The American Dream

This memoir explores the promise of the American Dream and demonstrates how there are both benefits and consequences of pursuing it.

Growing up in a poor region of Mexico, Reyna and her family view America, known as El Etro Lado (the Other Side), as a land of possibility for a better life. She recalls that “every time someone mentioned El Otro Lado, there was a reverence in their voice, as if they were talking about something holy, like God” (37). Reyna and her siblings grow up in extreme poverty, dressed in rags, constantly covered in dirt, starving, and their hair breeding nests for lice and their bloated bellies home to roundworms. Resources are stretched thin among families and fathers and mother struggle to find work in the after the recession in Mexico.

For these families, traveling across the border offers greater opportunity for employment, comfort, and security...