Contested spaces/striated spaces: Representations of the border in Reyna Grande’s The Distance Between Us: A Memoir
Contested spaces/striated spaces: Representations of the border in Reyna Grande’s The Distance Between Us: A Memoir

Summary/Abstract: The border with its multiple roles and interpretations has always played an important role in Chicana and Latina discourse in the U.S. Redefinitions and redesigns of spatial paradigms that took place in the second half of the 20th century resulted in proliferation of border imagery in literature that presented complex roles of the border. The aforementioned transformations were reflected in the shift of focus in Chicana discourse on the spatial, from location to mobility, “from land to roads” (Kaup 200). This shift in turn, led to alterative constructions of space and remappings of geographic locations that included creation of in-between spaces and rewriting of the border from a demarcation line into a contact zone. Due to the interdependence between space and identity formation, the new concepts of the border predetermine a different approach towards Latina identity formation. Contemporary Chicana literature often focuses on roads rather than dwellings (Kaup 228) and discusses the issue of identity formation construed in in-between spaces. Chicana authors often examine the experience of nomadic subjects traveling both within the U.S. and/or Mexico or crossing the border, presenting multiple reasons behind such travels, as well as different experiences and outcomes resulting from these journeys. The purpose of this article is to analyze how the redefinitions of the border are reflected in Reyna Grande’s The Distance Between Us: A Memoir and how border crossings presented by the author contribute to the displacement of the main character and her family, triggering the notion of simultaneously belonging and unbelonging, or becoming “Othered,” which results in the construction of transnational identities.

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