The Other Americans

The remoteness of the desert town where the characters live means that vehicles are an essential part of life. Unless characters want to remain in a single place, they have to use a vehicle. This means that vehicles are imbued with a symbolic meaning. Vehicles represent freedom and social activity. They symbolize the ability to break free from a home or family and achieve independence. Fierro and Jeremy drive to their support group to escape their trauma, Coleman drives her son to a baseball game to help him feel less lonely, and Nora transports her life back and forth from Oakland and she tries to find her place it the world. Vehicles become essential extensions of the characters personal freedoms and allow them to search for deeper meaning in their lives.

Vehicles represent personal freedoms, but they also restrict freedom when characters are not alone. Vehicles are essential for travel so characters often find themselves trapped in moving cars with people they resent, fear, or loathe. Nora hates riding in a car with her mother because the shared journeys always exacerbate the criticism from her mother and end in a comparison to Salma. Jeremy and Fierro drive in silence because neither of them want to confront their feelings.