Tropic of Orange

“Rafaela glanced back toward the orange tree and the single orange, suddenly aware of the only possible and yet entirely impossible thing that could obstruct the intensity of the sun’s light at this hour, slicing the heavy atmosphere with cruel precision. Indeed the sun was a great ball of fire directly above the orange tree. It seemed even to point at the tree, at the strange line, at the orange itself.” 

Gabriel purchased this property in Mexico specifically because the Tropic of Cancer runs through it. Though Rafaela does not ascribe to Gabriel’s romantic notion, for a moment she almost literally sees the Tropic of Cancer represented as a razor thin shadow. The shadow connects Gabriel’s orange tree geographically with the North where the tree came from and where Gabriel lives.

“He realized you could just skip out over his house, his streets, his part of town. You never had to see it ever. Only thing you could see that anybody might take notice of were the palm trees. That was what the palm trees were for. To make out the place where he lived. To make sure that people noticed. And the palm trees were like the eyes of his neighborhood, watching the rest of the city, watching it sleep and eat and play and die. There was a beauty about those palm trees, a beauty neither he nor anybody down there next to them could appreciate, a beauty you could only notice if you were far away.” 

Buzzworm’s childhood fascination with palm trees mirrors his adulthood occupation as the unofficial social worker of his neighborhood. Palm trees are not just a physical marker of his neighborhood, but also the metaphorical guardians watching over it. 

“The Japanese American community had apologized profusely for this blight on their image as the Model Minority. They had attempted time after time to remove him from his overpass, from his eccentric activities, to no avail. They had even tried to placate him with a small lacquer bridge in the Japanese gardens in Little Tokyo. But Manzanar was destined for greater vistas. He could not confine his musical talents to the silky flow of koi in a pond, the constant tap of bamboo on rock, or manicured bonsai.” 

This passage demonstrates how Manzanar Murakami fits in better with Los Angeles as a whole, rather than with his prescribed community. The Japanese community in Los Angeles does not approve of Manzanar Murakami “tarnishing” their image as a “model minority” and tries to hide him from public view. Murakami is more at home on the chaotic streets and the freeway system of Los Angeles, rather than orderly Little Tokyo.