A Dream Called Home

by Reyna Grande

  When her body had been lowered into the ground, we threw handfuls of dirt over her coffin and said goodbye. I looked at my aunt, uncles, and ten cousins, ranging from babies to teenagers. My little cousin Diana came to stand by me. She was fascinated by me, the cousin who lived in America.

  “¿Vives en Disneyland?” she asked me as she grabbed my hand.

  I smiled at her, not sure how to answer her question. I didn’t live in Disneyland, but I did live in a magical place. I was reminded once again of the privilege of living in the U.S. Though it wasn’t perfect, it was a place that allowed me to thrive. It was a place of opportunity, abundance, possibility, and dreams. Living there allowed me to have what I could never have had in Mexico—a college education, a well-paying job, my own house, my writing.

  I wondered what life had in store for this sweet little girl. How could I teach little Diana to dream of a bright future here in Iguala where nightmares abounded? What could I do for my transnational family to support and encourage them across the borders and mountains between us?

  There, at my grandmother’s grave, I promised her that I would do what I hadn’t done while she was alive. I would look out for the family she was leaving behind, especially her grandchildren. “This time, I promise I won’t forget,” I said. “Rest in peace, my beloved abuelita.”

  Years later, when I would send my cousin Lupe to college, Diana to beauty school, and their brother Rolando to university, I would fulfill my promise.

  Mother and Tío Gary at Abuelita Chinta’s grave

  30

  WHILE I WAITED to hear from Emerging Voices, I continued to work on my teacher credentialing classes. They were intense because a semester’s worth of work and lectures were crammed into each month. The accelerated program was demanding, but in a year, I could say goodbye to my job at the middle school and transfer to adult school, as Diana had suggested.

  Then, the Emerging Voices coordinator finally called. I had made it to the top 25 finalists. I was invited to go in for an interview. From there, eight applicants would be named the 2003 Emerging Voices Fellows.

  I lit a candle next to my grandmother’s photograph on my dresser and begged her to look out for me.

  “Pray for me so that I get this, Abuelita,” I said. “It could change my life!”

  The following Saturday, I dropped off Nathan at the sitter’s and drove over to the PEN office. There, I was introduced to the interview panel, which included the Emerging Voices coordinator and the PEN executive director. It was the longest twenty minutes of my life, sitting in that small office facing those five judges as they fired question after question at me, questions about my life, my work, why I wanted to be a fellow, how I could contribute to the program.

  “Why should we choose you?” they asked bluntly.

  “How will your responsibilities affect your participation and commitment to the program?”

  “Why do you want to be a published writer?”

  My knees quivering and my stomach clenching, I sat frozen in the chair. I swallowed my fear and answered their questions as honestly and passionately as I could.

  “Of the books I’ve read about the immigrant experience, not one has been written by an immigrant herself, as if we were voiceless,” I said. “As an immigrant, I have a voice and I want to be heard. This is what Emerging Voices stands for, isn’t it? To give aspiring writers a chance to be heard and open the door for us to tell our own stories? Immigrants deserve a place in American literature because our experiences in the U.S. reflect the American experience,” I continued. “If you accept me in the program, this is what I will fight for—inclusion and diversity.”

  Throughout the interview, I was composed and my smile never wavered. Ever since I was a little girl I would drive my father crazy because I smile when I’m nervous. Whenever he would yell at me, I would have a wide smile on my face, which made my father think I was mocking him. He would hit me even harder. I always hated this tic of mine because I couldn’t control it. This time, though, it saved me. It wouldn’t have done me any good to look terrified.

  Finally, the executive director said, “Thank you for coming. We’ll let you know of our decision next week.” And with that, I was ushered out of the office.

  In a daze, I walked past the other interviewees waiting their turn in the lobby with frightened looks on their faces. I was glad it was over for me. I had done the best I could. It was now up to the judges to decide my fate. I told myself that even if I didn’t get in, I would still do whatever it took to fight for my dream. The weekend workshop I had taken with María Amparo had been enough to jump-start my writing. With or without Emerging Voices, I would finish my novel and pursue publication. I would write about the immigrant experience in a way that showed our humanity, that told the world we weren’t numbers or statistics, but human beings, and that our stories deserved to be told. Still, the road would be so much easier with the support and guidance of this program.

  As a Latina writer I knew what I was up against. I had read about the struggles that my literary heroes had gone through to get their works published. Chicana writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, Denise Chávez, Gloria Anzaldúa, and all the rest had had to fight not just for racial equality but for gender equality. At a time when male Chicano writers were finding some opportunities with big and small publishers, Chicana writers had to start their own presses because no one wanted to take a chance on them and publish their work. These Chicanas didn’t wallow in self-pity; they fought—and won. Several of them went on to get picked up by mainstream publishers. It wouldn’t be any easier for me; I knew that. Even though my Chicana godmothers had macheted their way into the publishing world and had blessed me with a path to follow, in the end we all had to go on our individual journeys alone. I had to find my own way and prove my own literary worth.

  When I returned home from my interview, I was ready to pray for miracles. Throughout the week, I lit candles for Abuelita Chinta and I asked her to intervene on my behalf. She had spent all her life being a devout Catholic, so I figured she had earned some Brownie points with God. Surely, she had the power to put in a good word for her granddaughter, even if her granddaughter was now a nonbeliever and a cynic and was praying only in her hour of need.

  Whether it was my grandmother’s help, a little luck, the potential the judges had seen in me, or all of the above, I got a call the following week from the EV coordinator. “Hi, Reyna. It’s my pleasure to inform you that you have been selected as a fellow in the Emerging Voices Fellowship program. Congratulations!”

  My knees felt weak. I didn’t have the energy to walk to the couch, so I just let myself drop onto the floor. “I feel that I’m dreaming. Are you there? Is it real?”

  Her voice was firm and clear through the receiver. “It’s real. We’re really looking forward to having you in the program.”

  After we hung up, I picked up Nathan and danced around the living room with him. “We’re going on this journey together!” I told him. I was one step closer to my dream of being a published writer. I was elated and proud knowing that what I did now would have a positive impact on my son. I was going to help him with his dreams by first honoring mine.

  Despite the challenges I was facing being a single mom, the journey to Emerging Voices had turned out to be magical. All the pieces fell together as soon as I made the decision to fight for my writing. For the first time, I didn’t feel lost anymore. I had a new direction and had been welcomed into a community of writers. For the first time, I felt there was a place for me in Los Angeles, especially in the literary community I hadn’t even known existed.

  In January, the 2003 Emerging Voices program began with a beautiful welcome reception at Taix, a French restaurant in Echo Park. I met the seven other fellows in the program and felt proud to be part of such a diverse cohort: There was Ibarionex, a short-story writer from the Dominican Republic; Rocío, a Chicana poet and novelist from Boyle Heights; Adelina, a Tejana poet and per
forming artist; Colleen, a Japanese poet; Pireeni, a poet from Sri Lanka; Nora, a Native American novelist; Kisha, a writer of Honduran descent. This was the diversity I had hoped to find in my writing classes in Santa Cruz.

  Though we were all around the same age and had many things in common, what differentiated me from the other fellows was that I was the only parent in the group, and not just a parent, but a single mother, which added another challenge to meeting my responsibilities in the program. But I told myself that if the committee had chosen me knowing full well I was a single mother, then they believed I could do it, and so I had to honor their trust in me.

  I chose María Amparo as my mentor and met with her once a month to discuss my novel-in-progress. She lived in a gorgeous house near UCLA, the kind of house Betty and I had once dreamed about.

  “Reyna, I had a feeling you and I were going to work together again,” she said when I arrived at her house for our very first meeting. “You don’t know how thrilled I am to be part of your writer’s journey.”

