The ends of America, the ends of postmodernism

Focusing on the US-Mexico border is one way that the novel draws attention to the divide between North and South that Immanuel Wallerstein has described as one of the great geopolitical polarities of the twenty-first century (280-88). While this division is not new, its consequences have become more apparent in the absence of Cold War ideological conflicts and the growth of the global economy.

As we have seen, The Crying of Lot 49 also looks south of the US border. But the relationship of North to South in Tropic of Orange means something quite different from its meaning in The Crying of Lot 49, where Oedipa comes to realize--in a place "only by accident known as Mexico"--that her location is relatively unimportant, since revelation could have come in any number of places. By contrast, US-Mexico relations are absolutely crucial to Yamashita's narrative design, for they represent both the most destructive aspects of globalization and the inspired fusion of people and cultures resulting from northward migration. So vital is this connection that at one point in the novel L.A. is described as "the Village of the Queen of the Angels of Porcuincula, the second largest city of Mexico, also known as Los Angeles" (211). Mazatlan--a romantic retreat for Oedipa and Pierce Inverarity--is also the location for the first chapter of Tropic of Orange, which takes place in a vacation home bought by Gabriel in an attempt to rediscover his Mexican roots. Moving back and forth between the US and Mexico, the novel reflects on a post-NAFTA context in which the international border has become a vital node in the global economy and a focus of concerns about national security as well as a constant reminder of the inextricable fusion of Latin and Anglo American cultures. The signing of CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) in July 2005, combined with ongoing debates about immigration and domestic security, have ensured the ongoing currency of the topical questions raised by Tropic of Orange in the early twentieth-first century.