The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition

Reyna Grande’s difficult family situation complicates her understanding of home and belonging, thus making the challenges of family separation and reunification one of the memoir’s key themes. From a young age, Reyna must adjust to life without her mother and father. Both of her parents leave Mexico when she is a child to make money in the United States. Reyna still has her sister Mago and brother Carlos and lives between her two grandmothers’ homes. However, she constantly longs for Mami and Papi to return so that she and her siblings can have a stable family and home life.

Throughout her childhood, Reyna starts to “[feel] so angry at [her] parents” (29), fearing that they will forget her and her siblings and leave them behind in Mexico forever. Part 1 traces Reyna’s challenging childhood experiences and the ways in which her relationship to, and perspective of, her parents changes over time. The memoir uses these plot points to convey how family separation influences the way a child sees the world. As Reyna grows up, she starts to realize that her parents don’t have as much room for her and her siblings in their hearts as she’d hoped.