A Passing Down Of A Dream In The Distance Between Us

In Reyna Grande’s memoir, The Distance Between Us, she recounts both her and her siblings Mago and Carlos’ struggles growing up as both their parents leave for the United States hoping to return to Mexico with a better life. However, their parents’ dream unknowingly creates consequences in their family, specifically in the siblings’ distant, both figurative and literal, relationship with their parents. As Reyna’s relationship fluctuates with her parents, she struggles with breaking away from what her family in order to pursue her own dreams.

In Iguala, Reyna, and her siblings Mago and Carlos experience neglect disregard when their mother Juana leaves them in the care of their paternal grandmother Abuela Evila. With both their parents gone, the siblings are constantly belittled by both neighborhood kids and even their own family, being called orphans and told their parents are never coming back, as many have done before. This event causes the siblings to care and look after each other, specifically Reyna’s older sister Mago who takes on the role of “a little mother” over her siblings. Though in the beginning the siblings clearly hold onto the hope of their parents coming back, as the year their mother promised to return passed their hope is tested as they question if they have been completely abandoned. For Reyna, however, she holds some resentment towards her father, who she has a framed picture of since her mother left, blaming him for leaving his family to continue to live in poverty and then taking away her mother causing them to live abused by their own family. This fear is also supported by Reyna’s questioning if their parents will come back for them after learning they have a new daughter named Betty – a natural-born US citizen.

However, the siblings’ hope of their mother’s return in fulfilled when three and a half years after, Juana returns, but by Reyna’s description of “the woman wearing a burgundy dress, large dark sunglasses that covered her face, and golden high-heels” implies that the mother who had left her children is not the same one who has returned. In addition to their mother’s almost unrecognizable nature, Juana has brought baby Betty with her. Reyna and her siblings soon come to learn that in “El Otro Lado” or “The Other Side,” their father had met another woman and when their mother tried to take Betty away from him, he attempted to kill her. Having her mother return while her father is still absent, Reyna retains a bias against her father for having split up their family once again. Reyna, when about to leave with her mother to live with their other grandmother Abuelita Chinta, runs back for the framed picture of “The Man Behind the Glass” only wanting to throw it on the ground when she comes to learn about what the man has done to her family.

Though their mother has returned, Reyna senses that her mother’s distance towards her children. Reyna sensing her distant behavior foreshadows Juana’s inevitable abandonment of her children once again. When Juana is discovered to have a secret boyfriend, Mago is the one who brings it to attention and expresses her anger and disappointment which only angers Juana. Then Juana brings to light her decision to leave with her new boyfriend, Carlos and Reyna interject their thoughts about her leaving them once again, but Juana has already decided. Her decision is clear when Mago brings up her father learning of Juana’s leaving and she “stood up and headed over to Mago, ready to beat her”. Juana’s behavior to beat her daughter out of the mention of her husband comes from her feeling of failure and pain having lost her husband and her opportunity for a better life “El Otro Lado” would have provided. Her behavior and her leaving without telling the siblings emphasize that Juana is conflicted with being a mother as she desires to fulfill her void of a new better life. When Juana leaves, Mago once again takes the role of a “little mother” over her siblings, now including Betty, holding resentment towards her mother, but Carlos also resenting her mother tries to move away from “mother figures” including Mago as he seeks out a “father figure.” After learning their mother has left while they were at school, Reyna and Carlos run up the road, unfortunately seeing no signs of their mother.

Juana returns after her boyfriend dies in an accident, but Reyna questions if he hadn’t died, would her mother have come back. Reyna questioning her mother returns indicates her fractured relationship with her mother, but this questioning is overpowered by Reyna yearn for a mother. However, Juana once again distances herself from her children by living in an apartment close to her new work and only seeing her children once a week. Juana’s distance continues to hold back her relationship with her children. When Juana brings over a new boyfriend Rey to the family Christmas, Reyna and her siblings are angered that their mother’s attention is never on them. Though Reyna avoids in expressing her frustration and not wanting to ruin Christmas, Mago once again expresses her anger towards Juana. Unlike Mago, Reyna did not have to be a “little mother” and lose a sense of her childhood in taking care of her siblings. Mago’s outburst enrages Juana as ties her to a bed and leaves with Rey. After their mother abandons them for the third time, none of the siblings run after her implying that the children have given up on their mother ever returning for them. Having given up on their mother, the siblings shift their hope towards their father as Reyna places the photo of “The Man Behind the Glass” alongside photos of saints on an altar.

Natalio, Reyna’s father returns, under the siblings’ impression that he was simply just going to call them. When Reyna sees a man sitting on the couch in Abuela Evila’s house, she immediately recognizes the face of “The Man Behind the Glass.” However, this recognition causes Reyna to feel embarrassed rather than excited as she, along with her siblings, are wearing rags and covered in dirt. When Reyna is forced to hug her father when he calls her, the hug is the kind of hug “one would hug an acquaintance’s child”. Reyna’s embarrassed and description of her awkward hug between her and her father implies their relationship would be distant, similar to her current relationship with her mother, but the fact that Reyna recognized her father even though she barely remembers him implies that her relationship with her father will be closer than her relationship with her mother as she was unable to recognize her mother when she first returned.

