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Reyna Grande (b. 1975) has published three
award-winning books:
Across a Hundred Mountains
(2006), a novel
Dancing with Butterflies (2009),
a novel
The Distance Between Us: A Memoir (2012),
excerpted in
Immigrant Voices anthology for
LITR 4340 American Immigrant
Literature and
LITR 5831
Seminar in World / Multicultural Literature. As of 2012,
Grande reports living in a
suburb of Los Angeles, CA, where she is married with two children. Her
website is www.reynagrande.com.
Reyna's first 8 years were lived with her elder siblings Mago and
Carlos
in Iguala, southern Mexico (see map at right).
Her family's story primarily concerns her and her siblings' sense of abandonment by
their
parents, resulting in financial and emotional stress.
When Reyna was two, her father "Papi"
illegally emigrated to Los Angeles and later sent for their mother ("Mami"),
who left their children in care of Papi's mother, who neglected them.
Papi and Mami
had another daughter, Elizabeth / Betty, whose birth in Los Angeles gave her
automatic American citizenship. (Betty's story is an especially tragic
sub-plot, as she is repeatedly separated
not only from her parents but from her siblings. At last report,
Betty is an unmarried, pregnant teenage chola or gang-girl in
L.A.)
Papi takes up with another woman, Mila, and divorces Mami, who returns to Iguala with Betty and transfers Reyna, Mago, and Carlos to
the care of her mother, who is more caring but very poor. |
map indicates locations of Los Angeles, California (northwest) and
Iguala, Guerrero (southeast) |
The Distance Between Us and our anthology selections
The selections in our Immigrant Voices anthology occur after
the changes described above.
Our Immigrant Voices excerpts from chapters 19 and
20 occur at the midpoint of Reyna's life-journey, first south and then north of
the US-Mexican border.
This thematic structure to the book conforms to the characterization of
Mexican Americans (and other groups) as "border people" (See
Gloria Anzaldua) and either side of the
border as "El Otro Lado."
The Distance Between Us is divided to two parts, and our
excerpts are drawn from chapters 19 and 20
from "Book One: Mi Mama Me Ama" ["My Mom Loves Me"], which describes the
children's lives until Papi and hired coyotes smuggle them across the
border to Los Angeles.
"Book Two: The Man Behind the Glass" describes the children's experience
growing up in the Los Angeles apartment Papi shares with Mila, who has
left her own children from a previous marriage to live with Papi. That
second book concludes when Reyna becomes the first member of her family
to graduate from college, in this case the University of California at
Santa Clara.
Each chapter of
The Distance Between Us is headed by a photograph of the
family—examples at right. |
Carlos, Reyna, & Mago with Aunt |
Memoir style as creative nonfiction
The style, tone, and content of the excerpts in Immigrant Voices
are representative of Grande's entire memoir. Except for a few
flash-forwards to her adult life, Grande tells the story of her life
largely from a perspective suitable to the age she is during the events
described. As with any child, for example, she often cannot comprehend
her parents' motives or actions, and instead of explaining them from the
perspective of an adult, she re-creates the pain and confusion typical
of childhood.
Therefore her style and perspective are
typical of the genre of creative
nonfiction, which relates factual events in the
representational style of
fiction, i.e. narration and
dialogue with little editorial commentary or analysis like one finds in
other nonfiction
genres like essays,
This intimate semi-fictional style makes the factual excerpts in our anthology
emotionally
compelling. Any reader empathizes with a child who is treated unfairly
and unjustly.
Another quality that encourages a reader to
identify with Reyna as a character and narrator is her love for other
characters in her story, who seem to be represented with fairness, dignity, and sympathy. Especially her big sister Mago grows into an
interesting personality in her own right—one who is often
braver than Reyna herself, and who by the memoir's end has largely
assimilated to a local Americanized culture, rejecting any
identification with her Mexican background, moving out of the family
home, changing her name to Maggie, and naming her son Aidan, |
Mami & Papi early in marriage |
Issues for American Immigrant Literature
in The Distance Between Us,
particularly the family in traditional and esp. Hispanic cultures
Reyna
tells her life-story almost exclusively from a child-like or
adolescent point of view, with little commentary or analysis beyond her
thinking at the time.
