This is a Mexican immigrant’s memoir. Half the book is of her life in Mexico; in a riveting narrative style, Grande describes how her father was a photograph. She tells the horror of being forced to shave her head because of chronic lice, her mother sending clothes from the U.S.A. always two sizes too small. She tells of how her and her siblings’ bellies distended from hunger and malnutrition, the consistent memory of eating green papaya and running to the ditch to extricate all of her intestinal worms, her poor education, and non-existent opportunities with the depreciation of the peso.

Grande’s story is also the story of family and understanding. Her older sister took the place of their parents in raising and loving her and her brother. This book was published in 2012; this memoir is a narrative of modern poverty.

The desperation and tragedy of Grande’s childhood in Mexico was an interesting backdrop for her adolescence in the U.S.A. Being an illegal immigrant kept her in poverty and abusive homes. I am dreadfully underqualified to write about the complexities and effects of culture, political pressure, language discrepancies, family dysfunction, and political, geographic, and personal borders on individuals, families, and communities. So I will stop here.

I am grateful for Reyna Grande’s courage and perseverance; I’m grateful she shares her story through writing – putting a human life within the words: immigrant, Mexican, illegal.