midterms

x-write off the top of your head

need to keep Course Objectives, minority, immigrant, and / or USA's dominant culture page in sight + literary devices

10 Indian peon meets newly arrived Spanish bishop

Mary becomes symbol of New World Catholicism

Juan Nepomuceno Seguin, Personal Memoirs:

Seguin

Classic, popular, and representative literature

open floor

1 esteem v. jealousy

military companies, adventurers

caught in middle, dark intrigues, jealousy [mestizo, Hispanic / Latino]

3 Texan war for independence,

many noble hearts

also many bad men

[frontier as stateless society, no protections, only strong and week, with hopes that strong are good]

4 first city of Texas . . . also the receptacle of the scum of society

my countrymen ran to me for protection against the assaults or exactions [demands for payment] of those adventurers

Were not the victims my own countrymen, friends and associates?

foreigners x countrymen

5 smuggling

6 elected mayor

6 Republic re-allocates city property

13 Seguin is with us. [cf. Seguin]

16 reports about my pretended treason

16 some Americans were murdering Curbier

17 hiding from rancho to rancho

20 before leaving my country, perhaps forever, family council

21 ungrateful Americans

22 my services paid by persecutions

immigrant . . . assimilation, joining dominant culture (sooner or later)

minority . . . isolation, resistance

Primary Objective 1 (Minority) 

1. The USA's dominant culture regards Mexican Americans primarily as immigrants, which largely describes the experience of Reyna Grande and her family in The Distance Between Us. In what ways, however, may Grande's characters also be described as minorities, or how is the Mexican immigrant experience complicated by geography and history?

3 A power that takes away parents . . . the United States

6 Dream: to build us a house
Never enough money to make dream reality

17 Don’t want people feeling sorry for me

30 role of Iguala in Independence
Neighborhood La Guadalupe
31 Dukes of Hazzard, blond guy, Yee-haa!

33 Mami having baby, replacing us
American citizen [14th Amendment]

48 Going to be a flag bearer—plan for future

57 what else don’t they know about us
Distance between us destroying our relationship

59 Father helped pay parents’ mortgage
Mistake: property not under his name 

73 Canal; Railroad privatized

74 Eyes not slanted, skin very dark
El Otro Lado: golden haired people, eyes blue
Dark as Nahuas, indigenous people

77 August 1982, peso devalued
Few options to make a living
Hardships, Mexico’s unstable economy history of Mexico

79 Later, middle class almost wiped out, debt crisis

81 man like prince, woman with five children

112 Mago’s dream came true
We’ll come up with money somehow (Mema White)
Mago loved school more

112-113 dreams of tech school, secretary, Mami’s dream
Pretended to type [human, play, mimesis]
Mago as character, dreams of tech school
"little mother
+ mother's dream: secretary

114 x-school, quit now, get job, food on table

143 skin color of rain-soaked earth

144 Light-skinned, light makeup, stylish outfit x Mama’s olive skin + pants [color code]
144 clothes: peaches, browns + olive skin
144 Mila five years older, looks younger

146 go home? Home?

147 Carlos . . . job? > school
[extended family]
147 Mila naturalized U.S. citizen

150 Born in the U.S. a privilege
150 sneak across border like a thief

150 “She has never had a good vision of the future.”

156 Papi like a frightened animal
156 / 101 helicopter . . . animals . . . . lizards

157 I want to live in that perfect place . . . . to have a family

158 Golden arches fnf

158 / 103 sunflower seeds . . . Mago reached out her hand [characterization]

159 Exit to Disneyland

165 don’t tell anyone you’re here illegally
165 broken law by coming
165 Why a law to prevent children from joining parents?

166 Papi cf. Model Minority: education, opportunities, expecting A’s
166 money to pay back smuggler (cf. Af Ams paying for freedom)

168 [skin, color code] Migra = Negra

169 public education x-devil nonsense
169 not hit students [mod / trad; rights]
169 stepmother fluently bilingual & U.S. citizen
169 Luther Burbank Junior High

171 Mrs. Anderson > Mr. Lopez
171 Only one last name

172 students: brown skin, eyes, hair + English <<<<<<<

175 Where do I belong?--tearing in half

176 Halloween, Rainbow Brite
177 cf. Day of the Dead

184 turkey + Pilgrim's hat
184 Mila’s skin two shades lighter; pretty and classy

207 broken relations with children
Immigration took a toll on us all

212 teeth all you could look at
Maria very pretty, skin light
Hello Kitty

217 Wish go back to Iguala, speak language
x-non English speakers

218 Mr. Lopez x-where came from. Learn English. Land of opportunity

227 Papi: the future
School, educated = key to future
Mami welfare, black market, x-benefits

228 social security, retirement—this country
228 home owners, retirement
x-impact on Betty
228 no papers > job? Dream
Change for better

228-9 Reagan amnesty, legalize status
229 stop living in shadows

236 Papi adult school, English > better job

237 Papi's desire for a better life . . . contagious
237 Notebook [literacy]
237 Tia Emperatriz stole his dream house

238 his dreams, my dreams

253 bleach arm hair, skin looks lighter [color code]

281 Spanish or English? Like a pocha
No longer considered Mexican enough [assimilation]
282 Mago and Reyna fight
282 Mago erase Mexico, English no accent [assimilation]

283 Anne of Green Gables on Disney Channel [dominant culture]
283 "We can leave here and finally be in a a place where we can be happy." [dominant culture, cf. millennialism]

297 other Reyna, future
297 the other Reyna, the one who still believed in that bright future my father had once said I could have

319 first college graduate in family

320 taught immigrant children, ESL
my story wasn't unique
80% of Latin American children separated from parent
2002 citizen
320 Mex Am: from both places . . . they coexist with in me . . . writing as bridge
writing the bridge

1a., Pay particular attention to socioeconomic or class behaviors or values, esp. traditional / dysfunctional family.

