The Man Behind the Glass/Papi

Grande, R. (2012). The distance between us: A memoir.  (pp. 150-169). New York:
Washington Square Press
 

The man behind the glass and Reyna, Carlos, and Mago's "papi" are two extremely different people. Since the age of two, the only father that Reyna had known was the man behind the glass, which was just a picture of her father in a frame. Reyna, Carlos, and Mago constantly wished for their father to come back. Because Mago was the oldest, she remembered the most about her father before he left. Reyna did not remember him at all. During the time that they spent at Abuelita Evila's house, they helped the workers begin building their father's dream home. He had talked his mother into letting him have a piece of her property where he would build his dream home. Reyna, Carlos, and Mago waited every single day for the workers to come and they would help them by carrying buckets of mortar and doing whatever the could. Then one day, the workers stopped coming. Their father had run out of money and had to start saving up again. Their hopes of him coming home soon were crushed, and he would not ever finish his dream house.

One day after their mother had returned home to Mexico and had a job at the record store, their father returned. He had a new wife named Mila, who he left their mother for, and he intended to return to the United States and cross the border with Mago. Mago told him that she would not leave her siblings alone in Mexico. Reyna and Carlos talked their papi into taking them across the border with him. Crossing the border was not an easy task. Multiple times they would almost be caught by immigration and the first two times they attempted to cross, they were caught. It was not until the third time that their father said they would not try again if they failed this time and they successfully crossed the border.

Once they got across the border and into the United States, they quickly realized what kind of person their papi truly was. While he almost always had their best interests in mind, he was a drunk ad he was abusive. Their papi almost always had a Budweiser in his hand and would often lose his temper over trivial things. One time, Carlos broke his leg and it was about two days later before their papi finally took him to the hospital. They did do fun things though, like go to the beach. Their papi owned an apartment complex but they had to stay in the one bedroom unit because they needed the extra rent money, so all three of them slept in the living room. They had never had access to television like the had in the United States, and school was complicated for them at first because they were ESL learners.

The man behind the glass and "papi" were two different people because Reyna viewed the man behind the glass as someone who was great and would never hurt his children. Papi was a man who, while trying to give his children an opportunity for a better life, was abusive and scared them more times than not. He would go into his room and not come out for hours. In the end, though, their Papi did more for them than their mother ever would. He gave them the vision to follow their dreams and told them that just because the were illegal did not mean they couldn't achieve great things. Eventually, they recieved their green cards, and were officially legal in the United States, all thanks to Mila and their papi.