Across A Hundred Mountains Analysis

Pentecost (2014) compares The Distance Between Us: A memoir with Rudolfo Anaya and Tomas Rivera’s major work as an attempt to capture the cultural identity of Mexican Americans concluding that the main protagonist of these works had to set outside their cultural boundaries to find their cultural identity. Ruf (2009) unlike Pentecost (2014) emphases the uniqueness of Grande’s work as she highlights that even though Across a Hundred Mountains is a fiction work it is based on Grade’s real experiences and fears. Unlike most immigration novels that are usually narrated from a male perspective, Grande’s narrative of a young girl denounces attention to gender inequalities and intersectionalities among immigrants (Bürkner, 2012) (Ruf, 2009). In addition, critics see Reyna Grande as an honest writer that uses her personal experiences for the development of an immigrant narrative and whose novel is underscored with personal truths (Olivas, 2006) (Coca, 2009). While this literature explore Grande’s work they do not pay attention to the representation of her personal and/or her fictional character Juana’s identity formation, when it is a fundamental characteristic of her

One’s commitment of immigrating to a new country for a better life indicates that oneself is ready to risk the life given to them by facing many hardships along the way. In the novel Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario, Enrique does exactly that, risking his own life at the age of seventeen in order to reunite with his mother who left him when he was five in order to obtain a better job in the US and give Enrique and his older sister everything she thought they deserved. Nazario utilizes an emotional appeal and metaphors to inform readers of the arduous situations migrants experience on their long and tiring journey in search of a family member and a better future.

In her novel La Linea, Ann Jaramillo tells the story of fifteen-year-old Miguel, who leaves his home in Mexico to illegally cross the US-Mexican border. He leaves for California, where his parents and two of his sisters have lived for the past seven years. His parents left first, in order to make money for their children to cross la linea later. Miguel and his younger sister Elena thus live with their grandmother on a rancho in the small Mexican village San Jacinto. On his fifteenth birthday, Miguel receives the letter he has waited for his entire life. A letter from his father tells him to go see Don Clemente, a rich and successful immigrant smuggler. Don Clemente provides Miguel with

Enrique’s journey from Honduras to the U.S. unveils the innate loyalty of a loving child to their mother and presents the dangers that a migrant faces on the road with consistent angst; nevertheless, it supports the idea that compassion shown by some strangers can boost the retreating confidence within a person. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” he seeks the beacon of light that all migrants hope to encounter; “El Norte.” Like many children before him, it is the answer to the problems of a hard life. While being hunted down “like animals” leading to “seven futile attempts,” he is

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, shares his life-long journey as an undocumented immigrant in his text, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” As the title suggests, Vargas attempts to convey to his audience, who likely never has and never will experience anything similar to what he has, what it is like to live as an immigrant in the United States of America. Skillfully, Vargas details the perfect number of personal stories to reach the emotional side of his audience, which is anyone who is not an immigrant. Through the use of his personal accounts Vargas is able to effectively communicate that immigrants are humans too while simultaneously proving his credibility, as he has experience and a vast amount of knowledge

In the Foreword, she brings the reader to a day in 1997, when her cleaning woman Carmen reveals that she has four children in Guatemala, whom she has not seen in twelve years. Nazario is stunned. She cannot understand how a mother could so walk away from her young children, but Carmen then presents a reality the author will soon investigate and know to be ordinary. Since the 1960s, untold numbers of Central American mothers, often abandoned by their husbands, come to America to take any work available (Nazario xiii). In the late 20th century, then, and as American women were entering the workforce more and more, supply met demand and the illegal immigrant mothers found work as house cleaners and nannies. As Carmen expresses, nonetheless, the distance is almost unbearable and these mothers intensely feel the distance from their children. As the novel also reinforces, the children similarly experience the pain of separation, which goes to another form of “immigration”; basically, and often at very young ages, they risk their lives to join their mothers. Most importantly, then, and as Nazario is further moved by the true tale of Carmen's son Minor, Enrique's Journey actually documents an ongoing situation based on inequality and injustice. The novel is then completely based on the realities researched by the

People in Central America especially, long to have their basic necessities met. Visiting Guatemala and Mexico at the age of ten was a hard site to see. Kids walking on the street barefoot not because they wanted to, but they had no money to buy shoes. Making their dirty feet ache at night. Wearing the same clothes full of filth because they could not afford to buy clothes and soap. Parents struggling to provide for their family. They would often sent their child to school without lunch, making it hard for the student to concentrate at school. Any little money counts and they would make it last. Yet they were so welcoming and loving to guest. They had nothing to offer but the little they had they would offer. Family’s full of frustration and no hope turn to the journey of going to “el Norte”. Hoping to have a better life and help their family improve their social status.