8 men who never return: new wives, new family, disappear, reinvent, forget

10 Mami’s family poorer

12 Man must have house, land to pass down

14 Elida favorite grandchild
Grandfather’s room: sweat, bear, smoke

15 Life isn’t worth anything.

18 Elida x-friend > “little orphans”
Privileged . . . everything we were not

19 grandfather worked in fields, Tia Emperatriz photo studio (25, still single)

23 & 24 Elida’s hair, ours louse-ridden
x-trust daughter in law

24 Didn’t save father from fields
third grade, left school

45 no father, dance with aunt’s cousin, butcher

74 no interior walls, no privacy
Saints, candles, flowers, portrait of grandfather
Little sister complete stranger

75 another woman

78 Four children to support on her own

84 And where am I to go
Paisana < Zolatecas
Educated nursing assistant (class)
Mami 6th grade education
Naturalized citizen, could speak English

85 woman and American privileges > bigger future?

96 Carlos x-school
Uncle: “Let’s go find work”

121 Francisco’s dream, El Santo [mimesis]
Francisco man to save her, from what?

132 Don Oscar godfather for graduation (6th grade)
Oscar Jr. . . . I’m poor
Oscar or Papi as hero, saved

133 Mago not anyone’s mother > a girl
A different class than us
Clothes, private schools, formal Spanish, giggled
13 years later, Iguala for Christmas, clothes as nice as theirs

I would return to the U.S. more determined than ever
Cousin Lupita their maid . . . my fate

151 Laws in the U.S.

 Primary Objective 2 (Literary Techniques)

2. In contrast to the fiction or novel Round House, The Distance Between Us is memoir or nonfiction. What differences follow in terms of characterization, narrative, perspective, and nonfiction's power to represent a minority voice and identity?

32-3 smells [mimesis, + contrast dominant culture]

56 Mexico gifts at Epiphany
El Otro Lado, American culture
Wrong-size clothes, time stood still

76 Do you miss her? But she’s back . . . “Everything’s back to how it was before” (cf. Joe)

88 [brave Mago]

137 Mami 35, Rey 21

153 Toothache fnf

158 Golden arches fnf

158 / 103 sunflower seeds . . . Mago reached out her hand [characterization]

159 Exit to Disneyland

2a. Like Erdrich, Grande is also a poet. How does she enliven or unify her nonfiction with the devices of lyric poetry?

7 Mago < Magloria; Not her first scar (poet)

9 Mountain that has a Headache
13 Empty dirt road, nothing left of mother
21 [metaphor] ribbon connecting to Mami

65 place of broken beauty [trad / mod]
Woman’s body next to mine

72 How do people know back from U.S.? smell? Speak differently? Clothes?

103 June 1983
103-4 smell

262 Strange place of broken beauty

2b. Erdrich in Round House made Joe a past-future narrator, both describing Joe's actions from a present adolescent perspective and commenting on these actions from a future adult perspective. How much does Grande limit herself to a child's perspective? How much does she comment from an adult perspective? What are the effects of these different balances?

31 grow to more than 110,000
New neighborhoods, poorest people
Streets paved, electricity stable, no running water
Papi x-childhood
[small world of childhood]

133 Mago not anyone’s mother > a girl
A different class than us
Clothes, private schools, formal Spanish, giggled
13 years later, Iguala for Christmas, clothes as nice as theirs

144 Looking back . . . how awkward for him as well [empathy]

163 2010, 25 years after new life in USA began

183-4 flash-forward "Now that I'm a mother"; not an evil stepmother

2c. As Grande grows up and encounters the modern world beyond her village, how much does her nonfiction reflect her giving up a "fairy tale world" of heroes and villains and accepting instead a more factual world in which everyone struggles against their own limits?

3 La Llorona, family separation
La Vergin

34 map, the distance [Los Angeles]
Connected . . . made that up

40 Elida’s mother comes back
Fifteen, senorita, quinceanera

97 Witchcraft > schizophrenia

99 Hansel and Gretel

110 three little pigs, Papi’s dream house

134 cf. Hansel and Gretel, follow crumbs to Mami

135 Mami two people,: loved by a man, do right by children
Rapunzel
[mimesis] reenactments of journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem
House to give us shelter

222 Following crumbs back to Mami [fairy tale]

231 “princess”

235 Favorite soap opera, Quinceanera

240 addicted to reading x making friends + unfashionable clothes
Arroyo Seco Library (California)
Fairy tale collections
Cf. Iguala

241 reading Sweet Valley, glimpse of world I wished to belong to [dominant culture, assimilation]

