Specifically, Grande hails from the town of Iguala, which made international headlines in 2014 when 43 college students disappeared. Grande’s family comes from the state of Guerrero in Mexico, the second poorest state in Mexico where 70% of the population lives in poverty. And my grandmother, when times were really hard, had a dress made out of tablecloth. “It’s a dress that reminds me of where I come from because I come from a very poor family in Mexico, and we were so poor that we didn’t have anything to wear. She brought a dress, but not just any dress. When we interviewed Reyna Grande, and all the My America writers, we asked her to bring an item that connected her to her heritage and was uniquely hers. Today, we’re pleased to introduce you to Reyna Grande, an award-winning writer of novels, memoirs, and other writings that deal with “immigration, family separation, language trauma, the price of the American Dream,” and more. The exhibit is designed to elicit thoughtful dialogue on a wide array of issues with contemporary immigrant and refugee writers delving into questions about writing influences, being multilingual, community, family, duality, otherness and what it means to be American. Each week, the My America blog series will introduce you to one of the writers featured in our exhibit My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today.

A dream called home reyna grande