I believe in people (Berstein 19). I believe there is good in every human being because of the choice we have between right and wrong (19). In “The Mountain Disappears”, Leonard Bernstein tells us that it is what we choose to do with that free will is what defines us. Something that we need to believe in is love. Love is a commitment and teaches us how to be passionate about something that makes us a better person. I believe that every single one of us has the ability to change and that when we change, we have great potential (19-20). Everyone has the potential to make a difference in the world. I believe in the attainability of good (21). We all have it, so why don’t we use it?

Immigration is a very dangerous and risky journey. Everyday immigrants try so hard to make it to the United States. This journey involves parents trying to support kids back home, families trying to start over, or kids trying to get to their mom; but some do not make it through this hardship. Those individuals, who make it, try like never before to support themselves and the family they needed to leave behind. Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario is a well written novel that uses many pathos, logos, and ethos examples. Each one of them is used effectively because of the way students are persuaded in believing there true. Elements from the quotes can reveal that Sonia is knowledgeable and

Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously

The book The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande provides an account of Reyna Grande’s life in Mexico and later in the United States. When she is two, her father leaves the family for the United States hoping to earn money for building a house in Mexico. Later, he sends for their mother, Juana, leaving behind three children – Reyna, Mago, and Carlos. The children experience abject poverty and others hardships under the unforgiving care of their paternal grandmother, Abuela Evila (Tobar). Her mother returns with another child, Elizabeth, and establishes an on-again and off-again relationship. Later, their father, for whom they have almost forgotten, returns and takes them on a terrifying journey to the United States ' border (Grande 317). Overall, the book narrates a child’s journey to overcome poverty and deal with the absence of parents through forgiveness and love.

While going through a hard time of her husband being gone and he grandmother passing away, Lilia wanted so bad to cross into America to have her family together. An old friend of Lilia’s from school offered to help get her and her child across to America. Seeing that she trusted the man she decided to allow him to help her. Lilia and her baby had to go with different coyotes. She went to the house of the man that was to be her coyote; he took Lilia to a woman coyote that would bring the child across. After leaving her baby with the woman, Lilia and her coyotes started their journey in a truck. She was to ride on the back that was covered with the man that was not driving; along the journey, the coyote raped her. They arrived at a river, which she had to swim across. Once across the water, she had to wait in a junk yard in the back of a car for someone to show up and call for her. She was taken to a house, where she would get her new identification, a new life. This is where she awaited for her child and her husband. While she was waiting she had to cut and dye her hair, she also watched a man being murdered. Day’s passes and her child never arrived, but Hector did. Hector was grateful to see his wife, but very upset that his child had not arrived. Hector, Lilia, and Miguel tried to figure out how to find the child, but had no luck. Hector asked his boss and his wife to help but they also had no

I started this essay off with a quote one of the characters mention in the book because it basically gives us the main idea the author is trying to get readers to understand throughout the book. By looking at the title of this novel, “The Book of Unknown Americans” and by looking at the author’s name- Cristina Henriquez, we can already get an idea of what this novel is going to be about. When someone first takes a look at the title and author of this book they would assume that it is going to be about immigrants who moved to the United States and struggled to fit in. After reading this novel, I now understand how difficult it was for these Latino immigrants to leave everything they have in hope for better lives here in the United States. Each person has their own meaning of what it means to be an American and their own reason of what most immigrants come here for. The Rivera family came here in hope for better resources to help treat Maribel because they didn 't have the resources they needed back in their country.

The other main character of the story is Adelina a girl who leaves her home in California to go to Mexico. Adelina is driven out of the United States because her family won’t accept her relationship with her lover, so they both decide to go to Tijuana, a city in Mexico. Not much is said about Adelina’s experienced in the United States. What we do know is that she had a family that loved her, but she decided to leave it all behind to be together with her boyfriend Gerardo. In Mexico she finds nothing but shame and misery because Gerardo could not find a job and the only way for them to make money was for her to be a prostitute. Besides having to expose her body, Adelina, is physically and emotionally mistreated by her boyfriend until it finally leads to her death when she tells him that she is going back to the United States with Juana.

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are