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A Dream Called Home

A Memoir

LIST PRICE $17.99

About The Book

“Here is a life story so unbelievable, it could only be true.” —Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

From bestselling author of the remarkable memoir The Distance Between Us comes an inspiring account of one woman’s quest to find her place in America as a first-generation Latina university student and aspiring writer determined to build a new life for her family one fearless word at a time.

As an immigrant in an unfamiliar country, with an indifferent mother and abusive father, Reyna had few resources at her disposal. Taking refuge in words, Reyna’s love of reading and writing propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Although her acceptance is a triumph, the actual experience of American college life is intimidating and unfamiliar for someone like Reyna, who is now estranged from her family and support system. Again, she finds solace in words, holding fast to her vision of becoming a writer, only to discover she knows nothing about what it takes to make a career out of a dream.

Through it all, Reyna is determined to make the impossible possible, going from undocumented immigrant of little means to “a fierce, smart, shimmering light of a writer” (Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild); a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist whose “power is growing with every book” (Luis Alberto Urrea, Pultizer Prize finalist); and a proud mother of two beautiful children who will never have to know the pain of poverty and neglect.

Told in Reyna’s exquisite, heartfelt prose, A Dream Called Home demonstrates how, by daring to pursue her dreams, Reyna was able to build the one thing she had always longed for: a home that would endure.

Excerpt

A Dream Called Home 1
EVERY MINUTE THAT went by, another mile separated me from my family. We drove north on I-5, and I felt divided in half, like this highway I was on—one side going north, the other going south. Half of me wanted to turn back, to stay in Los Angeles and fight for my family—my father, my mother, my sisters and brothers—stay by their side even though our relationship was in ruins. The city fell farther and farther behind me, the smog blanketing the buildings as if Los Angeles were already wrapped in the haze of memory.

The other half of me faced north with excitement, optimistic despite my fears. I was transferring to the University of California, Santa Cruz, leaving to pursue the wild dream of becoming the first in my family to earn a university degree. The key to the American Dream will soon be mine, I told myself. This was no small feat for a former undocumented immigrant from Mexico. I felt proud to have made it this far.

Then I remembered my father’s betrayal, and my optimism disappeared. Though I left of my own accord, I suddenly felt as if I had been exiled from Los Angeles. No longer wanted or needed.

My boyfriend looked at me and said the words I was desperate to hear, “Your father is very proud of you. He told me so.” I was grateful that he was doing the driving. If I had been at the wheel, I would have turned back.

Edwin had been accepted at California State University, Monterey Bay, which was about an hour south of Santa Cruz. I had met him at Pasadena City College earlier in the year, right before my father and stepmother decided to end their marriage. Throughout the past months, I had been by my father’s side supporting him through the chaotic separation in any way I could. I even considered staying in L.A. to help him get his life back in order once the divorce was final.

My father, a maintenance worker with a third-grade education, spoke little English. Eleven years earlier, when I was nine years old, he had returned to Mexico to bring my older siblings and me back with him to the United States to give us a better life. My older sister, brother, and I took our father’s divorce as an opportunity to show him that his sacrifice had paid off. We spoke the language of this country. We had an American education. We could handle ourselves with the police and in court. We knew how to look out for him so he wouldn’t end up with nothing.

Then, my father asked my stepmother to reconsider their divorce, and she did, but with one condition—she didn’t want us around. So, after months of standing by him and giving him our support, my father banned Mago, Carlos, and me from his life. I had packed up my bags and left his house, and the next day, my stepmother moved back in and gave my bedroom to her son and daughter-in-law. I went to stay with my PCC professor Diana Savas, for the second time since I had met her.

“Try to understand him,” Edwin said. “He knew you were leaving at the end of the summer. He didn’t want to be alone once you left.”

“I could have stayed with him.”

“For how long? One day you’ll move out and get married. Have your own family. You wouldn’t stay with him forever. He knew that. Besides, he didn’t want to hold you back.”