242 short story competition
Mago dances
Stories of broken families

262 nonsense, no hell or devil, or already living in Hell

287 restaurant murals, songs, perfect little village + all my family

Book One Mi Mami Me Ama

3 La Llorona, family separation
La Vergin
A power that takes away parents . . . the United States

4 El Otro Lado, father and mother

Book One, Chapter 1
5 January 1980 . . . How long ago
Neighborhood, sell Avon

6 never really got my mother back
Paper face, glass plate, only father
Two years old when left
Dream: to build us a house
Never enough money to make dream reality

7 two choices: return empty-handed, or send for mother
Mago < Magloria
Not her first scar (poet)
Husband needs me—grown man?
Children’s need
Dona Maria: pray for successful crossing

8 men who never return: new wives, new family, disappear, reinvent, forget
Mami didn’t look down at ground anymore
x-lower eyes like Dona Maria
grandmothe’s adobe home + corral
unpaved street > church, school, tortilla mill
Guerrero; Iguala de la Independencia

9 Mountain that has a Headache
When you’re poor
Abuelita Chinta
Wanted mother

10 doing this for you, all of you
Father’s decision, must do
Mami’s family poorer
Grandmother born 1911, Mexican Revolution

11 Natalio, house he wants
Aunt’s house one of biggest on block but didn’t live in it

12 Cousin Elida
Revolution millions dead, x-emotional
Mago: not house but Papi
Man must have house, land to pass down
Mago their little mother
Strength and love > survived

13 Mago doesn’t cry
Empty dirt road, nothing left of mother


Book One, Ch 2
14 Elida favorite grandchild
Grandfather’s room: sweat, bear, smoke

15 Carlos starts wetting bed
The alley (sex, drinking)
Life isn’t worth anything.

16 invisible to grandfather
Man on horse dragging person away
Devil making his rounds
Naughty children to hell
Mago there when mother, father not
Baker’s house

17 huerfanitas . . . not orphans!
17 Don’t want people feeling sorry for me
Mago scar
Cf. train tracks (cf. Erdrich)

18 Elida x-friend > “little orphans”
Privileged . . . everything we were not

19 grandfather worked in fields, Tia Emperatriz photo studio (25, still single)
Money parents sent is gone
“Regina”

20- Sept. 7 < Santa Regina
This house is yours to keep forever

21 shack where first lived
Day I was born, as Mami used to tell (oral culture)
Umbilical cord buried there

21 no matter where life takes her, she won’t forget where she came from
[metaphor] ribbon connecting to Mami
Doesn’t matter there’s a distance between us now
Belly button cf. photo

22 dialogue as humility, compassion
Don Bartolo: left because they love you


Book One, Ch 3
23 & 24 Elida’s hair, ours louse-ridden
x-trust daughter in law
24 mother’s bad luck, only daughter in law
Tio Carlos crushed on way to fields
Didn’t save father from fields
third grade, left school
Elida: your mother is not coming back for you
Money they sent disappeared

25 your mother not coming back
American brother
25 Elida x-chores, never shared

26 kerosene x-lice
No electricity that night

27 Carlos trying to please grandfather

28 cried for my hair, only beautiful thing
Mirror: Papi’s slanted eyes . . . black hair

29 [spoken culture] scrubbed clothes, told me stories
Dream of Mami, washing—Carlos wet bed


Book One, Ch 4
30 role of Iguala in Independence
Neighborhood La Guadalupe

31 grow to more than 110,000
New neighborhoods, poorest people
Streets paved, electricity stable, no running water
Papi x-childhood
Dukes of Hazzard, blond guy, Yee-haa!
[small world of childhood]

32 song Papi loved

32-3 smells [mimesis, + contrast dominant culture]

33 Mami having baby, replacing us
American citizen

34 map, the distance [Los Angeles]
Connected . . . made that up
No running water, Dona Paula
Donkey, community well

35 jotos = sissies
No one told us to bathe

37 American children
El Otro Lado, reverence
Anything from there coveted


Book One, Ch 5
39 turned five, x-birthday
Scorpio, Virgo
Took out on Mago x Abuela

40 third birthday without Papi, first without Mami
What a fancy cake does to people
Photos to parents, x-forget
Elida’s mother comes back
Fifteen, senorita, quinceanera

41 little girl, Elizabeth
Mago: those toys were for us

42 Tia M F had to return to job

44 girl’s job, man enough

45 no father, dance with aunt’s cousin, butcher

45 Carlos and Javier: speak English
What El Otro Lado looked like
A beautiful place, no dirt roads or trash in streets
Trees with dollar bills for leaves

46 tree covered in dollar bills
Elida heartbroken girl


Book One, Ch 6
47 La escolta (escort)

48 first day of first grade
Books, poetry, fun stories
Fridays honor flag, uniform; green, white, and red
Going to be a flag bearer—plan for future

49 Iguala, treaty ending Mexican War of Independence
Birthplace of National Flag, national anthem
School: no running water
Toilet x squat
Alphabet, kindergarten, half no kindergarten
x-left hand

50 left hand, hand of devil

51 a name to live up to
Hate school x out of grandmother’s house

52 Mami origin story for clouds, rain

53 things on ground kissed by devil
x-care, > hungry
learn to read and write, letter to parents
what if devil doesn’t exist? > I’m not evil [tradition / modernity]
waiting for something to happen

