Estevan and his wife came to America to escape persecution in Guatemala, because to many, America is a world of promise and opportunity. Though Estevan is a good man and speaks better English than any of the born and raised American characters in the book, he cannot get a well paying job, he is stuck washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant. Esperanza has a hard time coping with all that they had been through and ends up attempting suicide.

This shows the unattainable American dream because in their pursuit of a fresh start, away from the corruption of their Central American government, they had to leave their daughter behind in Guatemala. Taylor meets a couple, Esperanza and Estevan, who are illegal immigrants from Guatemala who have come to America for a better life.

Taylor’s idea of the American dream ends up being shattered by her new child Turtle and the realization that life isn’t fair, but she ends up finding a new dream and settling down with her new family. Taylor presumably did not imagine her new start consisting of acquiring a baby at a diner late at night, in fact she left Kentucky to avoid having a child, or befriending illegal immigrants in a used tire shop but in the end of the novel, she adopts Turtle and they live happily in Arizona. Taylor and Turtle end up living in a hotel in Tucson and then later sharing a room with a woman named Lou Ann whose husband, Angel, has left her. On her journey, a woman gives her a Native American baby who she names Turtle. In the book the Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, the main character Taylor attempts to start her life over by leaving her rural Kentucky town, riddled with poverty and teen pregnancy, and driving west.

The bean trees by barbara kingsolver