“He could have stood up for us the way we stood up for him,” I said a few minutes later. “It didn’t have to be a choice between his wife or his children. Why can’t there be room for us in his life, too? Now he’s just like my mother.”

When I was seven years old, my father left my mother for my stepmother, and she was never the same. She didn’t want to be a mother to us anymore. It was as if when my father divorced her, she in turn divorced her children. She left us again and again in her search for another man to love her. When my father took us to live with him, we only saw her if we made the effort to visit her where she lived with her common-law husband. It hadn’t mattered to her if we weren’t in her life. My departure to Santa Cruz hadn’t made a bit of difference to her. “Ahí nos vemos,” she had said when I called her the day before. “See you later” instead of “I love you, take care, call me if you need anything”—the words I had hoped to hear from her.

“Parents disappoint us because we set expectations they can never live up to,” Edwin said. He had the uncanny ability to know what I was thinking. He squeezed my hand and added, “Reyna, some parents are incapable of love and affection. Don’t you think it might be time to lower your expectations?”

I looked out the window and didn’t reply. My biggest virtue and my biggest flaw was the tenacity with which I clung to my dreams, no matter how futile they might seem to others. The dream of having a true relationship with my parents was the one I had clung to the most because it was the first dream I’d had, and the farthest from my reach.

As we finally left the city behind us, my body stretched tight like a rubber band, and I felt a hot, searing pain in my heart until finally something inside me snapped. I was released from the bond to the place where I had come of age, the city that had witnessed my desolation and defeats, my joys and victories. Just like my hometown in Mexico, Los Angeles was now a part of my past.




Welcome to campus!

That day in September of 1996, we drove into the main entrance of the campus and were greeted by five words carved into a block of wood that was over twenty feet long: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ. I jumped out of the car to walk around the entrance sign, trace the huge yellow letters with my fingers, smell the wood into which they were carved, and after each letter had imprinted itself within me, I said to myself the words that needed to be said: “I have arrived.”

Higher education is the only way to succeed in this country. My father had drilled that into us the minute we had arrived in Los Angeles after our third attempt at crossing the border. He had been a tyrant about school, and had even threatened to send us back to Mexico if we didn’t come home with perfect attendance and straight A’s. He believed so strongly in the dream of higher education that he had been completely devastated when Mago and Carlos dropped out of college. Though I had vowed not to do the same, he no longer believed in the dream and had given up on me before I even got my chance. I was determined to prove to him that he had been wrong about me.

We drove deeper into the campus, past fields and meadows, the ocean in the distance, and when we came upon the redwoods, I said a silent thank-you to my professor Diana for insisting that I choose UCSC over UCLA, where I had also been accepted. She said that at UCLA I would be one of tens of thousands, whereas UCSC, with fewer than nine thousand students, was much smaller and better for students who were into the arts. She also believed getting out of my comfort zone would help me grow and mature.

I had never seen trees so majestic, with bark the color of cinnamon and foliage a deep, lush green. The sky wasn’t the pale, washed-out blue of the L.A. sky, but the vibrant, pure blue of a Van Gogh oil painting. I poked my head out the window and took deep gulps of the fresh air that smelled of earth, trees, and ocean, and something else I couldn’t name. I became light-headed from the scents, sounds, and colors of my new home.

“You made the right choice.” Edwin said.

“You and Diana talked me into it,” I said, remembering the long conversations with the two of them about which university I should pick. “But I guess I knew I was meant to be here.” I didn’t tell them that the name of the university held a special meaning for me. Santa Cruz, “the holy cross.” My father’s full name was Natalio Grande Cruz. His last name literally meant “the big cross,” a heavy burden for me that at times was too much to bear.

UCSC was divided into small colleges, and since I was majoring in creative writing, I chose to live at Kresge College, where the creative writing program and the Literature Department were located. As a transfer student, I could live in the apartments at Kresge East, which were reserved for juniors, seniors, and graduate students, instead of the dorms in Kresge Proper, where the freshmen and sophomores were housed. I would be sharing a four-bedroom apartment with three other students.

