Editorial Content for Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can't Forget
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Esteemed author Reyna Grande offers readers a convincing collocation of life experiences tethered to pains and triumphs. In MIGRANT HEART, she delves deeply into her personal recollections to reveal plain truths in a panoramic perspective. Noted for highly emotive memoirs of her migrations from Mexico to the US (THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, A DREAM CALLED HOME), she now arrays the futures those books implied.
"[Grande] has the admirable ability to enhearten her audience through her expertise as a wordsmith and acting as an exemplar to others by sharing her personal saga."
One especially illustrative chapter, “A Flight to Remember,” details the hours Grande spent on a plane talking with a young Guatemalan man who was newly released from detention after trying to cross the US border into Texas. Having almost no possessions, he was hoping to reunite with his brother in Sacramento and seek legal asylum. She gave him informed advice, and he later texted her a brief, heart-rending message: “Que dios la bendiga,” which translates to “May God bless you.”
Grande fixes her gaze upon the fears and potential victories of immigrants, nearly all of whom are stricken with extreme poverty, as they must bear the physical deficits of harsh travel and the treatment they will receive from the US Border Patrol. She vividly describes her complex medical problems, including keratoconus, a retinal disorder for which there is no expedient remedy, leaving her to fear the darkness. Grande emotively compares her suffering to the traumas of asylum seekers lost in a miasma of constantly shifting regulations. She shares tales of her birth family, her starkly deprived childhood, and her remarkable ability to conquer perhaps the toughest boundary: language.
Grande’s academic ambitions and sharp intelligence led to “subtractive bilingualism” --- the loss of one’s native tongue in the struggle to gain the ability to speak and write in one’s new, non-native homeland. And she cherishes incidents, experienced with her children, that are focused on such unusual enjoyments as observing local slugs and bugs and one sweet butterfly. Extensive travel in Europe and the deserts of the Southwest US have inspired her “to keep bearing witness, to keep telling these stories.”
Reyna Grande’s memories, writings, talks and sage observations have garnered her many awards and inclusion in a plethora of educational programs. She has the admirable ability to enhearten her audience through her expertise as a wordsmith and acting as an exemplar to others by sharing her personal saga. Her viewpoints of a woman growing older and enjoying the positive signs of progress among her children and grandchildren will give hope and determination to those who are in the process of overcoming the trials and traumas of oppression, aiding them in discovering life’s higher purpose.
Teaser
Reyna Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages and two identities has shaped the woman, mother and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival. Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?
Promo
Reyna Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages and two identities has shaped the woman, mother and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival. Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?
About the Book
An ambitious memoir-in-essays by beloved bestselling author Reyna Grande that illuminates the hidden cost of the American Dream and the complex journey of healing that follows survival.
What is the true power of stories? Can they heal the jagged edges of a traumatic childhood? Is the cost of telling the story worth the price of the cure?
Reyna Grande has spent her career capturing the raw reality of life across borders. In this intricate and deeply intimate memoir-in-essays, the author of the landmark memoirs THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US and A DREAM CALLED HOME again turns her gaze inward to explore the scars left by migration and the ongoing work of stitching herself back together.
With her signature blend of sophistication and raw honesty, Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages and two identities has shaped the woman, mother and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival.
Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?
MIGRANT HEART is a powerful testament to Grande’s role as a storyteller and cultural witness. It expands our understanding of life in the United States and the complex people who cross and live within its borders. It is an essential read for the seekers, the dreamers, and anyone who believes in the enduring, transformative power of finding one’s voice.
Audiobook available, read by Reyna Grande
