51 pages • 1-hour read
The Distance Between Us: Young Readers Edition
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Part 1, Chapters 12-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1 Summary: “Mi Mamá Me Ama”
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary
Mami starts working at a local record shop. Oftentimes, Abuelita Chinta has Carlos walk her home because she gets off late. One night, neither Carlos nor Mami come back. Finally, Mami returns alone. Mago and Reyna rush out in search of Carlos, who looks upset and demands to be alone when they find him.
The next day, the girls confront Carlos about why he’s upset. Finally he admits that when he went to meet Mami, he caught her getting out of a cab with a man and kissing him for a long time. That night, Mago confronts Mami. Mami confesses she has a new boyfriend named Francisco, with whom she’s moving to Acapulco. Chinta tries to discourage her, but Mami insists she’s leaving the children and going. When the children return from school the next day, Mami is gone.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary
Mago takes care of Reyna, Carlos, and Betty after Mami leaves. The children get closer to Betty, too, realizing that she’s “just as easy to abandon” (83) as they are. Meanwhile, Chinta struggles to provide for them, as she’s old and doesn’t make much money as a healer. Mago gets a job selling quesadillas at the train station after school to help with expenses. One day, Reyna and Carlos go to pick her up from work and Reyna panics, thinking Mago is boarding the train and leaving. Mago promises she’ll never leave her.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary
School ends and the rainy season starts. One day, a neighbor rushes over to inform them that their cousin Catalina got lost in the flood. The family races to the cousins’ house. While the men search for Catalina, Mago tells Reyna and her siblings a story to comfort them.
Finally the men return with Catalina’s bloated body and hang her upside down to drain the water out of her. Reyna is terrified the same thing will happen to her and her siblings.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary
Six months later, Mami and Francisco are in a car crash that kills Francisco. Mami returns home heartbroken. Reyna and her siblings doubt she would’ve come back if Francisco hadn’t died. Sometime thereafter, Mami starts working at the record shop again. She seems happier and Reyna hopes everything will return to normal.
Then one day, Mami comes home and announces that the government “is giving away land” (96). The family finds a plot and Mami makes Carlos wait there until they receive their deed. Carlos squats there for many days, missing school to protect the land. Then he gets sick and Chinta, Reyna, and her siblings have to drag him home. He apologizes to Mami for losing the land where she wanted to build her own dream house.
Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary
Mami goes to live with her sister, Tia Güera, to be closer to work. Reyna and her siblings visit her once a week. On Christmas, they’re thrilled Mami is coming home for the day. They clean the house and make decorations for her arrival. However, they’re all upset when Mami shows up with a new boyfriend named Rey. Mago gets angry, yells at Mami, and faints. Chinta scolds Mami for ruining the day. Mago finally gets up and storms out.
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary
In May, Reyna’s cousin comes over to say Papi is going to call her and her siblings at Evila’s house. The children rush to Evila’s, shocked and confused as to why Papi is calling. They’re dirty and messy, but don’t care about their appearances because they’re so excited.
However, they’re embarrassed when they get to Evila’s and find Papi in the living room. Reyna doesn’t like that Papi is seeing them unbathed and wearing worn clothing. However, she feels better when Papi calls her by her childhood nickname. Then Papi introduces them to his new girlfriend, Mila, gives the girls dolls, and promises to buy them new shoes the next day. The children spend the night at Evila’s and go see the dream house with Papi in the morning. When they ask which room will be his, Papi reveals that he isn’t going to stay in Mexico. He is having the house finished for Mami and the children, but plans to return to the States. Mago accuses him of lying and making excuses.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary
Papi tells the children he and Mila are leaving soon and that he wants to take Mago with him. Carlos insists he can make it over the border and Papi agrees to take him, too. Reyna is devastated that she’ll be losing her siblings. At school the next day, she tells her friends she’s going to the States.
Back at home, she begs Papi to take her. Mago tells him she won’t go if he doesn’t take Reyna. Reyna is relieved because she doesn’t think she could survive without her sister. Papi finally agrees. The children go home and beg Mami to let them go with Papi. Mami says they can go, but refuses to send Betty. Reyna considers staying behind to be with Betty, but realizes she needs Mago.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary
Reyna and her siblings take a bus to Mexico City with Papi. Mila flies back alone because she’s a naturalized citizen. On the way, they lose Papi at a stop and Reyna is convinced he abandoned them. Mago insists he wouldn’t do that, and they find him at the next stop.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary
The family arrives in Tijuana. They spend a night in a hotel and meet the smuggler who will help them cross in the morning. They attempt to cross two times. Reyna gets a toothache and is in too much pain to run fast. They get caught and have to try again.
Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary
Papi tells the children that they only have one more chance to get over the border. They have to run very fast and Reyna is terrified. A border patrol helicopter almost finds them, but they make it over the border safely. Finally, they take a car and drive to Los Angeles. The smuggler gives them sunflower seeds to eat on the way, as they’ve eaten nothing all night. Reyna looks out the window and thinks about how far she is from Mexico, Mami, and Betty. Papi tells them they’re now in their new home.
Part 1, Chapters 12-21 Analysis
Reyna, Mago, Carlos, and Betty’s life with their mother complicates how Reyna sees her family and herself, deepening the theme of The Challenges of Family Separation and Reunification. Before Mami returned from the United States, Reyna believed that family was defined by her relationships with her parents. She often felt lonely and sad because Mami and Papi were far away and she didn’t know when they’d return home. However, Mami’s return to Mexico makes Reyna realize that her closest and most reliable relationships are with her brother and sisters.
This becomes especially true when Mami gets a new boyfriend and leaves Reyna and her siblings once more. After Mami moves to Acapulco with Francisco, the children are forced to fend for themselves again. Mami becomes their “little mother and [takes] care of [them] all” (83). She isn’t much older than Carlos, Reyna, and Betty, but has to take on the role of her siblings’ caretaker because their parents are still absent and their grandmother is too old to provide for all of them. Mago not only comforts and stays strong for her younger siblings, but ends up getting a job to help Abuelita Chinta with the family’s finances.
For this reason, Reyna becomes even more attached to Mago. The scene of her at the train station in Chapter 13 illustrates this attachment. When she sees a train leaving and can’t find Mago after work, she starts crying, convinced that Mago is leaving her. This moment conveys Reyna’s fear of abandonment. From a young age, she’s learned that the people she loves often leave her. She relies on her older siblings so fiercely because they are the only people who haven’t disappeared from her life or let her down. Clinging to Mago helps Reyna overcome her many fears and sorrows, giving her the strength to keep going even when she’s sad and lonely.
Papi’s unexpected return to Mexico in Chapter 17 marks a turning point in Reyna’s story. Ever since Reyna can remember, the United States has been a dream land that she’s heard fairy tales about. The place seems impossibly far away and therefore feels more imaginary than real to Reyna. She’s therefore surprised when her father comes back home after eight years in the States. She’s even more surprised when he reveals that he isn’t going to stay in Iguala with the family. Like the United States, Papi’s character has taken on mythical and imaginary qualities to Reyna. She has no memories of him and he is as unfamiliar to her as the foreign land that took him and Mami away. She struggles to align her imaginary version of Papi with the real version of Papi who shows back up at Abuela Evila’s.
Like Mami’s return earlier in the section, Papi’s return to the family reignites Reyna and her siblings’ hope. Their parents have disappointed them many times, but the siblings continue to dream of living a happy life all together. Reyna wishes that “they would understand that all [she and her siblings want is] to have a family” (134). Papi doesn’t give Reyna, Mago, and Carlos this exact dream, but he does offer them a new future when he agrees to take the children to the United States with him. This decision contributes to Reyna and her family’s immigrant experience, and develops the novel’s explorations concerning family separation and reunification. Indeed, reuniting with Papi also means leaving Mami and Betty behind.
Reyna and her siblings’ immigration to the United States foreshadows new conflicts and turning points in Reyna’s narrative, introducing the theme of Cultural Identity and Assimilation. Reyna knows that she should be “enjoying [the] adventure” (132) to the United States, but her fear of being caught by border patrol guards on the way complicates her emotional experience. Reyna has learned that the United States is “forbidden land,” which Reyna understands to mean that she and her family are “not welcome [t]here” (132). The journey challenges her to stay strong and be brave in new ways. Furthermore, once she gets to the States, she knows that she’ll have to face new challenges because she’s leaving her home, mother, and little sister behind. She’s heard magical stories about the United States, but the place is still strange and unfamiliar to her. Her and her family’s arrival in California at the end of Part 1 therefore ushers Reyna into a new phase of her life.
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