54 left hand writing


Book One, Ch 7
56 Mexico gifts at Epiphany
El Otro Lado, American culture
Wrong-size clothes, time stood still

57 what else don’t they know about us
Distance between us destroying our relationship
x-orphans


Book One, Ch 8
58 dream house
Guerrero most people emigrating
Construction work in Acapulco, Mexico City

59 farther north
Fields, harvesting
Stable job, maintenance, retirement center
Construction on house began
Family property, next to hers
Father helped pay parents’ mortgage
Mistake: property not under his name
Abuelo Auguria and Carlos

60 house > family again
Foolish dream


Book One, Ch 9
61 scorpions
62 locals: kill scorpion, venom less powerful
63 Scorpio
64 They won’t come back
El Otro Lado very beautiful
Canal, trash, crumbling adobe, shacks, worm-bellies, bare feet
Child innocent enough to see beyond

65 place of broken beauty [trad / mod]
Woman’s body next to mine


Book One, Ch 10
70 going to movies
Woman like movie star, well fed baby

71 little sister real, Betty

72 How do people know back from U.S.? smell? Speak differently? Clothes?
Beautiful . . . so why come back?
Abuela Chinta’s house bamboo sticks

73 electricity and stove
Canal; Railroad privatized

74 no interior walls, no privacy
Saints, candles, flowers, portrait of grandfather
Little sister complete stranger
Eyes not slanted, skin very dark
El Otro Lado: golden haired people, eyes blue
Dark as Nahuas, indigenous people

75 another woman

76 Do you miss her? But she’s back
“Everything’s back to how it was before” (cf. Joe)


Book One, Ch 11

77 August 1982, peso devalued
Few options to make a living
Hardships, Mexico’s unstable economy
Explain why came back
Husband > another woman

78 [shame x-voice]
What it meant
A different version of my mother
78 Four children to support on her own
La Quarta Castejon
Wealthy people
Colonia: neighborhoods in Mexican cities, which have no jurisdictional autonomy or representation

79 wall
Later, middle class almost wiped out, debt crisis

80 American = fragile
Other mothers, kids, stands
Quinceanera, mujercita, little woman

81 man like prince, woman with five children
Should have stayed, jobs; how survive?
That beautiful place she yearned for
Your father worked on that pool

82 not once let me go
Memories are yours to keep forever x other woman

83 let go of her

Book One, Ch 12
84 And where am I to go
Paisana < Zolatecas
Educated nursing assistant (class)
Mami 6th grade education
Naturalized citizen, could speak English

85 woman and American privileges > bigger future?
Kept Betty
x-police > deported
no money, no daughter, returning worse
babysitter cf. Betty Wishkob

86 something boiled up
Father, rage, alcohol, gun
Voluntary deportation, back across border, resumed life

87 cf. Mexican soap opera
Mami looking for something we children couldn’t give her

87 job at record shop
Carlos, bridge, La Llorona

88 [brave Mago]

89 Abuelita’s street [poverty and traditional culture]

90 mud tortillas

91 Mami a boyfriend

92 man car insurance and wreslter, Lucha Libre
Going away with him (Francisco)

93 x-leave second time, no sign of Mami


Book One, Ch 13
94 Carlos ill < sorrow
Mago: all her fault. I hate her

95 scorpion, inside me
Hepatitis
Puppies with mami

96 body cleansing
Dead puppies
Carlos x-school
Uncle: “Let’s go find work”

97 learning to be a man from Tio Crece, but who else?
Witchcraft > schizophrenia

98 no interior walls

99 Hansel and Gretel

100 only male role model
Drinking? Cf. father
Forced him to grow up
Tio Mario

102 Abuelito cf. Virgin of Guadalupe
Carlos > school


Book One, Ch 14
103 June 1983
103-4 smell
104 memory: day of Three Wise Men (Epiphany)
Los Reyes Magos
Betty: Barbie made in U.S.

105 He will come back for us (cf. Jesus?)
Radio novella

106 candles on altar
Donkey story (Mami)

107 mother thinks she has failed again and that everybody thinks so

108-9 flood, Catalina

110 three little pigs, Papi’s dream house

Book One, Ch. 15
112 Mago’s dream came true
We’ll come up with money somehow (Mema White)
Mago loved school more

112-113 dreams of tech school, secretary, Mami’s dream
Pretended to type [human, play, mimesis]
Mago as character, dreams of tech school
"little mother
+ mother's dream: secretary

113 Don Lino good money as welder
Oldest daughter teacher [>profession, middle class]
Alba nursing school [class]
Little boy mayor x-Carlos, little orphan
Abuelita Chinta not much money as healer
Distributed evenly [human, contrast other grandmother]
Fruit as pay [barter, pre-capitalism?]
Why study so much?

