Reyna is two when her father leaves the family in Mexico and crosses the border into the United States, hoping to earn enough money to build a home in Mexico when he returns. What I knew was that prayers didn’t work, because if they did, El Otro Lado wouldn’t be taking my mother away, too. What I knew back then was that El Otro Lado had already taken my father away. In 1980, when I was four years old, I didn’t know yet where the United States was or why everyone in my hometown of Iguala, Guerrero, referred to it as El Otro Lado, the Other Side. Neither of my grandmothers told us that there is something more powerful than La Llorona-a power that takes away parents, not children. My other grandmother, Abuelita Chinta, would tell us not to be afraid of La Llorona that if we prayed, God, La Virgen, and the saints would protect us from her. She would say that if we didn’t behave, La Llorona would take us far away where we would never see our parents again. MY FATHER’S MOTHER, Abuela Evila, liked to scare us with stories of La Llorona, the weeping woman who roams the canal and steals children away. When their mother at last returns, Reyna prepares for her own journey to “El Otro Lado” to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father.įunny, heartbreaking, and lyrical, The Distance Between Us poignantly captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood, reminding us that the joys and sorrows we experience are imprinted on the heart forever, calling out to us of those places we first called home.Īlso available in Spanish as La distancia entre nosotros. As her parents make the dangerous trek across the Mexican border to “El Otro Lado” (The Other Side) in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced into the already overburdened household of their stern grandmother. Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this “compelling.unvarnished, resonant” ( BookPage) story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries.

In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border.

The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande