""Wide-ranging yet consistently affecting, these pieces offer a crucial and inspired survey of the immigrant experience in America."" –Publishers Weekly "[These contributions] touch on so many different facets of the immigrant experience that readers will find much to ponder... [and] experience how creative writing enriches our understanding of each other and our lives." –Booklist Introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen A unique collection of 41 groundbreaking essays, poems, and artwork by migrants, refugees and Dreamers—including award-winning writers, artists, and activists—that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today. In the overheated debate about immigration, we often lose sight of the humanity at the heart of this complex issue. The immigrants and refugees living precariously in the United States are mothers and fathers, children, neighbors, and friends. Individuals propelled by hope and fear, they gamble their lives on the promise of America, yet their voices are rarely heard. This anthology of essays, poetry, and art seeks to shift the immigration debate—now shaped by rancorous stereotypes and xenophobia—towards one rooted in humanity and justice. Through their storytelling and art, the contributors to this thought-provoking book remind us that they are human still. Transcending their current immigration status, they offer nuanced portraits of their existence before and after migration, the factors behind their choices, the pain of leaving their homeland and beginning anew in a strange country, and their collective hunger for a future not defined by borders. Created entirely by undocumented or formerly undocumented migrants, Somewhere We Are Human is a journey of memory and yearning from people newly arrived to America, those who have been here for decades, and those who have ultimately chosen to leave or were deported. Touching on themes of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, politics, and parenthood, Somewhere We Are Human reveals how joy, hope, mourning, and perseverance can take root in the toughest soil and bloom in the harshest conditions.

In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border. Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this "compelling...unvarnished, resonant" (BookPage) story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries. As her parents make the dangerous trek across the Mexican border to "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced into the already overburdened household of their stern grandmother. When their mother at last returns, Reyna prepares for her own journey to "El Otro Lado" to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father. Funny, heartbreaking, and lyrical, The Distance Between Us poignantly captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood, reminding us that the joys and sorrows we experience are imprinted on the heart forever, calling out to us of those places we first called home. Also available in Spanish as La distancia entre nosotros.

In Dancing with Butterflies, Reyna Grande renders the Mexican immigrant experience in "lyrical and sensual" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) prose through the poignant stories of four women brought together through folklorico dance.Dancing with Butterflies uses the alternating voices of four very different women whose lives interconnect through a common passion for their Mexican heritage and a dance company called Alegria. Yesenia, who founded Alegria with her husband, Eduardo, sabotages her own efforts to remain a vital, vibrant woman when she travels back and forth across the Mexican border for cheap plastic surgery. Elena, grief-stricken by the death of her only child and the end of her marriage, finds herself falling dangerously in love with one of her underage students. Elena's sister, Adriana, wears the wounds of abandonment by a dysfunctional family and becomes unable to discern love from abuse. Soledad, the sweet-tempered illegal immigrant who designs costumes for Alegria, finds herself stuck back in Mexico, where she returns to see her dying grandmother. Reyna Grande has brought these fictional characters so convincingly to life that readers will imagine they know them.

"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.

Winner of the American Book Award, Across a Hundred Mountains is a "timely and riveting" (People) novel about a young girl who leaves her small town in Mexico to find her father, who left his family to work in America--a story of migration, loss, and discovery.After a tragedy separates her from her mother, Juana Garcia leaves in search of her father, who left them two years earlier. Out of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves--in a Tijuana jail--in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways. In Across a Hundred Mountains, Reyna Grande puts a human face on the controversial issue of immigration, helping readers to better understand "the desperation of illegal immigrants and the families they leave behind" (Entertainment Weekly) in pursuit of a better life.

Award-winning author Reyna Grande shares her personal experience of crossing borders and cultures in this middle grade adaptation of her memoir, The Distance Between Us--"an important account of the many ways immigration impacts children" (Booklist, starred review). When her parents make the dangerous and illegal trek across the Mexican border in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced to live with their stern grandmother, as they wait for their parents to build the foundation of a new life. But when things don't go quite as planned, Reyna finds herself preparing for her own journey to "El Otro Lado" to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years: her long-absent father. Both funny and heartbreaking, The Distance Between Us sheds light on the immigrant experience beautifully capturing the struggle that Reyna and her siblings endured while trying to assimilate to a different culture, language, and family life in El Otro Lado (The Other Side).

From the award-winning author of "Across a Hundred Mountains."
Cuando el padre de Reyna Grande deja a su esposa y sus tres hijos atras en un pueblo de Mexico para hacer el peligroso viaje a traves de la frontera a los Estados Unidos, promete que pronto regresara con el dinero suficiente para construir la casa de sus suenos. Sus promesas se vuelven mas dificiles de creer cuando los meses de espera se convierten en anos. Cuando se lleva a su esposa para reunirse con el, Reyna y sus hermanos son depositados en el hogar ya sobrecargado de su abuela paterna, Evila, una mujer endurecida por la vida.
Los tres hermanos se ven obligados a cuidar de si mismos. En los juegos infantiles encuentran una manera de olvidar el dolor del abandono y a resolver problemas de adultos. Cuando su madre regresa, la reunion sienta las bases para un capitulo nuevo y dramatico en la vida de Reyna: su propio viaje a "El otro lado "para vivir con el hombre que ha poseido su imaginacion durante anos-- su padre ausente.
En esta memoria extraordinaria, la galardonada escritora Reyna Grande le da vida a sus anos tumultuosos, capturando la confusion y las contradicciones de una infancia divida entre dos padres y dos paises. Solo en los libros, en la musica y en su rica imaginacion ella encontrara consuelo, un refugio momentaneo de un mundo en el que cada lugar se siente como "El otro lado." "La distancia entre nosotros "capta el paso de una nina de la infancia a la adolescencia y mas alla. Una divertida, lirica, pero desgarradora historia, nos recuerda que las alegrias y las tristezas de la infancia estan siempre con nosotros, impresas en el corazon, recordandonos de ese lugar que fue nuestro primer hogar.

"A trave s de cien montan as" es un relato asombroso y conmovedor de migracio n, pe rdida y hallazgo; de co mo dos mujeres -- una nacida en Me xico y la otra en los Estados Unidos -- encuentran que sus vidas coinciden de la manera ma s improbable.

Luego de una tragedia que la separa de su madre, Juana Garci a abandona su pueblo en Me xico para encontrar a su padre que habi a dejado casa y familia dos an os antes para buscar trabajo en los Estados Unidos.

Sin dinero y necesitada de que alguien la ayudara a cruzar la frontera, Juana conoce a Adelina Va squez, una joven que dejo a su familia en California para seguir a su amante a Me xico. Al encontrarse en circunstancias desesperadas -- en una ca rcel de Tijuana -- se ofrecen mutua ayuda y sus vidas terminan entrelazadas de la manera ma s inesperada.

El feno meno de la migracio n mexicana a los Estados Unidos es uno de los problemas ma s controvertidos de nuestro tiempo. Si bien se debaten con frecuencia sus implicaciones poli ticas y econo micas, Grande, en esta obra brillante, logra ponerle un rostro humano al tema. Quie nes son los hombres, mujeres y nin os cuya existencia se ve afectada por las fuerzas que impulsan a tantos a arriesgar la vida y cruzar la frontera en busca de un mundo mejor?

Siga su trayectoria "A trave s de cien montan as" y comprue belo.