114 x-school, quit now, get job, food on table
Reyna: “One day . . . “
[puberty]
“I’m ugly,” scars

114 El Cuervo, mangoes

115 Apurate! [hurry!]
Gunshot
Betty’s face, doctor, no money

116 more money, x-scars
Mago job after school

117 Tia Emperatriz flag uniform

118 Mago, train, leave this place
Leaving me—never


Book One, Ch 16
120 Aunt Guera: husband drinks wages
Witchcraft
[Traditional / dysfunctional family]
Juana & Francisco car accident
Close to losing her [Mom as land?]
Mami tells story [spoken / written]

121 Francisco’s dream, El Santo [mimesis]
Francisco man to save her, from what?
Sorrow and fear
Betty + Mago

122 Mami a cleansing [cf. sweat lodge]

123 Mami different woman, almost see that other mother before
Old job at record shop
Betty > Mami
Family yearning

124 not dreaming
Movie re Paquito, loses mother
Father rich but distance
Rich and poor [class]

125 government giving away land!
My own dream house, show father
They also had a dream

126 Carlos only male, head squatter

127 Mami picture of house

127-8 wanted Mami’s dream to come true

128 dream house, paper torn to shreds


Book One, Ch 17
129 people at train station > El Otro Lado
130 leave Mami?
I just wish things were different [dream?]
Mami > Aunt Guera
Forgetting Papi, losing pain

131 cf. little duckling (allusion?) (Konrad Lorenz)
Came and went
Combi?

132 Don Oscar godfather for graduation (6th grade)
Oscar Jr. . . . I’m poor
Oscar or Papi as hero, saved

133 Mago not anyone’s mother > a girl
A different class than us
Clothes, private schools, formal Spanish, giggled
13 years later, Iguala for Christmas, clothes as nice as theirs
Favorite American songs
UNAM, Mexico’s biggest public university
I would return to the U.S. more determined than ever
Cousin Lupita their maid . . . my fate


Book One, Ch 18
134 cf. Hansel and Gretel, follow crumbs to Mami

135 Mami two people,: loved by a man, do right by children
Rapunzel
[mimesis] reenactments of journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem
House to give us shelter

136 Pepito jokes

137 tree a work of art
Rey 14 years younger
Mami 35, Rey 21

138 hated him, male version of my own name
Mago a monster, “I want to die”

139 Abuelita: Not tonight
Mago slams door
Mago letter to Papi

Book One, Ch 19
141 May 1985, 10 years old
141 / 84 my cousin Felix, Abuelita Chinta
141 father calls, shock
141 / 85 Carlos, Mago > Abuela Evita’s [extended family]

142 heart beat so hard it hurt
142 /85 Mango grove, sugarcane field
142 / 85 Grandmother’s neighborhood, La Guadalupe
142 Don Ruben’s house turned into liquor store
142 Drunks like Tio Crece
142 Betty
142 I could kiss Juan Gabriel—lyrics of song
142 / 86 Elida smirked, rags, beggars

143 The Man Behind the Glass, in the flesh
143 skin color of rain-soaked earth
143 Ashamed
Papi = Natalio

144 Looking back . . . how awkward for him as well [empathy]
144 Mila . . . woman who had broken up my family

144 El Otro Lado
144 Light-skinned, light makeup, stylish outfit x Mama’s olive skin + pants [color code]
144 clothes: peaches, browns + olive skin
144 Mila five years older, looks younger

144 betraying my mother
Money for pot of menudo [a.k.a. pancita]: traditional Mexican soup of beef tripe (stomach) with peppers and other seasonings.
144 / 88 baby dolls with blue eyes, smell of a new toy [dominant culture smell?]

145 wanted Papi to be kinder [Elida]
145 Mami, understood her anger
145 losing my hair once again
145 Chata, special nickname
145 Inspected house he had built for us
146 Which . . . your room?
146 pajamas > scorpions
146 go home? Home?

147 Even though the house is finished, no jobs here > miserable poverty
147 Carlos . . . job? > school
[extended family]
147 Mila naturalized U.S. citizen
147 Flying back x coyote
147 Not coming back . . .
147 A new life in El Otro Lado
147 Mago all I have
147 I had survived
Have a father

147-8 / 91 my mother’s constant comings and goings
148 come back only to leave again
148 If Mago left me
148 Photograph on a wall
148 Only person who truly loved me

148-9 / 92 school, lied, envy, shame

149 bad things come to women who don’t know their place
149 Mila looked furiously at my grandmother fnf
149 It’s different for women in the U.S. . . . not treated like servants [traditional / modern]
149 Mago: won’t go without Reyna
149 maternal instincts won over need to save herself
149 take all my children back with me

150 Betty . . . fly . . . U.S. citizen
150 Born in the U.S. a privilege
150 sneak across border like a thief

150 / 94 la migra
150 Tio Gary: the opportunity to have a better life
150 can’t have Betty
150 “She has never had a good vision of the future.”

151 Laws in the U.S.

151 / 95 If you had just listened to your mother . . . .
151 Mago: can’t leave our little sister behind
151 Record shop, different side to Mami
151 Ever since El Otro Lado had taken her away
151 It was there, except not when she was with us

152 stubbornness, pride, or he won
152 / 96 the mother she was before she left
152 left and left and left

Book One, Ch 20

153 Attempts across the border
153 Blame myself
153 Toothache fnf

154 / 98 too young to fully grasp the danger
154 Thousands who had died
154 My fault
154 Lose my job

155 / 99 an unwanted, parentless child [children]
155 Feeling torn about our situation
155 Why does it have to be so hard?

