Tropic of Orange

Rafaela is Bobby’s wife and Sol’s mother. She grew up in Yucatan, Mexico, before becoming an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Rafaela is kind and intelligent. She earned her degree at Los Angeles City College with Gabriel’s guidance and sponsorship. Rafaela and Bobby got into a major argument prior to the beginning of the novel, so she took Sol and ran away to Mexico, taking up residence at Gabriel’s unoccupied dream house near the Tropic of Cancer in Mazatlán, Mexico.

When the villain Hernando kidnaps Rafaela, separating her from her sun, their battle takes on mythical proportions and culminates in her lying bloody and beaten by the side of the road. The violence of the fight between Hernando and Rafaela is symbolic of the violence inflicted upon the indigenous people of Mexico. The fact that Hernando sexually assaults her is a reminder of the sexual violence women in colonized nations faced. Rafaela’s screams “traveled south but not north,” signifying America’s blindness to the violence women face in the borderlands.

Rafaela reunites with Bobby when the Tropic of Cancer distorts the geography of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They reconcile their philosophical differences, united in worry about their son.