The Distance Between Us

The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition 

by Reyna Grande

Reviewed by Jessica L., Catherine L., Lydia L., and Rosangelia L. 

Biography:

Reyna Grande is an accomplished author of several critically acclaimed novels. She was born in Iguala, Guerrero in Mexico. Her parents immigrated from Mexico to the United States when she was two and four years old. At nine, Reyna followed her parents and made her own way up North, “Al otro lado”, the other side. She traveled North with her father, her older sister and her older brother. Once she reached the United States, she was so shocked to see the tall buildings and palm trees.

Once settled in her school in Los Angeles, she was taken aback at how the students there looked like her and had a last name like hers or similar, but they spoke a language she couldn’t understand. Her first few years in school she worked very hard to learn the new language, English. She excelled and got out of the ELA classes within a few years.

Reyna Grande loved literature and writing. She noticed, however, that she could never truly relate to the books she read. She wanted to read a book that talked about immigrating as a child and the traumas, trials, and heartache children and the families go through when they cross the border illegally. She wanted to add children to the conversation of immigration because children and families encounter many trials mentally and physically. The children's experiences mattered, her story mattered. Reyna Grande talked about this with her creative writing professor who advised her to write the story herself. This is where the book, The Distance Between Us came from. She wanted her voice to be heard and her story told.

She has received many awards for her work in literature. Such awards include the International Literacy Association Children’s Book Award 2017, 2016 Eureka! Honor Awards from the California Reading Association, 2017 Honor Book Award for the Américas Award for Children’s Literature, and Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature 2015.

Reyna Grande is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz. She does public speeches across the country about her books and her life. She is also a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop that was founded by Sandra Cisneros.

Review:

In the early years of her life, Reyna Grande grew up as one of the “los olvidados,” the Forgotten Ones, in Iguala, Guerreo in Mexico, but when she was eight years old, her father brought her and her siblings, Mago and Carlos, to live with him in Los Angeles, where she went on to attain degrees from Pasadena City College, UC Santa Cruz, and Antioch College.

The memoir follows the life of Reyna Grande in 1980 as she tries to survive growing up in Mexico without parents, and adjusting to life in the United States. During a time when immigration politics in the United States are at their breaking point, Grande provides readers with a personal look into the reality of immigrant children. Grande’s memoir is divided into two sections: Mi Mama Me Ama, detailing her early life growing up in Mexico alongside her siblings, Mago, and Carlos, and suffering abusive treatment at the hands of her Abuela Evila. In the second section, The Man Behind the Glass, she writes about the difficulties of living in the United States all the while fearing their controlling, alcoholic father’s punishments. Grande provides a few pages filled with personal photographs of her, and her siblings, her parents, and major milestones that she accomplished in the United States such as her Quinceanera, and graduating from Pasadena City College and UC Santa Cruz.

The Distance Between Us refers to the distances, both physical and emotional, those that separate people. As Grande conveys the story of her difficult and broken youth in Mexico and then in Los Angeles, she comes to the conclusion that once seemingly impossible physical borders are defied and crossed, the emotional distances that have risen can prove to be unattainable. The memoir’s title refers not to the physical distances between Reyna, her siblings, and their parents, but the emotional distances that shatter their family into numerous broken and possibly unfixable pieces. As Grande discovers her youth, it becomes clear that physical distance and emotional distance are inseparable, as the time that families are separated physically, deep emotional rifts are created out of bitterness, uncertainty, and heartbreak. Once physically reconnected, it becomes complicated, sometimes even impossible, to overcome those large gaps and repair the relationships that once were.

The Distance Between Us is an excellent example of the Mexican immigrant journey that highlights the struggles of abandonment that immigrant children are facing. Unlike most immigrant narratives, which begin with the characters having already immigrated to the United States, Grande’s memoir is unique in that she begins with describing her life in Mexico first, providing readers with a deeper understanding of immigration through her brutally honest firsthand account of growing up in Mexico without her parents. In addition, Grande tells the story through the perspective of immigrant children, a perspective often times neglected, shedding light on the often disregarded consequences of immigration, the collapse of a family. She speaks for children who grow up torn between two countries, children who grow up abandoned or abused, and children who somehow find the strength to rise out of all that.

Instructional Resources:

This short journal excerpt can be used to explain to younger students what the American dream is.

Article for instructors on how to approach and teach the American dream.

PBS documentary on family separations due to parent deportations.

Resource for teachers on how to approach and close cultural gaps with their students.

“Immersion” a video on the challenges immigrant children, and children of immigrants, whom English is not their first language, encounter. This will help gain a better understanding of Reyna Grande's struggle within the educational system, and how incredible it is that she overcame all the obstacles.

This can help an instructor address preconceived prejudices students may have on immigration, and provide them with the proper correct information.

To get a better sense of the autobiography, here Reyna Grande, does a presentation at Scripps College.

The author, Reyna Grande, talks on immigration and writing.

Provides the instructor with information on the present issue with DACA students. They might have students themselves who are DACA recipients, and this will further inform them of what the program is and how they can do their share to help.

Instructional Activity:

Introduction: Reyna Grande’s memoir The Distance Between Us explores the author’s experience of growing up without her parents who crossed the border from Mexico to America in order to provide a better life for her. By reading the Young Readers Edition of Grande’s memoir students will gain an understanding of immigration and its impact on those who move from one country to another.

Activity Overview: Through different activities over five days, which surround the topic of immigration, students will be able to gain a better understanding of the emotional depth that immigration has on those who experience it firsthand.

California Common Core Standards:

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 8 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

Resources and Preparation:

Day 1: Create a Facebook profile of the main character, Reyna.

Activity Credit: Charly Baker - teacherspayteachers.com

Day 2: Students will identify the meaning of common Spanish words and slang (a minimum of 5) in the book based on context and create their own dictionary entry to each word and provide a quote from the book with their chosen word in it.

Image Credit - Lydia L.
Quote from The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition by Reyna Grande

Day 3-4: Students will create a storyboard cube and draw key points from the memoir which highlight the main character dealing with immigration. Once they finish their drawings, they will explain why they chose the moments to highlight in the memoir and how they altogether provide a representation of immigration for young audiences.

Activity Credit: The Daring English Teacher - teacherspayteachers.com

Day 5: In groups, students will create a poster including previous activities they’ve completed in the week and do a walk-around in the classroom where students can see their peers’ takeaway on the memoir’s topic of immigration. 

Bibliography

Arbabzadeh, Ara. “Reyna Grande | Award Winning Author and Inspirational Speaker.” Reyna Grande | Award Winning Author and Inspirational Speaker, 2019, reynagrande.com/. 

Baker, Charly. “Student Info Beginning of Year Social Media Printable.” Teachers Pay Teachers, www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Student-Info-Beginning-of-Year-Social-Media-Printable-256681. 

The Daring English Teacher. “Free Story Cube Project for Any Novel {Secondary English}.” Teachers Pay Teachers, www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Story-Cube-Project-for-Any-Novel-Secondary-English-1944567.