156 cf. church pilgrimage
156 / 100 sounds coming from la migra
156 every step farther away from Mami and Betty
156 Papi like a frightened animal
156 / 101 helicopter . . . animals . . . . lizards
157 I want to live in that perfect place . . . . to have a family
157 Carlos (characterization fnf )
157 place called Chula Vista

157 / 102 what El Otro Lado looked like
158 Palm trees
158 The freeway . . . amazing so enormous fnf
158 Golden arches fnf
158 sunflower seeds . . . Mago reached out her hand [characterization]

159 Exit to Disneyland
159 Do everything . . . like speak English
159 Did what El Guero said
159 map Mago once shared with me

159 / 104 Mami and I had switched places, but distance between us just as big
159 2000 miles between me
159 Your home now, Chata
159Umbilical cord buried in Iguala
159 I promise I’ll never forget [where I came from]

Book 2: The Man Behind the Glass

Prologue 163
163 2010, 25 years after new life in USA began
Papi liver cancer
Broken families > back together
1011 let our father go; many times already let him go
164 Betty in Watsonville

Book 2, ch. 1
165 not a word of English
165 don’t tell anyone you’re here illegally
165 broken law by coming
165 Why a law to prevent children from joining parents?
165 Papi, Mila owned fourplex
166 Papi cf. Model Minority: education, opportunities, expecting A’s
166 money to pay back smuggler (cf. Af Ams paying for freedom)

166-7 helicopter > border

167 a noisy place
167 TV x-imagination
167 Miss radio and fairy tales [oral / spoken]

168 [skin, color code] Migra = Negra
168 “happy family”
169 Don’t let go of me
169 as promised, never once

169 public education x-devil nonsense
169 not hit students [mod / trad; rights]
169 stepmother fluently bilingual & U.S. citizen
169 Luther Burbank Junior High

170 school = strangers x Iguala [trad / mod]
170 father drinking

171 Mrs. Anderson > Mr. Lopez
171 Only one last name

172 students: brown skin, eyes, hair + English <<<<<<<

173 debt to Papi to be repaid
173 Mrs. Giuliano, perfect teeth
First Italian [cosmopolitan, modern / traditional]

174 x-freedom, neighborhood; x-outside to play
174 streets empty except for cars
174 nostalgic for Iguala [independence]

175 Where do I belong?--tearing in half

Book 2, chapter 2
176 Halloween, Rainbow Brite

177 cf. Day of the Dead

178 Papi’s blue work uniform [color code]
178 retirement home: Kingsley Manor

179 Papi never apologized
179 Navajo White
179 Mila: hasn’t been a father for a long time

180 Mila’s son 17 years old
180 dress as symbol
180 first husband; shunned by family > court

181 cf. Halloween and los posados but offerings endless!
“Treecotree”
181 Victorian and Craftsman homes
181 apartment buildings, immigrant families


Book 2, ch 3
182 toothaches x-dental insurance
183 Papi x-English, < tools, silence
empathy for Cindy [human]

183-4 flash-forward "Now that I'm a mother"; not an evil stepmother

184 turkey + Pilgrim's hat
184 Mila’s skin two shades lighter; pretty and classy
185 not your mom
186 always trying to find mothers . . . shame

186-7 Mila's advantages: English, U S citizen, woman, + education; not invisible

187 x-typical Mexican woman
187 gringa > Mila

Book 2, ch 4
189 spaghetti – roundworms
189 telenovela from Venezuela, strange Spanish accent

190 Cinderella story

191 Papi didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him
P2.4 as self-contained narrative, nf]

Book 2, ch. 5
192 He-Man
192 TV as American pop culture assimilation
193 Santa exists in USA

193-4 Barbie

194 liquor store + Koreans—Papi drunker?
194 Christmas tree

197 Santa scam

Book 2, ch 6
198 video about purity
Become senorita, undernourished
199 “rite of passage”

200 It’s the way he was raised [traditional]

201 favorite x Negra

Book 2, ch 7
202 lice
203 thing of the past
203 laundromat x labor + smell [cleanliness, freshness]
203 lice sneak across border?
204 father gentle
His story about an event in my life?


Book 2, ch 8
205 Papi: no boyfriends
Too old for Barbies but too young for make-up[
Mago: U.S., not Mexico

206 Barbie & Ken sex
New clothes from Kmart, bicycle
Dark side of Papi

207 Elida run off with boy from neighborhood
x-babies, useless as woman > Elida to U.S., neighbors stop talking (shame)
broken relations with children
Immigration took a toll on us all
Mago game: Mama y Papa

208 “gross”
“there’s a boy"
ESL x pocho

209 Saturday: choices > church tomorrow?
[secularized home] x-Virgen
Sunday drink and watch basketball
Opened door, intoxicated

210 smells > back in Iguala with grandmother [mimesis?]
Pepi: name? Maggie

211 Pepe and friends: “Wetbacks!”
Would have laughed even harder

212 teeth all you could look at
Maria very pretty, skin light
Hello Kitty

213 used clothes

214 Carlos: “You aren’t ugly, Maria, I am” [shame]

Book 2, ch 9
215 writing books > make Papi proud
Limited English [reading materials]

216 stories in Mexico: little pine tree wished gold [fairy tales]
Story of my birth

217 [realism] cardboard and butcher paper
Movie alien named ET
Felt bad, life in U.S. difficult
Didn’t have English words
217 Wish go back to Iguala, speak language
x-non English speakers

218 Mr. Lopez x-where came from. Learn English. Land of opportunity

Book 2, ch 10
219 May 1986, one year in U.S.
Mami not in Mexico

220 Mami with boyfriend, Betty in Mexico
New child, boy, three months

221 choose between him and her

222 Tia Guera leaving husband > U.S. with Betty
Cousin Lupita abandoned [maid at Christmas return]
222 Cycle of leaving children
222 Following crumbs back to Mami [fairy tale]
222 Crossed into another world, winos, homeless, prostitution, stench
Mago: back in Mexico > U.S. close to heaven?