  This was my first time at a writer’s house, and I was nervous and overwhelmed, but María Amparo’s generosity put me at ease. “Gracias, María. I can’t tell you how much this means to me, being welcomed here in your home.”

  Later, María Amparo would tell me that what had struck her the most when she first met me was how driven and how determined I was to finish my novel. She marveled at the resilience of a disadvantaged young girl from Iguala, Guerrero. She said that the more she got to know me, the more she got to know herself—realizing how easy she’d had it growing up in a well-to-do family. Learning my story taught her to appreciate the advantages she had grown up with. She said, “You mentored me as well.”

  On Sundays, the fellows met to discuss our work and the books we were assigned to read as a group. On Monday evenings, we met with working professionals—writers, agents, editors—for Q&As about the writing profession. Finally, in this program, I was getting not just the lessons on craft but also the much-needed lessons on the business of writing. Sometimes the Q&As would be hosted at a writer’s home, and I would get to see more beautiful houses—like the poet’s house on the beach where I could see the glittery water from the huge window in the living room and wonder, as I had done in Santa Cruz, how many words it would take for me to build my dream house.

  I presented my work for the first time in the city I had lived in for fifteen years when the EV fellows were invited to read at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, one of the biggest festivals in the country. I was astounded to find out that one hundred thousand book lovers came out for the weekend to celebrate literature. Though I had lived in L.A. since I was nine, I had never heard of the book festival, and in fact had never been to a book festival before. A gathering of thousands to celebrate books. I thought I was in Heaven. After reading an excerpt of the novel I was working on, Across a Hundred Mountains, I was approached by an editor from Children’s Book Press, asking me if I wrote for kids. I told her the novel she had heard me read from was for adults, though it had a young protagonist.

  “You have captured the child’s voice so beautifully,” she said to me. “I hope you write a picture book one day.”

  I hoped I would, too. For now, though, I had to stay focused on my novel, but the editor’s praise had given me a glimmer of hope that one day I would find another editor who would be moved by my story the way this editor had been. She had seen something in my writing, and her praise encouraged me to keep going.

  After our meetings and Q&As, I would drive through the dark streets of South Central to pick up Nathan from the babysitter, who lived ten minutes from me. As usual, I tried not to look at the homeless people camped out on the streets, or the prostitutes loitering outside cheap motels, the trash heaps along the curbs that even the darkness couldn’t hide. I didn’t dwell on the world outside of my car. I was too exhausted, and I wanted to stay focused on what I was accomplishing.

  One day, Nathan reached for the babysitter, turned away from me, and cried when I took him home. In the car, I cried along with him. Was my son’s love the price I would have to pay for my dream? I would lie awake at night thinking about what a fool I had been to believe that having a baby was going to help me feel grounded, rooted, confident. In fact, the opposite was true. I felt incompetent and overwhelmed with the incredibly demanding responsibility of taking care of another human being. Nathan was completely 100 percent dependent on me, and if I didn’t do things right, and make the right choices, the consequences would be disastrous.

  I’m doing this for both of us, I reminded myself. I stayed in the EV program and pushed past my guilt and insecurities. The last public reading we did was at the beautiful Central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, which I had also never been to before. As I read from my novel on the stage of the Mark Taper Auditorium, feeling devastated that the program had come to an end, I wish I had known that eleven years later I would be sharing this very stage with my literary hero, Sandra Cisneros. If I had known what the future held for me, maybe I wouldn’t have been so afraid of having to wake up from my beautiful EV dream and return to the harsh reality that from that point forward I would have to persevere on my own.

  Our very last guest speaker was Jenoyne Adams, writer, literary agent, and former EV fellow. Jenoyne was there to give us advice on how to find an agent, how to pitch our work, how to write a query letter—all the aspects of the business of writing. But the thing that stuck with me the most was when she said, “Make sure that whenever you’re in the room with an agent, you introduce yourself.”

