The Distance Between Us Pathos Analysis

In Mexico during the early 1980’s, a group of young siblings living in poverty tell an important story of the immigrant experience and the drives behind migration. Reyna Grande’s, The Distance Between Us, is a memoir written with the recurring appeal to the reader’s pathos. Grande uses the rhetorical strategy to keep the reader’s interest and to help them make personal connections to the story. Grande’s use of pathos helps to show not only the importance of understanding the immigrant experience, but also the importance of following your dreams. For example, the first chapters of the memoir are predominately about Grande and her siblings’ experience living with their Abuelita Evila in Mexico. Numerous times throughout these stories, the …show more content…
After many years of living in the United States, Natalio reunites with the children. The children ask if he will be taking them with him back to the United States. The family is migrating illegally and must hire a guide, called a coyote, to help them make the journey across the border and to Los Angeles. Reyna describes the long journey, and that it took multiple times to make it successfully even after two close encounters with border control. Grande says that she was little, and felt immense guilt because she would get tired often. Also, that it was her fault when they got caught by the border patrol. (Book TV) This chapter tells the story of migration from a new perspective. Grande employs pathos to display to the audience how difficult it is for people to get to the United States, and also that they are the same kind of people as us, only wanting a better life for themselves. This chapter evokes the feeling of being in a new place, the excitement and the fear that their family felt. (Grande …show more content…
In the chapter, Reyna is starting her first school in the United States. Reyna explains how scared she was that she was going to school by herself for the first time, because her siblings had to go to a different school. None of the siblings could speak little English, so going to school in the States was an enormous challenge in itself. Education is valued immensely in the Grande family, and the siblings are often told how being educated is the only way to make it in this country. The chapter also addresses an issue of cultural assimilation, where the culture of the majority absorbs the minority. This is because Reyna was instructed, by her teachers in the United States, that Americans only use one last name. Reyna could not be Reyna Grande- Rodriguez anymore, and she claims that losing one of her last names was not a simple thing to do – she was proud of who she was and did not want to abandon that part of her. This chapter again appeals to the audience by using pathos, explaining feelings of fear and excitement. However, incredible events did happen in school, which is how Reyna was able to write The Distance Between Us, as she found solace in reading. After losing a small competition in her class, she began reading everything she could, which eventually inspired her to write even more. (Grande 151,