With each page, the reader travels through a variety of physical and psychological landscapes becoming a witness to different stages of the author's life. Grande's writing is clean, vivid, poetic, and at times, overwhelmingly honest. In this sense, the crossing to the other side, "el otro lado" as Grande's family calls the United States, is an ever present wound reminding them of what was lost, but also what could be gained on the other side where reinvention was not only possible but essential to survival. But each one of them, Reyna, Mago, Carlos, and Betty, share a common pursuit: to find love, affection, and the home they wished for but had been foreign to them. Unlike her siblings, the author was eager to become a published writer, and motherhood, at first, seemed to be a significant impediment to that endeavor. So when Grande's younger sister decides to become a teenage-mother, in spite of the author's efforts to keep her invested in school, and when her other siblings refuse to follow the path of education that their father had instilled in them, Grande realizes that their dreams did not quite match.
To a certain extent, a Dream Called Home is about learning that all immigrants must find their own craft to shape their lives and futures in order to achieve their own dreams, whichever these may be. All immigrants may be artists, but not all immigrants' chosen medium is the written word, as is the case with Grande. The book opens with a quote by Patricia Engels, "All immigrants are artists because they create a life, a future, from nothing but a dream." With this statement, Grande hints at the journey that will unravel throughout the following pages. A Dream Called Home is essentially a testimony to the rites of passage endured by Grande and so many like her, who dare to dream, to reinvent themselves, and to challenge the dominant narrative.
Grande's memoir reveals the heartbreak of being left at the mercy of her cold-hearted grandmother when her parents crossed the US Mexican border, the repercussions that migration had on the family structure, and the coming to terms with a history of family abuse and trauma. Reyna Grande's memoir, A Dream Called Home, published by Atria Books in 2018, is a story of overcoming and becoming, or of when thriving becomes more important than just surviving. 2019 Vanderbilt University, Department of Spanish and Portuguese 04 May. MLA style: "A Dream Called Home." The Free Library.
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