In terms of characteristics, Reyna Grande’s memoir The Distance Between Us and Francisco Cantu’s The Line Becomes a River demonstrates the continuous significance of the Latinx, Xicanx testimonio on present-day life writing by Mexican immigrants coming to the United States from the Southern hemisphere, to influence social change by articulating a political critique of mainstream America.
Regarding Reyna Grande’s memoir The Distance Between Us a majority of the women who migrate and cross borders are mothers who leave their children behind in the hope of providing a better, sustainable future for them or instead the mothers take their children with them along the journey fraught with danger, putting both mothers and children at a disadvantage and greater risk of deportation by Border Patrol, sexual violence, trauma and worse yet, death. Xicanx, Latinx memoirs, possibly more than any other genre in Xicanx and Latinx writing, accentuate the dilemma and adaptability of immigrant mothers and their children in inspiring, influential, and innovative ways.
Over the past few years, memoirs, autobiographical narratives, novels, feature films, and documentaries have seen a rapid increase which address the dilemma of migrating mothers and their children, who are either left at times in the care of apathetic relatives or tag along with their mothers on the dangerous journey, knowing they might not be able to return to Mexico. Reyna Grande’s memoir The Distance Between Us draws heavily on the emotional aspect which calls attention to the reputedly sturdy bond between mothers who left for the other side and their children who were left behind in Mexico.
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Memoirs depict a more meaningful picture and draw focus to how the often-frightening turbulent experience of migration and the many years of separation have critically damaged the family relationship. Memoirs don’t just focus on first-hand narratives of migration, they also oppose stereotypical and emotional notions of motherhood. Focusing on the strength of migrants, accentuating the power and restraints of memory in reshaping family in the United States, and renounce a simplistic situation of immigration with gaining social flexibility.
Reyna Grande’s The Distance Between Us: A Memoir is a perfect example of the political and social power of the Xicanx and Latinx memoir as a feminist recreation and literary growth of life writing that serves as a stern analysis of neo-colonial routines in Mexico and the United States, which are primary reasons for immigration from Mexico and Central America to the North hemisphere. Life writing is when a novel or narrative is told in the first person, which is for the most part written or portrayed to the public by an individual who has observed a harrowing event.
The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu is memoir, and reportage all based on Cantú’s individual circumstance with the Border Patrol. Inspirational and credible, the memoir shows the eerie human prospect of the border and the chronicled timeline that brings the reader to the current moment in time. The memoir is not focused on the discussion of race as more of investigating how the populace talks about border as a society and as a nation.
The attributes of those which the border is hyper-present in their lives, and for whom the border will consistently have a grasp on their lives. If society is to have any consequential conversation about immigration reform, and border policy, it must start from a place that understands this as a profoundly perplexing issue, irrespective of race.
The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu begs to ask the question of placing blame on individuals who constitute these greater structures, and the question of holding these people accountable. But when does this become a diversion from speaking about the structure or institutions that put people there? For Francisco Cantu it seems to have become impossible to look at Border Patrol Agents or law enforcement and believe every single one is inherently bad. Not simply because Cantu was a Border Patrol Agent, but because of the people he met and knew, and still knows. When someone understands another, and they view them solely as a person, beginning to view them as distinctive from the label marked upon them, separate from the uniform. Understanding how the job of Border Patrol can be mentally and spiritually taxing on someone, how Border Patrol agents internalize and externalize its violence in many ways.
This may not absolve anyone, but it is where it gets complicated. As much realization and empathy as, one can have for the adversity of the job, for what it may requires, one must think; This is an institution that is an innately vicious. The policy of Prevention Through Deterrence is precisely requesting people to risk their lives and has developed a critical situation—resulting in many providing water in the desert, and it is completely unjustifiable for Border Patrol agents to destroy altruistic aid.
Xicanx and Latinx memoirs, such as Reyna Grande’s The Distance Between Us: A Memoir and The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu life writings, articulate a political critique of mainstream America by emphasizing on indigenous roots and rejecting colonization, causing both pride in oneself and disrespect to others.
Xicanx and Latinx Memoirs summarize the growing concerns among Anglo populations in response to the racially based movements. Xicanx and Latinx memoirs reconstruct the meaning of United States culture; making identity, distinction, and language itself into political issues in advanced manners. Making mainstream society Anglo Americans-take notice of the distinctions. Xicanx and Latinx memoirs battle against the substantial, economic, educational, social and political oppression taking place in the United States by pointing deliberately to the factors through which separation happens by utilizing life writings.
The reconstruction of oppressed identities made visible the normative registrars such as, Anglo-American, heterosexual, and male gender, making the normativity of their unmarked identity masking their privilege conspicuously. Indicating that ideologically and psychologically there is an awareness that Anglo-Americans are losing their dominating standing. In the endeavor not to omit communication about the significant effects of disparity and its association to social injustice, it becomes obligatory to develop educational discourses that promote pivotal discourse where multiple individualities can be delved into while intersecting cultural identifications can be dealt with, mediated through, and perspicuously acknowledged.
Reyna Grande’s memoir The Distance Between Us and Francisco Cantu’s The Line Becomes a River demonstrates attributes through continuous significance of the Latinx, Xicanx testimonio on present-day life writing with Mexican immigrants coming to the United States from the Southern hemisphere, influencing social change by articulating a political critique of mainstream America through Xicanx and Latinx life writing.
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Reyna Grande’s Memoir the Distance Between Us and Francisco Cantu’s the Line Becomes a River. (2023, Feb 10). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/reyna-grandes-memoir-the-distance-between-us-and-francisco-cantus-the-line-becomes-a-river/
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