Reyna Grande: Setting the Example for the Hispanic Community

This year, our Global Scholars theme is “Trailblazing” and Reyna Grande, a Mexican immigrant and renowned writer, is the perfect example of this theme. Reyna Grande, who walked across the border as a 9-year-old girl, has written two novels which give insight to the immigrant experience across the US-Mexican border and provides perspective to the trauma of family separation.

This life of leaving everything you know behind in search of better opportunities in a new world is a daily reality for many people The descriptions of Ms. Grande’s experiences crossing the border as a young child make her story universal, in the sense that people of all ages can understand her story. She has written both a young adult version and a mature version of her story which speaks to her desire to reach as many audiences as possible. She believes that the mistreatment and antagonization of immigrants who simply wish for a better life for themselves or their children should be revisited and seen through a more humanitarian perspective.

The most important lesson to be learned from her books is the importance of representation. To see a version of yourself in the books that you are reading or your teachers at school is so important for people to experience. Often times this representation is a factor in children deciding which careers they wish to pursue and which careers they see themselves committing to in the future. Reyna Grande writes her books to depict the immigrant and latinos that are rarely present in popular literature. With writers like her, self-perpetrating issue of professional representation in our society can finally come to an end.