After I checked in, we pulled up at the parking lot of Kresge East. As I got out of the car, I remembered sitting around the kitchen table with Carlos and Mago, listening to our father talk about the future. “Just because we are ilegales doesn’t mean we cannot dream,” he said to us. Thanks to my stepmother’s help and my father’s determination to legalize our status, our green cards finally arrived in the mail when I was almost fifteen. That day, he had proudly handed each of us those precious cards that, even though they had the words “RESIDENT ALIEN” imprinted on them in accusing blue letters, gave us permission to finally step out of the shadows, to grow and thrive in the light. “I’ve done my part. The rest is up to you,” my father had said.

Here in the parking lot, in the middle of the frenzy of move-in day, at the sight of my peers who had arrived with their parents, grandparents, and siblings, I wished my father were at my side. Though in the end he had lost faith that I would get here, he had set the stage for my arrival. My peers had brought their families to celebrate the beginning of their journey as university students. I thought of the Mexican saying Sin padre ni madre, ni perro que me ladre. Without a father, without a mother, without a dog to bark at me.

I turned away from the families and grabbed my suitcase and backpack from the trunk. Focus on what you’re here to do. If I did things right, I would one day break the cycle my family had been stuck in for generations—a cycle of poverty, hunger, and lack of education. This was the reason why I was here, and that was all that mattered.

Edwin helped me carry my belongings to my apartment—my clothes, some books, and my first computer, purchased on credit from Sears and still in the box.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked as I walked him back to his car.

“Yeah,” I said, doing my best to not let him see how frightened I was. Edwin was handling this new stage of his life much better than I was handling mine. He had left home after high school to join the army and had fought in the Gulf War, witnessing unimaginable horrors. As an army vet, he was independent and knew how to take care of himself. I envied him for that, and as I watched him drive away in his Oldsmobile, heading back to Monterey, I wished he would stay to protect me. Instead, I was now completely alone and about to fight my battles on my own.

I set out to explore the campus. It was late afternoon, and I didn’t have much time before the sun went down. I had heard there was real darkness here, and as a city girl, the thought of the dark frightened me. But as I began to walk, I realized that the darkness was the least of my worries. What I was most afraid of was not knowing how to be a university student, that my community college education hadn’t prepared me for the work ahead. I was afraid of not being able to let go of my longing for my family, afraid that the distance that separated us would damage our relationship even more than it already had. I was afraid of having come this far only to fail and have to return to Los Angeles with nothing to show for my college education—no diploma, no job, nothing but a mountain of debt and unfulfilled dreams.

I was afraid of not being able to make this new place feel like a real home, a place where I belonged.

The university was nestled in the redwoods at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains. I found myself immersed in a grove of the world’s tallest trees. As I walked across the footbridge that connected Kresge East and Kresge Proper, high aboveground, with a ravine below me and redwood trees all around me, I let out a long, deep sigh, and the tension inside my body eased.

The wind rustled the trees and caressed my hair. A family of deer foraged for food in the ravine. I couldn’t believe there were deer here. I felt as if I had entered a fairy tale. I came to a meadow by Porter College where I could see the ocean shining blue and streaked with orange as the sun set. I was nine years old when I had first seen the ocean, two months after I arrived in Los Angeles to live with my father. I had been scared to go in because I didn’t know how to swim, so I had held tight to my father’s hand, wanting to feel safe and protected. He had promised he wouldn’t let go of me. We stood side by side in the water and, at least that day, he had kept his promise.

As I looked at the ocean in the distance, I told myself there was no need to be afraid. I had come this far, despite everything. My family fell apart when we immigrated. We sacrificed so much for a shot at the American Dream, and I would be damned if I didn’t make the dream mine. A broken family was the price for me to be here. Back in Mexico the distance between my parents and me had been two thousand miles. In Santa Cruz, the distance was three hundred, but emotionally, we were light-years apart, and this time, I was the one who had migrated north in search of a better life, leaving them all behind.


