Yamashita's Post-National Spaces: "It All Comes Together in Los Angeles"

This essay explores Karen Fei Yamashita's representation of Los Angeles, not as a hub of multiculturalism, but as a nodal point that connects Asia, Central and South America, and Africa. Tropic of Orange cleverly depicts the roots and routes of transnational exchanges of labour and trade, and, in the process, shows the transformations of the local environment through these global contacts. The novel further conducts a spatial archaeology to highlight spatial injustices, focusing on the various (im)migrant populations that occupy a single city neighbourhood over time, regulations that restrict their access, and the unequal distribution of resources and development of infrastructures.