How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
His grandfather was an important man who owned two small houses in Tortilla Flat and was respected for his wealth. (Preface.6)
We don't know anything about Danny's grandfather except that he owned a couple of houses and was wealthy. That's enough to earn him respect in the town because it puts him in the position of controlling land and other resources (both of which gives him power).
Quote #2
When Danny heard about it he was a little weighed down with the responsibility of ownership. (1.2)
Danny, rather than being happy about inheriting the two houses from his grandfather, instead feels burdened by the inheritance. For him, owning the houses is a responsibility that he doesn't want. It also puts him on the level of his grandfather, which is a social class he has rejected with his actions. It's likely that there's a lot about his grandfather's life that Danny rejects as well. Maybe the life his grandfather led is one that Danny thinks will make him miserable; that could be why Danny is afraid of following in his grandfather's footsteps.
Quote #3
Pilon had been right—he had been raised among his fellows. (2.7)
Pilon warns Danny that now that he is a homeowner he will become a big man, and fears that he will get uppity and think he's better than his friends. Danny realizes that this is true, that people start to treat him differently and that he's in a higher position on the social ladder than he was before.
Quote #4
Danny became a great man, having a house to rent, and Pilon went up the social scale by renting a house. (3.2)
One thing that Danny and Pilon hadn't counted on was the way that, if one peg in the social class grid is moved, all the pegs connected to it end up moving, too. So when Danny moves up in the world after he inherits two houses, Pilon, his buddy, moves up as well by renting one of the houses.
Quote #5
He had thought over the ruin of his status as a man with a house to rent; and, all this clutter of necessary and decent emotion having been satisfied and swept away, he had finally slipped into his true emotion, one of relief that at least one of his burdens was removed. (6.1)
When Danny's second house burns down, he loses some of his status in the community since now he doesn't have any moneymaking property (he only has his own house left). However, since we know that Danny isn't really into the high society stuff (such as it is in Tortilla Flat), he's actually relieved: he's just been relieved of some of the unwanted responsibility that comes with high status.
Quote #6
He could not explain to his friends the coolness that had come to his relationship with Mrs. Morales since he was the owner of only one house [...] (6.22)
Mrs. Morales and Danny start hooking up after he inherits two houses. In Tortilla Flat, having houses is sexy. When one house burns down, Danny starts to lose some of his sexiness, and Mrs. Morales decides to take her business elsewhere.
Quote #7
Dolores Engracia Ramirez lived in her own little house on the upper edge of Tortilla Flat. She did housework for some of the ladies in Monterey, and she belonged to the Native Daughters of the Golden West. (9.1)
Here we can see the complicated relationships between the classes of Tortilla Flat—and between Tortilla Flat and Monterey. While within Tortilla Flat Dolores is an important figure (she belongs to a ladies club and owns her own house), she's of a lower class in Monterey, where she's a housekeeper.
Quote #8
When Sweets heard that Danny was an heir, she was glad for him. She dreamed of being his lady, as did every other female on Tortilla Flat. In the evenings she leaned over the front gate waiting for the time when he would pass by and fall into her trap. But for a long time her baited trap caught nothing but poor Indians and paisanos who owned no houses, and whose clothes were sometimes fugitive from better wardrobes. (9.5)
We can see that Mrs. Morales wasn't the only one who was interested in Danny's new status: Sweets wants in on the action, too. She compares Danny, who's a paisano, to the Native Americans and paisanos who don't own houses, showing that due to the fact that he owns a lot of stuff now, Danny's in a new category, one that goes beyond race.
Quote #9
But their envy could do nothing against the vacuum. Through its possession Sweets climbed to the peak of the social scale of Tortilla Flat. (9.39)
This is hilarious, but its sincerity is also kind of sweet. Sweets is given a vacuum that she can't even use because she doesn't have electricity. This shows us the limits of her economic power, and also of her social class, because the electric company hasn't made it to her neighborhood yet. But none of that matters, because just owning the vacuum is enough to change her status among her neighbors.
Quote #10
"And when we came out of that church, a capitán with epaulets and a sash and a silver sword saw my wife. Pretty soon my wife went away. Then I went to the capitán and I said, 'Give me back my wife,' and he said, 'You do not value your life, to talk this way to your superior.'" The corporal spread his hands and lifted his shoulders in a gesture of caged resignation. (10.49)
The arrival of the corporal from Mexico shows us that Tortilla Flat and Monterey aren't the only places where social status makes a difference in matters of the heart. The corporal thinks that it's completely logical that his wife would leave him for a captain, because the captain has a higher rank than he does.