Reyna at the Porter Meadow, UCSC

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for A Dream Called Home includes an introduction, discussion question,s and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

A Dream Called Home is the inspiring new memoir from Reyna Grande, the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and nationally bestselling author of The Distance Between Us, about her quest for belonging, a writing career, and a home built of more than words and dreams. This memoir picks up where The Distance Between Us left off, recounting Reyna’s pursuit to become the first in her family to earn a college degree and to find her place and a home in her adoptive country.

At UC, Santa Cruz and on her own for the first time, Reyna faces new struggles and learns to forge ahead toward her dreams despite the alienation and estrangement from her family and her new community. Back in Los Angeles after graduation, Reyna attempts to parlay her creative writing degree into a full-time job only to discover she knows nothing about the publishing business. Through it all, Reyna holds fast to her dreams and makes the impossible possible—she goes from being an undocumented immigrant to an award-winning author. Reyna details the arduous journey of pursuing her dream of becoming a writer and finding that one thing she has desperately longed for ever since her parents left her behind in Mexico—a home.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. Discuss the epigraph that begins A Dream Called Home. Why do you think Grande has chosen to begin her memoir with this quote? How does it help you understand her as both an immigrant and an author?

2. Although Reyna Grande’s hometown, Iguala de la Independencia, has a rich history, it is a poor city where over 70 percent of the population is living in poverty. As a child, Grande writes that she “had been able to see past the imperfections and find the beauty of my hometown.” (p. 46) What are some of the moments of beauty that she finds? Describe Grande’s visits back to Iguala. How does the way that Grande sees her hometown evolve when she returns?

3. Grande writes “My biggest virtue and my biggest flaw was the tenacity with which I clung to my dreams, no matter how futile they might seem to others.” (p. 5) Explain her statement. Why does Grande see this quality in herself as both negative and positive? How does this trait serve her? What are some of the dreams that Grande holds on to?

4. After Reyna learns the word “impervious,” she “knew it was a word I wanted to be defined by.” (p. 74) Why does the word appeal to Reyna? Do you think that it is an apt description of her personality? Why or why not? If you could only define yourself with one word, what would you choose? Explain your answer.5. Although “Where are you from?” is an “innocent question,” Grande writes that it “always confused me when asked by a white person.” (p. 11) Why is the question such a charged one for Reyna and other immigrants? When Reyna is asked where she’s from by other Latino students, her reaction is different. Why?

6. Grande writes having “the name Reyna Grande, ‘the big queen,’ when you are only five feet tall sets you up for a lifetime of ridicule.” (p. 29) In what other ways does Reyna’s name affect the way that people perceive her? Describe her reaction to being called “Renée Grand” by one of her teachers at UCSC. What appeal does having an Anglicized name hold for her? Why does she resist it?

7. When Reyna returns to Mexico and visits her family, her young cousin is fascinated with her life in America and asks if she lives in Disneyland. Reyna thinks, “I didn’t live in Disneyland, but I did live in a magical place.” (p. 228) Why does she see America as a magical place despite all of the hardships that she’s encountered since immigrating? Did reading about Reyna’s experience as an immigrant change your perspective about life in the United States?

8. When visiting Betty in Mexico, Reyna wonders “why both Betty and I had an unhealthy need to be loved and wanted by men.” (p. 53) What does she think the root cause for this trait is? How has the sisters’ childhood affected the way they handle themselves as adults? Describe some of the ways that both Betty and Reyna have attempted to cope with their traumatic upbringings.

9. Why does Reyna decide to take a Spanish for Spanish Speakers class? When Reyna confides in Marta, her instructor, about her feelings of inadequacy when visiting Mexico, Marta tells her, “It isn’t that you aren’t enough. In fact, the opposite is true.” (p. 96) What does she mean? Does Marta’s perspective help Reyna to reframe her experience? In what ways?

