrative itself often breaks down. Magical realism becomes a useful tool to tell the story of experiences that happen between, between different countries, between diverse cultures and between different versions of histories.

The style and approach taken by Yamashita in Tropic of Orange and by Castillo in So Far from God are complimentary but also quite different from each other. Both paint the borderlands as dynamic places that are shaped by capitalism, colonialism, and migration. Magical realism is a vehicle for both authors to show the kinds of oppression marginalized people face. Yamashita’s roaming geopolitical border and Castillo’s spiritual borders show that borders, either real or imagined are variable and should be questioned. By bringing magical realism together with stories of the U.S./Mexico borderlands, Yamashita, and Castillo show that real and imagined borders should be confronted and changed. Their works demonstrate that individuals that have been marginalized can reject and change the damage that can be caused by racism, colonialism, and exploitive capitalism.

 

 

Works Cited

Allende, Isabel. Big Think Interview with Isabel Allende Priya George. 3 May 2010.

Castillo, Ana. So Far from God. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1993.

Delgado, Francisco. "Tresspassing the U.S.-Mexico Border in Leslie MarmonSilko's Almanac of the Dead and Karen Tei Yamashita;s Tropic of Orange." The CEA Critic (2017): 149-166.

Gillman, Laura and Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas. "Con un pie a cada lado/ With a Foot in Each Place Mestizaje as Transnational Feminisms in Ana Castillo's So Far from God." Meridians (2001): 158-175.

Jansen, Anne Mai Yee. "Disintegrating Borders: Crossing Literal/ Literary Boundaries in Tropic of Orange and The People of Paper." The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (2017): 102-128.

Yamashita, Karen Tei. Tropic of Orange. Coffee House Press, 1997.