El Otro Lado
People dream of freedom, justice and opportunities from around the world, this is the American Dream. In Mexico, they dream of the other side, El Otro Lado, America. Reyna Grande, award winning writer and ESL teacher, writes her memoir, The Distance between Us, a story of Grande’s family’s immigration and her evolution from Iguala de Independencia, Mexico, to Los Angeles, California in the United States in 1980’s. This transformation occurs as her family dynamics and country changes. Life in Mexico and the United States juxtaposes Grande’s living standard, culture and education--she finds significant differences in coming to the U.S. that transforms her life.
First, Grande illustrates the standard of living of her early childhood in Iguala, Mexico compared to later years living with her dad on El Otro Lado. Living with Abuela Evila, in Iguala, there was no running water. It was delivered every three days from a community well, but for Grande and her siblings, they had to bring their own water in a bucket from the well to bathe. Carlos burned the trash, there was no garbage pickup. There
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Holidays like Halloween and Christmas are celebrated differently here in the U.S. In Mexico, Day of the Dead is celebrated and not Halloween. Grande describes a typical Day of the Dead celebration, “We would have been decorating our altar with candles and marigolds and plates of food for our dead relatives to enjoy” (177), in addition, people celebrate by visiting the grades of the deceased. Christmas in Mexico, the presents are exchanged on the Day of the Three Wise Men, January 6. She recounts, “kids looked forward to, when our bellies would be stuffed like piñata with peanuts, jicamas, candy, oranges, and sugarcane” (135), and churches reenact the journey of Mary and Joseph to
Islas, Arturo. From Migrant Souls. American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context. Eds. Gabriele Rico, Barbara Roche and Sandra Mano. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995. 483-491.
The book “The distance between us” is the story of immigration written by Reyna Grande. The book recounts her true personal story before and after entering the United States. The story shows how poverty and parenting impacts the family. Grande was 2years old when her dad left her, 4 years old when her mom (Juana) left her and her two siblings (Mago and Carlos) with her grandmother in the Mexico. Since, then she was seeking her parents either her dad or mom in the story. Her illegal and undocumented entry in the United States depicits the struggles and challenges she faced while crossing the border. After she arrived in the United States she found that living in the U.S was not that easy what she has dreamed for and “The man behind the glass” was not like that what she had met before. Her siblings were angry because of their not supportive mother and abusive father which weaken their intimacy in the family. Instead, Mago her elder
Every writer has the ability to make their writing remarkable, beautiful, and complex by using elements like genre, discourse, and code. Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza is a semi-autobiographical work by Gloria Anzaldúa. She examines the relations of her lands, languages, and herself overall. She defines the borders she has around herself in the preface of the book: “The actual physical borderland that I’m dealing with in this book is the Texas-U.S. Southwest/Mexican border. The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands…the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy” (Anzaldúa: Preface). The book is broken into two main sections. The semi-autobiographical section composed of seven smaller sections and the poetry section that is both in Spanish and English.
In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America.
In the novel “The Book of Unknown Americans” by Cristina Henriquez, one of the most remarkable themes is the American dream of the Rivera family. Alma Rivera- one of the two main characters’s perspective in the novel’s first three chapters illustrate her and her family– the Mexican immigrants’ hopes for their new life in America. It is interesting to learn that the theme “American dream” in this book is one typical example of the immigrants who hold high hopes for a better life in America that they can leave everything of their old lifestyle behind. For Alma, the American dream is considered in terms of better education for Maribel- her daughter and better future for her family. The Rivera is one of many immigrant families who come to America because of a faith in good education for
Foreigners have more trouble understanding Dia de Los Muertos than any of Mexico's other celebrations. At first glance, they see Day of the Dead decorations which are colored paper garlands, little skeletons performing daily tasks and sugar skulls inscribed with names, which remind them of Halloween. Other tourists discover that much like Memorial or Remembrance Day in the US, families here visit, clean and decorate graves of loved ones for the November 1 and 2 holidays. Many families honor their ancestors and dead with different traditions, which I will be telling u about.