10. While Reyna is enrolled at UCSC, she takes a summer job as part of the maintenance crew at Kresge College. Ironically, although Reyna “had hoped to forget my father . . .my work on the paint crew brought me closer to him.” (p. 100) Describe the work that Reyna and her crewmates are tasked with. How does this work give Reyna new insight into her father?

11. Seeing Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston speak is a watershed moment for Reyna. She writes that the experience leads her to “fully grasp what a writer did.” (p. 128) Why does Reyna find Wakatsuki’s appearance and her story so empowering? What is the role of the writer according to Reyna? Does she embody this ideal? If so, how?

12. When Reyna is having difficulty finding employment, Norma advises her to apply for a job as a seasonal worker in a clothing store telling her that “a job is a job.” (p. 154) Why is Reyna resistant to apply? What would you do if you were in her position? Why do her siblings give her a hard time about the position?

13. How does Mago react when Reyna tells her that she’s planning on going back to school to take writing classes? Were you surprised by Mago’s reaction? Reyna tells Mago that she’s “doing this for both of us.” (p. 208) Why is it so important for Reyna to go back to school? In what ways does it help her and Nathan?14. Before Reyna begins teaching, she reflects upon her favorite teachers, trying to determine what about their methods she can imitate. What does Reyna admire about Diana, Marta, and Micah? What makes them successful teachers? What did you think of Reyna’s teaching methods? What challenges does she face as a new teacher? Is she able to connect with her students? If so, how?

15. When Reyna mails her application for the Emerging Voices program, Diana says “This is going to change your life” (p. 215). Why do you think Diana was so certain that Reyna would be accepted? Did Reyna have as much belief in her future? Think of an event that changed the course of your life. Did you recognize the importance of the event at the time or only in hindsight? How would your life be different today had this event not occurred?

16. Reyna chooses to turn down the book offer from the editor who wants to make her protagonist U.S.-born. Why was it so important to Reyna to keep her main character an immigrant? Would you have made the same choice? Why or why not? What other difficult choices does Reyna make throughout the memoir? What difficult choices have you made in your life?

17. Grande writes of the moment when she first held her published book. “I had finally built a home that I could carry.” (p. 316) What do you think she means by this? What other “homes” does Reyna build? What does the title A Dream Called Home mean to you?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. When Reyna’s friend Erica introduces her to the work of Frida Kahlo, she feels an immediate connection to the art and sees Kahlo as an “artist who had done what I was trying to do—turn her pain into art.” (p. 115) Explore Kahlo’s paintings with your book club. Do you see any common themes between the paintings and Grande’s prose? Did Kahlo’s paintings elicit any emotions from you? Talk about them with your group.

2. Grande writes that “fiction allowed me to explore my experiences from a distance.” (p. 129). Read some of Grande’s fiction and describe the way that she brings her own life experiences into it. Were there any stories in her books that you recognized from her memoir? Why is writing nonfiction initially too painful for Reyna?

3. After joining the folklórico group, Reyna learns that the medium is not simply to entertain, but rather, it is a “source of pride, a rich cultural tradition.” (p. 116) Watch a performance with your book club and discuss it. What did you think of the performance? How does Reyna’s involvement in the folklórico group help her to better understand her roots? Are there traditions from your culture like folklórico? Share them with one another.

4. To learn more about Reyna Grande, read about her upcoming projects, read reviews, and find out if she will be in a city near you, visit her official site at reynagrande.com.

About The Author

Photograph by Ara Arbabzadeh

Reyna Grande is an award-winning author, motivational speaker, and writing teacher. As a young girl, she crossed the US–Mexico border to join her family in Los Angeles, a harrowing journey chronicled in The Distance Between Us, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her other books include the novels A Ballad of Love and GloryAcross a Hundred Mountains, and Dancing with Butterflies, the memoirs The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition, and Dream Called Home, and the anthology Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on MigrationSurvival, and New Beginnings. She lives in Woodland, California, with her husband and two children. Visit ReynaGrande.com for more information.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Washington Square Press (July 2, 2019)
  • Length: 336 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781501171437

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Raves and Reviews

“Grande (The Distance Between Us) writes with strength and passion of her life’s journey….This uplifting story of fortitude and resilience looks deeply into the complexities of immigration and one woman’s struggle to adapt and thrive in America.”

– Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Candid and emotionally complex, Grande's book celebrates one woman's tenacity in the face of hardship and heartbreak while offering hope to other immigrants as they "fight to remain" and make their voices heard in a changing America. A heartfelt, inspiring, and relevant memoir."

– Kirkus Reviews

"Reyna Grande’s A Dream Called Home is a moving memoir about building a family, becoming a writer, and redefining America. Writers in need of inspiration should read this book."

– Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of The Sympathizer

"Reyna Grande is a fearless writer and a tireless warrior for the unrepresented and silenced. Her power is growing with every book."

– Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Devil's Highway

"Reyna Grande’s march towards her brilliant career astonishes me. She makes seemingly-disastrous choices, but bobs and floats through as buoyant as cork. Her mistakes are familiar, but her recovery is unique. Here is a life story so unbelievable, it could only be true."

– Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

“Grande's engaging and frank narrative flows painlessly, leaving no stones unturned…She carries off these scenes and the accompanying interior dialogues with humor and panache.”

– Booklist

"When the spark of a fierce intelligence touches a soul deep and true, an entire world is born. Writers like Reyna Grande give us more than a story, more than a book, more than just a slice of their experience or their imagination; they give us a world in which to dwell, a place we can always return to when we need to make sense of the chaos that surrounds us. A Dream Called Home is such a place."

– Valeria Luiselli, award-winning author of Tell Me How It Ends

"A Dream Called Home is a deeply moving, beautifully written portrait of a young woman's journey to her own best life against the odds. Reyna Grande is a national treasure; her vision is not only singular, but essential to our contemporary culture. This is a beacon of a book."

– Carolina De Robertis, award-winning author of The Gods of Tango

Praise for The Distance Between Us

“In this poignant memoir about her childhood in Mexico, Reyna Grande skillfully depicts another side of the immigrant experience—the hardships and heartbreaks of the children who are left behind. Through her brutally honest firsthand account of growing up in Mexico without her parents, Grande sheds light on the often overlooked consequence of immigration—the disintegration of a family.”

– Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of Enrique's Journey

Grande captivates and inspires in her memoir. She deftly evokes the searing sense of heartache and confusion. Tracing the complex and tattered relationships binding the family together, especially the bond she shared with her older sister, the author intimately probes her family’s history for clues to its disintegration. Recounting her story without self-pity, she gracefully chronicles the painful results of a family shattered by repeated separations and traumas.

– Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A brutally honest book…akin to being the Angela’s Ashes of the modern Mexican immigrant experience.”

– LA Times

“Reyna Grande is a fierce, smart, shimmering light of a writer with an important story to tell.”

– Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of Wild

“I’ve been waiting for this book for decades. The American story of the new millennium is the story of the Latino immigrant, yet how often has the story been told by the immigrant herself? What makes Grande’s beautiful memoir all the more extraordinary is that, through this hero’s journey, she speaks for millions of immigrants whose voices have gone unheard.”

– Sandra Cisneros, bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

“Grande consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“The poignant yet triumphant tale Grande tells of her childhood and eventual illegal immigration puts a face on issues that stir vehement debate.”

– Booklist

“Powerful, harrowing.”

– San Antonio Express News

“Eloquent, honest storytelling. This book would be fabulous required reading for college freshmen or, even better, for freshman members of Congress,”

– Washington Independent Review of Books

“An important piece of America’s immigrant history.”

– BookPage

“Grande never flinches in describing her surroundings and feelings, while her resilience and ability to empathize allow her to look back with a compassion that makes this story one that everyone should read.”

– School Library Journal

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