Her long separations from her parents makes much of her commentary concentrate on stresses on her and other families—particularly the separation of children from their
parents—that result from family members crossing the Mexican-USA border.
Narratives about growing up—sometimes called "initiation stories" or, in
specialized cases, bildungsroman—are common to all literatures,
but they prevail to an unusual degree in Mexican American literature,
e.g. The House on Mango Street, Hunger of Memory: the
Education of Richard Rodriguez, Bless Me, Ultima, and many
more. Possible reasons for this emphasis include
adolescent
psychology of separation, maturation second-generation immigrant
caught between two cultures or languages
proximity of
Mexico and USA intensifies conflict between cultures (though they may
also blend )
differing
citizenship status and language abilities of family members
may limit non-citizens to barrio or home while citizens are free to
assimilate. intensity of
extended family values for Mexican Americans as historical Catholics, compared to North American
Protestants.
(North American Protestants also value family,
but Protestantism encourages
individualism, so that Protestants
may sacrifice
family connections for continuing migrations, professional progress, etc.)
The Distance Between Us constantly features Reyna's
desire for a supportive family even as her family's dysfunctionality is
heightened by the stresses of illegal immigration. Mami and Betty
later return
to Los Angeles, but Mago, Carlos, and Reyna become aware of their mother's
proximity only by accident. Mami never learns English and remains
unassimilated and mostly limited to the barrio, while Mila, separated from her own children in order to
live with Papi, knows English, has office skills, and interacts with the
dominant culture. Mila helps
Papi's
children but remains emotionally distant. Papi does not
assimilate beyond what is necessary to keep his job, retreats
into alcoholism, and keeps the children sheltered in his and Mila's
apartment. Yet he maintains faith in the American Dream and encourages his children to pursue their education for the
sake of economic security.
Reyna's elder sister Mago acts as a surrogate mother, refusing to join
Papi in crossing the border without her little sister and, later in Los
Angeles, financing and organizing a quinceanera for her little sister.
Mago becomes the first member of her family to graduate from high school
and finds employment as an office worker. She buys a car, moves out of
the family apartment, spends her evening dancing with friends, goes into debt, drops out of college, and has a
son whose father never appears. Carlos drops out of Los Angeles
Community College to marry; after he and his wife have a son, Carlos
separates from her and
has a second son by another woman. Reyna's conflicted relation with
her father affects her relations with young men, so that she avoids
premarital, unprotected sex until late in the memoir.
A different path from traditional-but-dysfunctional family values and
gender roles appears
after Reyna graduates from high school and atteds Pasadena City College,
where she becomes friendly with Diana
Savas, a young, single Greek-American English teacher.
Reyna marvels that Diana has a happy life despite having no relatives in Los Angeles, and eventually
she moves in with Diana at her apartment, where she finally gains a
stress-free environment where she can study and write. (No sexual relationship is
implied.)
Under Diana's guidance, Reyna gives up reading Anglo
popular literature like Sweet Valley High and
discovers Latino / Latina literature, especially Sandra Cisneros's
The House on Mango Street.
Diana encourages Reyna to accept a scholarship at the University of
California-Santa Cruz, 350 miles north. Reyna is conflicted over leaving her family but does so, becoming the first member of her family
to complete a college degree. When she and 20 other Latino students win
college scholarships, she is the only scholarship-winner
who leaves to study beyond the local area where their families
live.
After her college graduation, the memoir hurries to a
close. Only the epilogue briefly mentions her married life in the suburbs
with two children.
Because the memoir reports these facts about her family
straightforwardly without comment or analysis, a reader is left
wondering about Reyna Grande's mature attitude toward her family, of
whom she always speaks lovingly and respectfully.
A historically or sociologically minded reader has to wonder whether
family values prepare immigrants for modern American professional life,
or whether traditional or ethnic family values imprison family members
in a dysfunctional world of traditional gender roles, early child-bearing, limited education, and
family breakdown.
