ABSTRACT
The unbounding of the city has brought about the dismantling of the circle, of the moat or protective wall. The key is insulation within concentric circles to separate and presumably guarantee protection. If conurbation is the direct product of the unbounding of the traditional city, conborderation would address the concatenation of urban walls and borders. Lines have also become unbound. This is the network of urban separations that Karen Tei Yamashita addresses in Tropic of Orange. Within the two simultaneous processes of unbounding the city and unbounding the wall, the novelist introduces a real crossing, a collision of races, classes, and realities on the freeway, the very premises of freedom. Interestingly, Manzanar Murakami had created his name out of his birthplace, Manzanar Concentration Camp in Owens Valley, one of the “authoritative places” where Japanese Americans were confined during the Second World War.