  So when Jenoyne finished her talk, I waited until all the fellows had spoken to her and gathered every ounce of courage I could muster to emerge from the corner. I pushed away my timidity and walked up to her.

  “Thank you for your advice,” I said. “I really appreciated everything you had to say.” Then I forced myself to say what I really wanted to say. “I just finished a draft under my mentor’s guidance, but the story isn’t where it needs to be yet. I plan to revise the entire thing this summer. I want to keep my momentum going even after EV is over, you know?” She waited patiently while I blurted out what was on my mind. “May I send you my novel when I’m done with my revisions?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, smiling. “I’ll be waiting.”

  I was sure she had said that to all the fellows, but those words—I’ll be waiting—sustained me after the Emerging Voices program came to an end.

  Reyna reading for Emerging Voices at the Los Angeles Public Library

  31

  Reyna hard at work on Across a Hundred Mountains

  AS IF IN a trance, I wrote and rewrote through July and August. Since I was teaching B track, I had to work summers and would come home from work exhausted from teaching, exhausted from my credentialing classes and the homework I needed to do. I would grade student homework and spend the evening with Nathan, who at eighteen months was getting into everything and had a limitless amount of energy. But when evening came and Nathan was in his bed asleep, I would spend the night working on my novel, the vessel that I poured my heart and soul into.

  Hunched over my computer, I was transported back to Mexico, back to my hometown with its green mountains and cornfields, its shacks of sticks and dirt roads. At UCSC I had set out to write a memoir, which then became an autobiographical novel. But now, under María Amparo’s guidance, it had become something different, a novel that was no longer based on the life I had lived, but rather on the life I might have lived.

  What would have become of my life if my father had never returned?

  I had asked myself that question again and again. The novel I was writing became an exploration of that fear. The story I wrote was about a father who never returns. I rewrote the entire novel in those two months, and I felt as if I were possessed. My character, whom I named Juana, after my mother, was relentless. She wanted me to tell her story. Sometimes I felt as if she were next to me, telling me what to write. The death of her b
aby sister during a flood is a tragic event that leads to the disintegration of Juana’s family. Her father leaves for the U.S. to earn money to build his family a house but in the end destroys his home. When he disappears and is never heard from again, Juana’s mother succumbs to alcoholism, her baby brother is stolen by the town’s money lender, and Juana has no choice but to head north to search for her father, hoping one day to put her family back together and rebuild her home.

  But the pieces weren’t fitting together well. There was something missing in the story, and my friend Rosa helped me find it. She was the mother of a former student, and I had become good friends with her and her husband. They lived ten minutes from me, and I often visited them. They were two of the kindest people I knew. In them I saw what my own family could have been if we had done a better job overcoming the distance between us. Though the father had migrated first, and then the mother and children, they had managed to create a home again. They were a close-knit family who, though of limited means, had an abundance of love.

  One day while I was visiting, I was talking to Rosa about her job and her frustration and fear of being undocumented in this country. She had to use a borrowed Social Security number to work. At home she was Rosa, but at work she became Gladys. Every day she had to change identities.

  “It does something to you, Reyna,” she said. “It messes with your head. You ask yourself, which is the real you? Or are there two sides to you, the one they see and the one they don’t?”

  “Like the moon,” I said. “It has two sides, but we only see one.”

  We sat outside on the steps of her house, hidden in darkness. The moon was not in our field of vision, but I didn’t need to look at it to ponder the metaphor and how it applied to immigrants. The duality, the light and dark, the two faces of the moon. I thought about how, upon our border crossing, we take on new identities in subtle ways, and other times in drastic ways—like using a borrowed identity to work or having to lose one of our last names so that we can fit in. Hadn’t I gone from being Reyna Grande Rodríguez in Mexico to simply Reyna Grande in the U.S.? Hadn’t my sister gone from being Magloria to Maggie? Hadn’t Gibran Khalil Gibran gone through a forced identity change when he had immigrated to the U.S. as well?