Natalio’s return does not come without complications. With him introducing Mila, Reyna feels jealousy that her father, like her mother, is not giving attention to her and her siblings and at that point understood her mother’s anger towards him. Just like Juana, Natalio confesses that he is leaving once again, but has the intention of bringing one of his children due to their mother not taking care of them. He acknowledges his desire to not leave behind his life he built in El Otro Lado as well as his obligation as a father to take care of his children but cannot due to not being financially able to. Regardless, Reyna and Carlos beg their father to go with them as he says that Mago, being the oldest, would be easiest to get across the border. Reyna is disappointed when her father accepts Carlos’ plea to accompany him and Mago and ends up telling her classmates that she, too, is going with her father even though he had said that he must leave her behind. Out of fear of shame and embarrassment, Reyna pleads with her father to take her with him as she confesses her lie to her classmates. Her plea is supported by Mago who says she won’t go without her, yet Reyna could see her conflict in taking her side. Then Carlos confesses the same. With the three siblings refusing to go without the other, Natalio decides to take all of them with him and to borrow money so he could afford to. Unfortunately, Betty is left behind when Juana refuses to give her up and let Natalio win. Reyna sees Juana’s refusal as the last straw in their already fractured relationship indicating that she blames her mother for separating her family and decides that she would try to forget her mother who constantly left her.

When the siblings succeed in crossing the border, they are forced to live under their father’s rules who, unlike their mother, emphasized the importance of education and taking advantage of the opportunities that are now provided for them. Living in the US for the siblings is not at all as they had expected. Unlike in Mexico, they were not allowed to wander alone on the streets, but they relish in the privileges they didn’t have before such as television. Unfortunately, the siblings were also subjected to their father’s abuse, both sober and drunken violence. This abuse causes Mago and Carlos to question and eventually rebel against their father by moving out against his wishes, and despite his constant reminder that education is the key to their success, both drop out of college. However, Reyna is punished by her father for attempting to run away and leave after graduating high school by not being allowed to enroll or even apply to college, forcing her to lock herself in her room to avoid her father’s beatings. By not being allowed to attend school, Reyna looks for a job, but ultimately fails and is subjected to reality of being both an immigrant and a woman that she would be unable to advance herself without higher education – a value her father has always told her. Her job rejection and mistake for a job offer causes her to enroll in classes in community college regardless of what her father was going to do (298). Though her demand for college is supposed to be an act of rebellion, Reyna’s insistence in attending college coincides with her father’s value that education is the key to success.

Having attended school in Mexico, young Reyna felt overwhelmed by the US school hallways and numerous doors compared to the small open field of Mexican schools. In Mexico, Reyna understood beyond her grade, but struggled in class due to being left-handed and being forced to write crookedly with her right hand. In the US, Reyna barely understands English and placed in with other students learning English or ESL. However, in both Mexico and the US, Reyna felt devalued as her teachers discriminated her for not filling their cultural standards: in Mexico for being left-handed or devil-handed and in the US for lacking in English. Though she struggles with learning English, she finds success in reading and writing which ultimately becomes her passion as she continues through school. However, Reyna was subjected to discrimination also by her classmates; unlike in Mexico when she was teased for being an “orphan,” she is perceived as conceited and as a loner as she struggles to make friends and find a group other than her family she feels she belongs to; ultimately finding comfort in books and writing.

As Reyna advances through school having participated in extracurriculars such as band – to her father’s surprised slight interest – and submitted her work in writing competitions, she continues to hold resentment towards her parents, both her father and her mother who eventually went back to the US and lived her life separate from Reyna and her siblings. Though she lived with her mother while her father was arrested for beating Mila, she eventually leaves when her mother scoffs at her commitment to her classes. She goes to see her professor Dr. Diana Savas and ends up confessing about her life and what has happened. Savas offers Reyna, calling her Reynita, to live with her out of what Reyna describes as “Diana seeing apart of herself in her”. When her father returns to his apartment after Mila dropped her charges against him and desires to divorce him, Reyna tries to mend her relationship with her father, bonding over her transferring to a university. However, when her father is given the chance to reunite with Mila but at the cost of betraying his children, he accepts, once again breaking his apart his family, causing Reyna to, leave him and return to Diana. In these two instances of Reyna leaving her parents in order to pursue her own dreams, she mirrors her parents leaving behind their family in pursuit of a better life as she herself, leaves her family, in her own pursuit of a better life. Her mirroring behavior indicates that she has indeed learned something that her parents despite their constant abandonments throughout her life: from her mother, to have the courage to leave; from her father, when she does leave, to remember where she came from.

Reyna is clear that she owes her success to her father. Her reminiscing about her first time seeing the ocean in Santa Monica and holding her father’s hand as he guides her to face her fear of the ocean waves then her letting go of it implies that she owes her success to her father because he brought her to the United States, giving her the opportunity to make her dreams a reality. Though she experienced pain brought upon her by her father, she acknowledges that he left in order to pursue a better life but saw that he was unable to do so himself; instead, his dream was passed down to her. Though her dream was originally her father’s, she made it her own when she leaves her family by herself for a life she does not truly know holds for her, but knows it will be better than her life before. Reyna’s dream is shared amongst anyone who leaves behind their family in pursuit to make their dreams a reality – a dream characterized by immigrants hoping that they too, can find a life miles away from where they came from, a dream that continues to be passed down regardless of distance. 

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