The Golden Door
Tom Milton, 2012
Nepperhan Press
228 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780983941217
Summary
Maya Mendez, who has lived with her family in Alabama for fifteen years as an illegal immigrant, suddenly faces an uncertain future when the state passes a new immigration law. The law will make it a crime for her parents to work and will prohibit her from attending a public university.
Maya has recently graduated from high school, and in two months she plans to start at the University of Alabama, which recruited her for the women’s soccer team before the law was passed. Since the law doesn’t become effective until after the fall semester begins, and since it might be stopped by challenges, Maya goes to Tuscaloosa in early August to join the soccer team for practice. Meanwhile, she finds herself in the middle of a conflict between her parents—her father still wants to pursue his dream of living in America, and her mother wants to go back to Mexico.
As the months pass and the law moves through the court system, Maya becomes a key player on a soccer team that has its most successful season in years. But the spirit of the law eventually catches up with her family, and out of its tragic consequences she struggles to find a mission in life. (From the author.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 3, 1949
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A. Princeton University; M.A., University
of Iowa (Writers Workshop); Ph.D., Walden University
• Currently—lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
Tom Milton was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. After completing his undergraduate
degree at Princeton he worked for the Wall Street Journal, and then he was invited to the Writers Workshop in Iowa City, where he completed a novel and a master’s degree. He then served in the U.S. Army, and upon his discharge he joined a major international bank in New York. For the next twenty years he worked overseas, initially as an economic/political analyst and finally as a senior executive. He later became involved in economic development projects.
After retiring from his business career he joined the faculty of Mercy College, where he is a professor of international business. Five years ago he found a publisher for his novels, some of which are set in foreign cities where he lived (Buenos Aires, London, Madrid, and Santo Domingo). His novels are popular with reading groups because they deal with major issues, they have engaging characters, and they are good stories.
His first published novel, No Way to Peace, set in Argentina in the mid-1970s, is about the courage of five women during that country’s war of terror. His second novel, The Admiral’s Daughter, is about the conflict between a young woman and her father during the civil rights war in Mississippi in the early 1960s. His third novel, All the Flowers, set in New York in the late 1960s, is about a gifted young singer who gets involved in the antiwar movement because her twin brother joins the army to prove his manhood to his father. His fourth novel, Infamy, set in Madrid in 2007, is about the attempt of security agents to stop a terrorist attack on New York City that would use weapons of mass destruction. His next novel, A Shower of Roses, set in London in the early 1980s, is about a young nurse who is drawn by love into an intrigue of the Cold War. His next novel, Sara’s Laughter, set in Yonkers, NY in 1993, is about a woman in her mid-thirties who wants a child but is unable to get pregnant. And his latest novel, The Golden Door, is about a young Latina woman in Alabama whose future is threatened by a harsh anti-immigrant law that the state passed in 2011.
Extras
From a conversation with Tom Milton appearing at the end of The Golden Door:
Q: All your heroines get into trouble. All have their values tested by events. And all have something in common—they define themselves by what they believe in, not by their relationships with men. Does that make you a feminist?
A: I belong to a generation that fought for civil rights, for peace, for women’s liberation, and for the environment. We’re still a long way from achieving our goals in these areas, including social and economic justice for women, so I’m an advocate for those goals. (From the author.)
Book Reviews
What does it feel like to be an illegal immigrant? Tom Milton addresses this question directly in The Golden Door, a book written in the voice of Maya Mendez, a young Mexican woman who has spent fifteen years living in the US. She’s an achiever with high grades at school, excellent soccer skills, and a brown belt in karate, and she’s just won a scholarship to the University of Alabama when an immigration law is passed that makes it impossible for her parents to work and for her to attend university. Written largely in the first person, the novel discusses her identity struggles as she moves between the differing opinions of her parents: her father, who wants to fulfill his dream of living in America, and her mother who believes they are unwanted in the US and should simply return to Mexico, where they belong. Through her relationships with her mentor, Judson, her rich, white boyfriend, Shelby, and her friend, Erin, Maya tries to understand what it means to be an illegal alien. She tries to determine whether a life in America is something she should continue to pursue, despite the challenges implicit in a law that makes her an instant outsider. Initially, she feels exempt from its grasp. But then her father is deported and the university rescinds her scholarship after Shelby’s father, an influential alumnus, tries to end Maya’s relationship with his son by having her extradited. The Golden Door tackles some relevant issues in a direct manner, using first-person dialogue between the characters to explain the various conflicts. At times this dialogue feels a little stilted and forced, but on the whole it succeeds in holding a reader’s attention. Milton also succeeds in breaking some of the stereotypes associated with Latinos by giving us a protagonist who has everything in her favor. Not only is she attractive, but she’s intelligent, ambitious, and the best soccer player on her university team. Clearly, she is an asset to the country. Her parents, too, struggle to understand how they are considered to be “taking jobs away from Americans,” when there is a dearth of American labor to get those jobs done. The Golden Door is a good read for young, thinking adults aged fifteen and older, and its address of immigration issues is easily applicable to American controversy on the same subject, as well as stereotypes that persist to this day.
Lauren Kramer - Forward Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss this novel’s treatment of racism, violence, and gender identity.
2. Discuss the statement by Trevor that the people who support anti-immigrant laws like the one in Alabama want to turn America into a gated community.
3. Maya’s father believes that the words engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty are still true, whereas her mother insists they are no longer true. What do you think?
4. Explain how Maya is affected by the conflict between her father and her mother.
5. How does Maya’s relationship with Shelby help her or hinder her in finding her identity?
6. What role does Judson play in Maya’s development?
7. What roles do Father Philip and Trevor play in Maya’s development?
8. What new perspectives does Maya gain from Erin?
9. What role does the coach play in Maya’s development?
10. How are Maya’s values tested by her relationship with Diego?
11. Explain how the plot is driven by the hopes, dreams, beliefs, or values of the characters. Which character has the most effect on what happens?
12. Describe the three situations where Maya uses her karate skills. Was she justified in using those skills?
13. Does Maya resolve the conflict between her parents? Explain.
14. Given the events of the story, is the ending inevitable? Explain.
15. How would you project Maya’s future?
(Questions courtesy of author.)