Evolutionary biology and future reproductive technology make this
question increasingly important for sustainable human life on earth.
Until the past two centuries, very few humans lived in large cities
populated by unrelated strangers. Instead, throughout our natural
history, most humans have lived in small, local communities where each
individual was related to others genetically or by extended family
relations.
(See
Wilson, Human
Nature,pp. 82-3,)
Over many generations family values maintained support-networks in these
small traditional societies, but how well do family values and
traditional gender roles equip humans a modern existence marked by
mobility, mega-cities full of strangers, trans-national migration, and social relations
determined more by job than family? Reyna ultimately has
more in common with her teacher Diana than with her family, just as many
modern professional people leave their family networks behind to live
among others with shared interests and livelihoods.
Because evolution has programmed
family values so deeply into human nature, everyone is sensitive and
resistant to any challenges, and people justifiably wonder what will or
can replace family. However, the structure and nature of family change throughout
history. The rise of social insurance, old-age homes, and child-care is
already replacing traditional extended-family functions, and changes in reproductive technology and genetic
manipulation will transfigure families further.
All this bears on American Immigrant Literature's Objective 5. To observe and analyze the effects of
immigration and assimilation on
cultural units or identities: o family: In traditional Old World, extended
families prevail. In modern New World, assimilated people live in
nuclear families (often divorced) or increasingly by themselves.
o gender: Old World gender identities tend
to be traditional, with clear divisions of power, labor, and expression. In
the New World, gender may be de-emphasized in favor of equality,
merit, and
other gender-neutral concepts.
The question for individual Americans and their families is how much to
resist such changes versus how much to study, accept, and guide them? |
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Thanks to Daily Beast 2012 interview w/ Grande at
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/23/the-distance-between-us-by-reyna-grande.html
Terms referred to in
The Distance Between Us
cholo, chola: [<Cholollán,
now Cholula,
a district of Mexico] here a gangster, but across Spanish America the word has
variable meanings, starting with mestizo (a
person of mixed European and Indigenous descent), "gangster" (Mexico), "person
who dresses in the manner of a certain subculture" (United States), or as a
grievous insult (some South American countries) [i.e. a lower-class or
mixed-race person]
churro: fried dough
colonia:
neighborhoods in Mexican cities, which have no jurisdictional autonomy or
representation
epazote: [Nahuatl "skunk sweat"] perennial plant used as a leaf
vegetable, herb, or herbal tea for its pungent flavor.
ganas:
desire, urge
jicama:
Mexican yam bean or Mexican turnip
La Llorona, trans. "The Weeping Woman": legendary ghost in Mexican folklore,
with many regional variations. In most, La Llorona is a grieving mother seeking
her lost children who drowned in a river. In some, she herself drowned her
children. As with the bogeyman, La Llorona may appear as a threat to kidnap or
snatch children away from their families. (Wikipedia
on La Llorona)
El Otro Lado:
"the other side," i.e. the USA on the other side of the border with Mexico
el mercado:
market, store
pocho,
pocha: [<Spanish: discolored, faded, pale] adjective or noun applied to
Mexicans or Mexican Americans who have assimilated to the American dominant
culture and no longer speak Spanish or uphold traditional Mexican culture.
Las
Posadas: nine days of religious observance beginning 16 December and ending
24 December. The Aztec celebration on 12 December of Tonantzin Guadalupe (the
non-Christian prototype of the Virgin of Guadalupe) blended with Christian
celebrations of the days leading to Christ's birth on Dec. 25. Posado means
"inn," as when Mary and Joseph were denied hospitality at the crowded inn of
Bethlehem.
