Recently, renowned Mexican-born author Reyna Grande came to speak to the Poly community and Partnership for Success! about her experiences coming to the U.S. and assimilating into American society as child, growing up and finding her voice in America, and then rediscovering her own Mexican roots. Shortly after her father left her family's home in Iguala, Guerrero to find work, Grande came to America at just 9 years old as an undocumented immigrant. In a society where English was the default language, Grande initially struggled to find her place, even being forced by an elementary school teacher to sit in the back of the room by herself during class discussions. She explained the trauma of not being able to express herself during the Spanish-language portion of her presentation. She explained that as she began to master English, enrolling at Pasadena City College and eventually transferring to UC Santa Cruz to study creative writing, her knowledge of Spanish—her first language—was what suffered. In fact, her most recent novel,
A Dream Called Home, was originally written in English, and she is working laboriously to translate it into Spanish as she herself relearns the language.
With the current wave of xenophobia directed toward immigrants, especially Mexican immigrants, Grande's story could not be more timely. Just in the last two weeks, President Trump has made multiple threats to completely close the southern border, seemingly without any consideration of the extensive economic—but more importantly human—repercussions of such a drastic action. Hundreds of thousands cross the Mexican-American border each day, and like Reyna Grande, they all have stories to tell. Their reasons for crossing include business, seeing family, going vacation, taking care of legal business, and so much more, and our current discourse risks making this an issue of inflated numbers and fear-stoking anecdotes rather than real people's lives. Beyond expressing her own story, Reyna Grande's work as an Mexican immigrant author is invaluable in our current political climate, and voices like hers must not only be heard, but amplified.
Recently, renowned Mexican-born author Reyna Grande came to speak to the Poly community and Partnership for Success! about her experiences coming to the U.S. and assimilating into American society as child, growing up and finding her voice in America, and then rediscovering her own Mexican roots. Shortly after her father left her family's home in Iguala, Guerrero to find work, Grande came to America at just 9 years old as an undocumented immigrant. In a society where English was the default language, Grande initially struggled to find her place, even being forced by an elementary school teacher to sit in the back of the room by herself during class discussions. She explained the trauma of not being able to express herself during the Spanish-language portion of her presentation. She explained that as she began to master English, enrolling at Pasadena City College and eventually transferring to UC Santa Cruz to study creative writing, her knowledge of Spanish—her first language—was what suffered. In fact, her most recent novel, A Dream Called Home, was originally written in English, and she is working laboriously to translate it into Spanish as she herself relearns the language.
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