How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When people first came to the West, particularly from the owned and fought-over farmlets of Europe, and saw so much land to be had for the signing of a paper and the building of a foundation, an itching land-greed seemed to come over them […] A man who might have been well-to-do on ten acres in Europe was rat-poor on two thousand in California. (3.2.1)
Okay, so we've got our first East-West contrast of the novel between the Old World and the New World. Actually it's more like the New New World, because the West in the United States was still being "settled" (that's in scare quotes because, you know, people had been settled there for a long time…) in the second half of the nineteenth century. But the West isn't looking so great and Edenic like one might have expected it to—most of the land seems to be shoddy. But hey, at least there's land to go around. So it's a place for potential.
Quote #2
The long Salinas Valley was part of the exploitation. Adam had seen and studied a fine color broadside which set forth the valley as that region which heaven unsuccessfully imitated. After reading the literature, anyone who did not want to settle in the Salinas Valley was crazy. (13.2.9)
Now we're talking Eden, and it has colored brochures directly comparing Salinas to heaven. A stretch? Maybe. But Adam sure buys into it. He wants his Eden, gosh darnit, so it looks like we're heading west
Quote #3
"I understand you were not born in America."
"No, in Ireland."
"And in a few years you can almost disappear; while I, who was born in Grass Valley, went to school and several years to the University of California, have no choice of mixing."
"If you cut your queue, dressed and talked like other people?"
"No. I tried to. To the so-called whites I was still a Chinese, but an untrustworthy one; and at the same time my Chinese friends steered clear of me. I had to give it up." (15.2.37-41)
Now Steinbeck is going to blow your mind: Bet you thought Lee was from China like Samuel did, didn't you? He sure had us fooled with that pidgin accent of his. But as it turns out, he is as American as apple pie, or Uncle Sam, or Memorial Day barbeques. But you know that whole melting pot thing? Turns out it doesn't really work that way. People still see Lee as a foreigner because American still means white in a lot of people's minds. So Lee has this Eastern (in the sense of Asian, which Lee is going to refer to as the Orient, because that term used to not be un-PC) identity imposed upon him.