The Life of Two Different Worlds In “Into the Beautiful North,” Luis Alberto Urrea tells a well-known story of life for thousands of Mexican people who seek a better future. He presents his novel through the experiences of the lives of his main characters that have different personalities but share a common goal. Through the main characters we are presented with different situations and problems that the characters encounter during their journey from Mexico to the United States. Urrea’s main theme in this novel is the border that separates both the U.S. and Mexico, and the difficulties that people face in the journey to cross.
Grande introduces to the audience various characters that cross Juana 's path to either alter or assist her on her journey to find her father. Through those individuals, Grande offers a strong comparison of female characters who follow the norms, versus those that challenge gender roles that
...parts of the celebration, October 31st, November 1st, and finally November 2nd. On October 31st, it is seen that the kid’s souls return. November 1st is considered the adult’s day of returning, and November 2nd is when all souls have returned from the dead and there is a big celebration. People of Mexico celebrate by making many baked goods and cooking meals, making objects such as masks and decorating papers and toy coffins to prepare for the return of the souls.
The struggle to find a place inside an un-welcoming America has forced the Latino to recreate one. The Latino feels out of place, torn from the womb inside of America's reality because she would rather use it than know it (Paz 226-227). In response, the Mexican women planted the seeds of home inside the corral*. These tended and potted plants became her burrow of solace and place of acceptance. In the comfort of the suns slices and underneath the orange scents, the women were free. Still the questions pounded in the rhythm of street side whispers. The outside stare thundered in pulses, you are different it said. Instead of listening she tried to instill within her children the pride of language, song, and culture. Her roots weave soul into the stubborn soil and strength grew with each blossom of the fig tree (Goldsmith).
In the Hispanic culture, The Day of the Dead is a very special holiday celebrated in Hispanic communities. The Day of The Dead is a celebration that last two days. It occurs on November 1 and 2. On November 1, they have a celebration for the young. On November 2, they give honor to family members who have passed away. Traditionally they set up alters in their homes with pictures, candles, foods, and many other decorations. They believe this holiday connects them to their dead ancestors and allows the spirits to be welcomed back. It is one of the biggest celebrations in Hispanic communities and is a very meaningful celebration. One of the specific holidays that is celebrated in the US is called Martian Luther King Jr. Day. This day is in honor of Martian Luther King Jr. and his fight for civil rights. His actions have had a huge impact on America and has become a role model for not only African Americans, but for everyone. He died for fighting for what was right and is honored on this day only in America. Both the Hispanic and US cultures have their own specific holidays only celebrated in these
In the first half of Grande’s novel, she states her life before becoming an immigrant where she lives in Mexico of the 1980s expressing
In America, Christmas is celebrated on one day, December 25th, but in Mexico, Christmas is celebrated from December 16th to February 2nd, whereas in Puerto Rico people celebrate Christmas from December 24th to January 6th. Americans just celebrate this one day because it is the day Jesus was born. The Mexican people celebrate for so long for many reasons. From December 16th to Christmas Eve they perform “Posada,” which means that they celebrate the time in which Joseph and Mary looked for an inn in Bethlehem. A few days after Christmas ...
Within the memoir The Distance Between Us the author, Reyna Grande provides details about her two grandmothers, Abuelita Chinta and Abuela Evila. They both reside in rundown houses in Mexico, while their children , Reyna’s parents try to start life in the United States. They have very little money and struggle to provide for the abundance of people living in their cramped houses. Despite the fact that their situation is similar Reyna prefers living with one over the other.
In the memoir The Distance Between Us, Reyna Grande, the author, tells of her experiences in the United States after her unconventional journey to get there. Whilst in the United States many things scare her, like her sketchy neighborhood, and other things fill her with anticipation, like her first day of school. Reyan was especially excited to see the ocean for the first time in America when going to the beach with her new family, including her long-lost father. Doing this was one of the many things that made her feel at home in America, but as time progresses there were things making her feel homesick. At school she was very put off about the way she was poorly treated, being a new Hispanic student. “I wished I didn't have to sit here in