223 Betty on dirty carpet
223 Mami’s pride [inhuman]
223 Share kitchen and bathroom [x-privacy]
Roaches

224 Leonardo
Garment factory, miserable wages
No poverty here can compare to poverty we left behind

224-5 relation with Mami at lowest point

225 Person Mami had become
Visit Mami every Sunday
225 Junk food > overweight [negative assimilation]

225 churro
Cans > recycling money
Mami x Mila [class]

226 double lives
226 Used Betty to hurt each other
Distance > still a gap

Book 2, ch 11
227 Papi: the future
School, educated = key to future
Mami welfare, black market, x-benefits

228 social security, retirement—this country
228 home owners, retirement
x-impact on Betty
228 no papers > job? Dream
Change for better

228-9 Reagan amnesty, legalize status
229 stop living in shadows
229 back then I hadn’t known [perspective]
229 Mago to high school, first in family
Stop living in shadow of Mago

230 ESL

231 “princess”

232 music--in Mexico, nothing free in school
Put out my hand (cf. Mago)
Music no language

233 Papi to fields at 9, working ever since

Book 2, ch 12
234 Papi x-cholos (gang members)
Gang family, father takes rap for son, another on drugs [minority]

235 gunshots regular
Favorite soap opera, Quinceanera


236 revenge ethic—animal senses danger, protect young
Ambulance, police
236 Papi adult school, English > better job

237 Papi's desire for a better life . . . contagious
237 Notebook [literacy]
237 Tia Emperatriz stole his dream house

238 his dreams, my dreams

239 never going back there again
239 Papi's betrayal by family

Book 2, ch 13
240 completed ESL, become senorita, body bled [poet]
240 addicted to reading x making friends + unfashionable clothes
Arroyo Seco Library (California)
Fairy tale collections
Cf. Iguala

241 x-Mex but relate
Evil grandmother
241 reading Sweet Valley, glimpse of world I wished to belong to [dominant culture, assimilation]

242 short story competition
Mago dances
Stories of broken families
accent x sax, reading, writing

243 first place
Queen Mary, cultural literacy but

244 different culture
244 write another story

Book 2, ch 14
245 Luis Gomez, El Salvador [Hispanic] < Phuong via ESL [public education as melting pot]

246 Mago x ESL > “better circles”
"Look Asian," like sisters
x-stripped of my Mexicanness
246 Mexican immigrants from Asia

247 charcoal lighter + carne asada on grill
247 never been kissed [adolescence]

248 shame

249 book still friend

Book 2, ch 15
250 Mago history: High School diploma
Future = “ganas” (desire)
One day I would be somebody in this country

251 Mago: lawyer’s secretary > lawyer
251 “wetback” accent
251 green cards, legal residents

252 Stephen King novel
252 x-quinceanera; three-bedroom apartment
252 "whatever"

253 bleach arm hair, skin looks lighter [color code]
Bone-setter worse

254 [isolation]

255 Papi abused by parents, only way he knows

256 “I came back for you”

Book 2, ch 16
258 analogy
258 Mago x-desire to be best in school

259 Waterson College > full time job > car and clothes, go out with coworkers

260 throw you a quinceanera
Mami godparents
2 May 1991

261 x-first communion, lost religion
261 Officially become a little woman in eyes of God
Lied to priest
Family in church

262 nonsense, no hell or devil, or already living in Hell
262 Strange place of broken beauty

Book 2, ch 17 (265-70)
265 sax to bells [realism, details without theme]

266 a fairy in my ears
Axel ashamed to be with me
Bad reputation, head buried in a book
Shyness for arrogance

267 scam - men
relation with father > other men
267 Axel from Guatemala

268 empathy > objectification [human]
268 Mago >- mami, papi

269 maybe he’s not worth it
269 music from Les Mis
Mago house & techno
268 Mago debt, credit cards
Dress her own way, develop own style

270 classy young woman, but Mago drops out
cf. Anne of Green Gables [dominant culture]

Book 2, ch 18
271 Papi car for Carlos
271 Carlos at Los Angeles City College
271 Papi “My Carnal . . . “ [relative?]
272 teeth cf. Mago’s scars
272 dream: major in criminal justice
272 Papi: school x married > job [compassion, small apartment]

273 opportunities here?
273 [DACA]
273 marries, drops out, son, divorces


Book 2, ch 19
274 Mami, Papi, among 2.9 million legal residents through Immigration and Reform Act of 1986
274 Mami sells Avon at Starlite Swapmeet
Learn English > better job > living as in Mexico or undocumented
x-drive car, x-job with benefits, get off welfare

