Citrus noir: Strange Fruit in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange

Abstract

This paper reads Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel Tropic of orange as an interrogation of neoliberalism, accomplished through its critique of the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the marginalised homeless in Los Angeles and its disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples in Mexico. It examines the issues of environmental justice presented in the novel and links these to California’s citrus industry and its history of labour relations, engaging with the ways in which Yamashita draws on the aesthetics of film noir in order to frame these problematics.