quinceanera: celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday
El Santo
("The Saint"), famous Mexican masked wrestler of 20th century; Lucha Libre
("free fight"), comparable to American professional "freestyle" wrestling, but
featuring masks and, often, three-man tag teams (called trios)
el zocalo:
plinth, baseboard
El Santo
Instructor's notes from
The Distance Between Us
112 Mago
as character, dreams of tech school
"little
mother
+
mother's dream: secretary
cf. 133
x-little mother; 12/2 (growing up fast) x-extended childhood
113
Abuelita Chinta a healter > cleansing
113-14
quit school, get job, food on table
dream =
house
131 the
one who came and went
133 13
years later
135 los
posados
144 Mila
as dom cult / assimilation
Chapters
19 & 20 > IV2; ends Book 1
Mex Ams
as border people
158 Mago
reached out
159 Mami
and I had switched places + title
159
umbilical cord buried
166 Papi
cf. Model Minority
167 tV
x-imagination
169
public education x-devil nonsense
stepmother fluently bilingual
170
school = strangers x Iguala
father
drinking
172
students: brown skin, eyes, hair + English <<<<<<<
173 debt
Italian
174
x-freedom, neighborhood; x-outside to play
174
streets empty except for cars
nostalgic
for Iguala [independence]
175 Where
do I belong?--tearing in half
176
Halloween, Rainbow Brite
177 cf.
Day of the Dead
178
retirement home: Kingsley Manor
179 <
Mila
180 first
husband; shunned by family > court
181 cf.
Haloween and los posados but offerings endless!
abundance
only found in El Otro Lado
182
toothaches x-dental insurance
183 Papi
x-English, < tools, silence
empathy
for Cindy
183-4
flash-forward "Now that I'm a mother"
184
turkey + Pilgrim's hat
skin
lighter
186-7
Mila's advantages: English, U S citizen, woman, + education
193-4
Barbie
194
liquor store + Koreans
197 Santa
scam
201
favorite x Negra
227 Papi:
the future
228 home
owners, retirement
228 no
papers > job? dream
228-9
Reagan amnesty
229 Mago
to high school, first in family
232
music--in Mexico, nothing free in school
233 Papi
to fields at 9, working ever since
234 Papi
x-cholos (gang members)
236 Papi
adult school, English job
237
Papi's desire for a better life . . . contagious
238 his
dreams, my dreams
239
Papi's betrayal by family
240
completed ESL, become senorita
240
addicted to reading x making friends
241
reading Sweet Valley, glimpse of world I wished to belong to
242 short
story competition
accent x
sax, reading, writing
243 first
place
245 Luis
Gomez, El Salvador < Phuong
246 Mago
x ESL
"Look
Asian"
x-stripped of my Mexicanness
250 Mago
history: High School diploma
251 green
cards, legal residents
252
"whatever"
255 Papi
abused by parents, only way he knows
267
relation with father > other men
268 Mago
>- mami, papi
269 music
from Les Mis
house &
techno
Mago debt
270 Mago
drops out
cf. Anne
of Green Gables
271
Carlos at Los Angeles City College
273
marries, drops out, son, divorces
282 Mago
x-Mex, English no accent
283
Anne of Green Gables on Disney Channel
283 "We
can leave here and finally be in a aplace where we can be happy."
284
Johovah's Witness
286 UC
Irvine acceptance
287
restaurant murals, songs, perfect little village
289 a
room . . . now only minte (ct. Woolf)
void
inside me
Carlos's
wife and Mago expecting
297 the
other Reyan, the one who still believed in that bright future my father had once
said I could have
298 Papi:
child rearing cf. oxen
wanted to
understand
299
English teacher a Greek American
groups
outside of family
300
Latino literature
302 Papi
arrested
304 drop
one class . . . how it starts
think
about school x that situation
Diana no
family in LA
I didn't
know then . . . resemblance
305 Mila
drops charges, disappointed, different kind of woman
house
with books
Cisneros,
Mango Street
306
Chicano / Latino lit
308
restraining order
309
Carlos second son, new partner
UC Santa
Cruz, fresh start
311
Mago's little boy Aidan
Mami
didn't care
[maybe
uneducated country people need community to enforce morality, police behavior]
312 wall
had come down
312 court
hearing
respectful of adults
313
English tutoring job at Pasadena City College
scholarships
214 How
oculd I leave now . . .
Diana:
out of comfort zone
315 once
again, we were orphans
cf.
border . . . caught between two worlds
318
dreams reality
319 first
college graduate in family
320
taught immigrant children
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
the bridge
13
grandchildren
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