274-5 x-take advantage of opportunities
Mami’s children without education
Classes in Spanish
Disadvantage, drop outs, gangs, teenage mother
Papi never went back
Mago to Acapulco with friend
Yearning for my home country, belly button

276 missed school, but works out with teachers
17 years old, eight years in USA
Little girl aways inside me
River > dumping ground, stagnant, putrid water

277 privatized railroad
Train station a relic, open wound x progress [Mexican Miracle]
Tamarind tree
Had I really lived int his place?
Abandoned freight car, children playing

278 Tia Guera shack, no-good husband
278 Betty and Leonardo overweight
Scent of almond oil and epazote [herb]
280 Uncle Gary > El Otro Lado?: “poor but together”
But something good: future
280 friends married plus children; maids, garment factory
I was living in that beautiful place they all yearned for

281 shame, dirt
Spanish or English? Like a pocha
No longer considered Mexican enough [assimilation]
Mago: that trash?

282 Mago and Reyna fight
282 Mago erase Mexico, English no accent [assimilation]

Book 2, ch 20
283 Anne of Green Gables on Disney Channel [dominant culture]
283 "We can leave here and finally be in a a place where we can be happy." [dominant culture, cf. millennialism]

284 Jehovah's Witness; me who designed field formations
Track and field > boyfriend, Steve

285 virgin at marriage (traditional; “red family”)
x-apartment; baby and son and aunt (traditional / dysfunctional family)
285 Take Betty. Be a Family.
Maggo’s new boyfriend Victor

286 asi es como me pagas?
286 leave = dead to me
286 UC Irvine acceptance

287 restaurant murals, songs, perfect little village + all my family

288 x-see Mago, corrupted life
288 forget university > failure

289 a room . . . now only mine (ct. Woolf)
void inside me, women I loved far away
289 Carlos's wife and Mago expecting
Mago: your father; who gives a damn
289 father’s drinking worsened

290 Mila’s place at home
Hated her family
Hit me instead
“She chose to leave” (but so did Papi?)

291 pulls hair, beats with fists

292 Milia: your sister is pregnant . . . hurt the baby

Book 2, ch 21 293-98
293 bedroom = prison / haven

294 hero: Quantum Leap
Moving furniture; as if I lived anywhere but here

295 cousin Lola and family, unit downstairs

296 x-band geek > famous

297 other Reyna, future
297 the other Reyna, the one who still believed in that bright future my father had once said I could have

298 glasses on, into focus

298 unprotected sex
298 Papi: child rearing cf. oxen
wanted to understand

Book 2, ch 22
299 English teacher a Greek American . . . Latina? (minority as appearance?)
Spoke excellent Spanish

299-300 groups outside of family

300 Latino literature unfamiliar
First book ever given
A world similar to my own (mimesis)
Same color skin
Life at home x books and writing (beyond personal)

301 father having an affair
301 Betty into gangs

302 Papi arrested
302 Betty chola > frightened teenage girl (human)

303 can’t speak to officer
How small room was

303-4 drop one class . . . how it starts

304 think about school x that situation
304 Diana: my home your home
Diana no family in LA, forged her way alone
I didn't know then . . . resemblance [mimesis, identification]

305 Mila drops charges, disappointed, different kind of woman
Melancholy Greek music . . . 4 small dogs
305 house with books . . . heaven
Cisneros, Mango Street, impact

306 chapter “Sally,” abusiive father [mimesis)
Connection to author
Chicano / Latino lit x wrong kind of books (Sweet Valley)

Book 2, ch 23 308-315
307 a revelation
307 other cultures
Writing competition
Transfer to good school

308 restraining order; Mila leaves Papi
308 sold fourplex, bought house

309 Carlos second son, new partner
309 UC Santa Cruz, fresh start

310 x-how to cook [traditional / dysfunctional family]

311 “That wasn’t bad, Chata”
Allow myself to dream

311 Mago's little boy Aidan
311 Papi’s zucchini, corn, carrots—ties to old life
Edwin, psychology, unbiased ear
Betty unprotected sex
Mami didn't care
[maybe uneducated country people need community to enforce morality, police behavior]

312 wall had come down (x-Mila)

312 court hearing
respectful of adults
Mila: leeches, wetbacks [pain > more pain; human]

313 English tutoring job at Pasadena City College
Scholarships

314 How could I leave now . . .
Diana: out of comfort zone . . . difficult to leave families

315 once again, we were orphans
cf. border . . . caught between two worlds

Book 2, ch 24 316-318
317 UCSC: nuclear family + grandparents
Dominant culture beauty (class)

318 Anne of Green Gables & Avonlea
dreams reality—let go of father’s hand


Epilogue 319-22

319 first college graduate in family

320 taught immigrant children, ESL
my story wasn't unique
80% of Latin American children separated from parent
2002 citizen
Mex Am: from both places . . . they coexist with in me . . . writing as bridge
writing the bridge
13 grandchildren . . . more college grads?

320 wife, mother, writer

321 leave emotions (dominant culture as professional)
321 the other father
Something better
Dream big
Alternative medicine books

322 answer yes

Acknowledgements
323 Cory Reyala
Mother-in-law Carol Ralton
(assimilation, intermarriage)