Abstract
In her memoir The Distance between Us, Reyna Grande tells the story of her family’s transition from life in a poverty-stricken town in Guerrero, Mexico to Los Angeles, California. The book provides vivid and full-disclosure descriptions on the emotional and financial struggles that affect large, separated families of immigrants as well as insights into the protective factors that helped take the author from the limited opportunities of her birthplace to a successful and educated Mexican American immigrant.
The entire first half of the memoir is spent painting an elaborate picture of life in Iguala, México for the reader to envision; dirt roads, bamboo shacks, limited medical care, lack of water and electricity, and infant mortality form common parts of Grande’s childhood. She also describes her days in public elementary school, where she was punished and often hit for writing with her left hand, where there were a total of two bathrooms but no running water, and where, from lack of money, she was unable to eat. The descriptions of these experiences play a crucial role in establishing the psychological context with which Grande faces life in the United States, and give the reader a jarring reminder that an immigrant child’s past in his or her home country is impossible to separate from their experience in the host country, for example, the United States.
Titled “Mi mamá me ama (My momma loves me),” the first part of Grande’s memoir delves into her emotional and physical experiences as a 4-year-old left to live with her two older siblings under the care of their paternal grandparents, following the departure of their mother to El Otro Lado (The Other Side). Facing undernourishment, neglect, and occasional physical abuse, Grande and her siblings live accustomed to being tough, caring for themselves, and placing skeptical yet loving trust on their caretakers. With their mother leaving three separate times and their father returning for them after eight and a half years in the United States, Grande and her siblings learn to look to each other for guidance and nurturing. The biweekly phone calls and financial support arriving from the United States prove to be no replacement for their parents’ presence and nurture; the siblings grow up yearning for their parents’ return and aching from their abandonment. Sadly, after infidelity dissolves their parents’ marriage, the siblings’ mother is returned to them changed; she is unable to make the sacrifices necessary to care for her children and she leaves them repeatedly, seeking acceptance and love in a romantic partner rather than with her family.
The latter half of the book narrates Grande’s experiences as a newly arrived immigrant in Los Angeles at the age of nine; her fear of entering school with no command of the English language, her introduction to American holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving, and her feeling of profound academic and personal inadequacy at being unable to express her thoughts to her teachers and peers. Having entered elementary school as an ESL student learning the English alphabet in the fourth grade, Grande struggled through feeling like an outsider in her own classroom, reading books for kindergarteners and seeing her Spanish creative writing being ignored by her teachers. Despite entering a mainstream middle school class and even winning a prize in her middle school writing competition, she continued to struggle to make her alcoholic father proud of her achievements, which eventually became the goal of her entire academic career. The narratives of Grande’s school days are particularly powerful in that they are told through the formal vocabulary of an adult yet remain faithful to the overwhelming emotions experienced by a child; feelings of rejection, intense fear of ostracism and embarrassment, and blind determination to gain approval from her fractured family.
One of the aspects of this memoir that I enjoyed was Grande’s respect for the emotions she experienced as a child. While recognizing her parents’ abandonment and neglect, she openly admits having loved them unconditionally as a child; she admits childish jealousy, sorrow, and anxieties that may seem laughable to the adult eye; she describes simple pleasures as sources of great excitement and joy. I in fact find this a very valuable message to keep in mind when interacting with immigrant children, that is, the understanding that certain emotions and social cues are indeed magnified in the eyes of a child; an instance of teasing can be construed as outright rejection, and a message that might be understood by adults as constructive criticism may sound like belittlement in a child’s ears. Hence, I feel that there are huge extrapolations that can be made from this very personal account of life as a child immigrant to the United States and that these should be considered by any and all educators who work with immigrant children who have not yet acclimated to the new culture and environment surrounding them.
In addition, I appreciated that while the focus was indeed on Grande’s transition into life in the United States, the author at no point pretended that the opportunities presented to her in the United States formed the essence of her character. Throughout the entire text, Grande refers to the unbreakable bond she has with Iguala, telling the story of how her umbilical cord was buried in the dirt floor of the house she was born in, and how this connects her irreversibly to her place of origin. Grande emphasizes that it was the people who helped raise her in Mexico—her Abuela Chinta, her Tía Emperatriz, and her older sister Mago—and the experiences they helped her through that made her the person she has become: A University of California, Santa Cruz honors graduate, a recipient of an MFA in creative writing, a published author of three novels, a U.S. citizen, and a former ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher for children and adults alike in Los Angeles.
Furthermore, I believe that this is an important message to tell all educators and people involved in serving immigrant populations. I feel that it often goes ignored that many immigrant children arrive in the United States having already lived through significant trials and having already developed some coping strategies to deal with such challenges. As a consequence, education of immigrant children has to be able to address the psychological and emotional complexity that may hinder children from adapting efficiently to a new environment; sadly however, this is very often not the case, and immigrant education is often seen as one that starts completely from scratch rather than accommodating each student’s individual skills, experiences, or past.
I believe that with her earnest descriptions of her life in Mexico, her emotional ties to her parents and siblings, and her thought process and analyses when faced with a challenge assimilating into the United States, Grande helps provide insight into the complex psychological processes of immigrating to the United States as a child. I think works such as The Distance between Us should be encouraged to be read in areas with a large immigrant population and that they should in fact form part of training procedures for all educators and social workers who work with immigrant families. Truly understanding the emotional toll that the process of immigration and assimilation takes on children can bring citizens one step closer to better facilitating services and opportunities for new immigrants, and to understanding that an immigrant’s background is not something to be erased away, but rather to be embraced as part of each individual’s personal growth, strength, and development.