How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Then the TV showed both Mattie and the interview man talking without sound, and another man's voice told us that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had returned two illegal aliens, a woman and her son, to their native El Salvador last week, and that Mattie "claimed" they had been taken into custody when they stepped off the plane in San Salvador and later were found dead in a ditch. I didn't like this man's tone. I had no idea how Mattie would know such things, but if she said it was so, it was. (7.106)
By getting to know, love, and trust Mattie, Taylor's eyes are opened to the unjust ways of the world. Even more than Taylor's Mama, Mattie provides the young woman with the kind of role-modeling it takes to make Taylor see that she can make a difference in the world. Even if she doesn't always understand how the news on TV works.
Quote #5
"What program did you want to see?" Edna asked. "I hope we haven't spoiled it by coming late?"
"That was it, we just saw it," I said, though it seemed ridiculous. Thirty seconds and it was all over. "She's a friend of ours," I explained.
"All I could make out was some kind of trouble with illegal aliens and dope peddlers," said Mrs. Parsons. (7.109-111)
Virgie Mae's reaction to the television interview is represented as a typically prejudiced response. Like Granny Logan, Virgie Mae's presence in the novel serves to highlight how prejudice and bigotry contribute to social injustice. Thanks a lot, Parsnip.
Quote #6
Mrs. Parsons muttered that she thought this was a disgrace. "Before you know it the whole world will be here jabbering and jabbering till we won't know it's America."
"Virgie, mind your manners," Edna said.
"Well, it's the truth. They ought to stay put in their own dirt, not come here taking up jobs." (7.131-133)
Here we go again. To Virgie Mae, immigrants and refugees are all the same: "aliens" and "foreigners" who don't belong, and who don't deserve to take up space in the country she calls home. Although The Bean Trees sets up women like Virgie Mae and Granny Logan as particularly clear examples of bigotry and xenophobia, the novel suggests that opinions like theirs are widespread.