The coyote is the most prevalent symbol in The Tortilla Curtain. However, Delaney is the only character that acknowledges its meaning, but only in nature. The symbol reveals his own ignorance, as he does not realize that the coyote represents the versatility of the illegal immigrant in American society. Candido is a figurative coyote “who can find water where there is none (Boyle79).” The symbol shows through one particular example that Candido is “cunning, versatile, hungry, and unstoppable (Boyle215).” After losing all his belongings and makeshift camp in a wildfire, Candido refuses to give up on his dream and instead, builds a new shelter using stolen wooden pallets as wall frames, newspaper as insulation, a large sheet of gardening plastic as a roof/rain catcher, and re-routing the Arroyo Blanco Estates’ sprinkler system towards his encampment to provide fresh water for his family. All these creative ideas mirror the innovation used by coyotes to survive.
The coyote’s symbolic nature is revealed in Delaney’s nature column, “Pilgrim at Topanga Creek,” where he analyses its presence in the local environment. He begins, “We cannot eradicate the coyote , nor can we fence him out…the coyote is not to blame-he is only trying to survive, to make a living, to take advantage of the opportunities available to him (Boyle214),” now substitute “coyote” with “illegal immigrant/Candido” and the true purpose of the coyote in the novel becomes obvious. Candido is in America for the same reason our ancestors came here, for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
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I almost chose the coyote to write about in my blog because it is so clearly a symbol. However, I have to disagree with you on some points. While Delaney's hate for the coyote does mirror his hate for illegal immigrants, it is not fueled by ignorance. Delaney really believes that he has cause to hate the coyote-it killed both his dogs. And Delaney feels he has equal cause to hate the immigrants-for harrassing his wife, setting the fire, etc. But he is not spiteful throughout the novel. He is almost always ashamed of his feelings of hatred for the illegals. Similarly, when he writes the column about the coyotes for his nature magazine he concedes that the coyotes are simply trying to survive in a cruel world that owes them nothing. He presents both the coyotes side and his own side. It is an example of the ambivalence Delaney feels for the immagrants. On one hand, they have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But on the other hand, he has to question at what and whos expense. His safety? His country? Also, there is a point in the novel that really solidified the symbolic nature of the coyote as a representative of the immigrants for me: when America is on the brink of insanity and imagines that she IS a coyote. She decides that "men are her enemies." Even the gate, which Delaney keeps making bigger and more exclusive, is not enough to keep the coyotes out, paralleling the coyote and the immigrants even more.
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