The Distance Between Us

Book 1, Prologue-Chapter 5

Reading Check

1. The United States of America (Book 1, Prologue)

2. Reyna’s father (Book 1, Chapter 1)

3. Soaking their heads in kerosene (Book 1, Chapter 3)

4. Their parents are expecting another child. (Book 1, Chapter 4)

5. She visits to celebrate Elida’s quinceañera. (Book 1, Chapter 5)

Short Answer

1. She idealizes him because he is a hero for the family who works hard to fulfill his dream of getting rich in America. At the same time, she resents him and his dream because it has separated the family by a significant distance. (Book 1, Chapters 1-2)

2. Evila is cruel to the Grande children. She plays favorites with her children and grandchildren. She is cheap, manipulative, and greedy, often keeping the money the children’s parents send to spend on herself and her favorite grandchild, Elida. (Book 1, throughout)

Book 1, Chapters 6-10

Reading Check

1. Left-handedness and eating food that has fallen on the ground (Book 1, Chapter 6)

2. They receive clothing and shoes that are too small, including dresses for the girls, jeans, and a shirt for Carlos. (Book 1, Chapter 7)

3. Rubbing alcohol and onions applied to the bite and eating a raw egg (Book 1, Chapter 9)

4. To Abuelita Chinta’s house (their maternal grandmother) (Book 1, Chapter 10)

5. Their father has left her for another woman. (Book 1, Chapter 10)

Short Answer

1. They hope that if they help work on the house, it will be finished faster and make their parents come home sooner. (Book 1, Chapter 8)

2. They resent their mother for leaving them. They feel like Elizabeth is their American replacement sister. (Book 1, Chapter 10)

Book 1, Chapters 11-15

Reading Check

1. Selling snacks, gum, and cigarettes outside a banquet hall at a country club. She takes the children with her to gain pity from the patrons. (Book 1, Chapter 11)

2. Their mother has a boyfriend. (Book 1, Chapter 12)

3. She drowns in the river. (Book 1, Chapter 14)

4. To pay for a flag bearer’s uniform for school and to help pay for Betty’s burn medicine/treatments (Book 1, Chapter 15)

Short Answer

1. It’s like being abandoned all over again. The children became more defensive and emotionally attached to their mother after discovering their father mistreated her. They longed for her return, but instead, they found themselves rejected and abandoned again. (Book 1, Chapters 12-13)

2. Tío Crece has schizophrenia, which makes him act erratically. He also tries to sexually assault Reyna. Tío Crece does odd jobs, allowing Carlos to follow him and skip school. (Book 1, Chapter 13)

3. Mago is their “little mother.” To have her leave them would have been devastating, like losing their mother all over again. (Book 1, Chapter 15)

Book 1, Chapters 16-20

Reading Check

1. She and the wrestler boyfriend get into a car accident, and he dies. (Book 1, Chapter 16)

2. The way that they speak indicates that they lack formal education. (Book 1, Chapter 17)

3. Their mother comes to Christmas as expected; however, she brings a new young boyfriend, who is not expected. (Book 1, Chapter 18)

4. He doesn’t plan to live in the house he built. Instead, he plans to return to America with his wife, Mila. (Book 1, Chapter 19)

5. About 2000 miles (Book 1, Chapter 20)

Short Answer

1. She moves to shorten her commute to work. (Book 1, Chapter 17)

2. The children’s father has to cover the food and hotels for them to stay in while they wait for the right time. They must also pay one smuggler in Mexico and one in the United States to take them across the border and then to Los Angeles. It also adds up because they attempt the crossing three times. (Book 1, Chapter 20)

Book 2, Prologue-Chapter 4

Reading Check

1. She holds his hand. (Book 2, Prologue)

2. They arrive in midsummer while school is out. (Book 2, Chapter 1)

3. It reminds her of the horror of roundworms. (Book 2, Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. Their father is physically abusive. He never apologizes for the hurt that it causes the children. (Book 2, Chapter 2 and throughout)

2. She feels like she has already lost her mother in many ways. Having to erase her mother from her name creates even more of a loss, exacerbates the pain of their distance, and aggravates a crisis of identity. (Book 2, Chapter 1)

Book 2, Chapters 5-9

Reading Check

1. They steal a can of hair spray and a tin of hair polish from a corner store. (Book 2, Chapter 5)

2. Mago uses it the day she starts her period. (Book 2, Chapter 6)

3. Her father gently removes the nits from her scalp and treats her kindly. (Book 2, Chapter 7)

4. They go to Sunday mass. (Book 2, Chapter 8)

Short Answer

1. Mago usually expresses her frustration and pain through cruel violence. The girl comes to their house wanting to fight but does not know that Mago has a lot of rage to release that day. (Book 2, Chapter 8)

Book 2, Chapters 10-14

Reading Check

1. In music. She learns to play the saxophone. (Book 2, Chapter 11)

2. Her father isn’t proud of her and refuses to take her aboard the Queen Mary. She is also disappointed to learn that the Queen Mary is a permanently docked cruise ship. (Book 2, Chapter 13)

Short Answer

1. After losing the house he has worked so hard to build in Mexico, he becomes disenchanted. (Book 2, Chapter 12)

2. No, it does not turn out better. Reyna loses her best friend and crush for different reasons. Her best friend stops being friends with her because she has a crush on Luis first. After Reyna’s first kiss with Luis, she gets into an argument with her father, which ends with him dragging her down the street by her hair. Luis sees the incident, and the next day, he ignores Reyna at school. (Book 2, Chapter 14)

Book 2, Chapters 15-19

Reading Check

1. Reyna’s big sister Mago, with their mother’s help (Book 2, Chapter 16)

2. She gets to march in the 1992 Rose Parade. (Book 2, Chapter 17)

3. He finishes his first year of college and is the first person in the family to do so. (Book 2, Chapter 18)

4. He marries his girlfriend, becomes a father, and must take on two jobs. (Book 2, Chapter 18)

Short Answer

1. Contrast helps the author illustrate how she sees her father’s point of view and how lucky and grateful she feels to have been brought to El Otro Lado, despite the loss of connections to family and heritage. It also underscores previous points of fear of the ways her life could have turned out worse in Mexico. (Book 2, Chapters 18-19)

Book 2, Chapters 20-Epilogue

Reading Check

1. UCLA (Book 2, Chapter 20)

2. Her father refuses to sign the admissions paperwork. (Book 2, Chapter 20)

3. Her community college English professor Diana Savas (Book 2, Chapter 22)

4. Reyna feels seen and understood in the struggles that she’s had in her life between Mexico and America. (Book 2, Chapter 22)

5. She never wants to see Reyna, Carlos, or Mago again. (Book 2, Chapter 23)

6. UC Santa Cruz (Book 2, Chapter 24)

Short Answer

1. She realizes she is not alone in having her family torn apart by dreams of El Otro Lado, which cause parents to leave children behind in search of a better life for all. She feels deeply about the emotional toll that decision takes on families like hers, which likely inspired her to tell her own story and write this memoir. (Book 2, Epilogue)