Reyna Grande was newly enrolled at Pasadena City College when an English professor named Diana Savas told her she could write. Three decades and multiple books later, Grande has a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist designation and a question she still hasn’t finished answering: What does it cost to build a life between two countries?
That question sits at the center of Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget, Grande’s new memoir-in-essays, published May 12 by Atria/Primero Sueño Press.
Grande will discuss and sign the book at Vroman’s Bookstore on Monday, June 15, at 7:00 p.m., in conversation with Leslie Priscilla, the founder of Latinx Parenting and a forthcoming author whose own work examines intergenerational healing in Latino families.
Grande was born in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, in 1975. Her father left for the United States when she was two; her mother followed two years later. At 9, Grande crossed the border to join them in Los Angeles, settling in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Highland Park. She graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in 1993 and enrolled at PCC the following year, where she became a staff writer for the student newspaper, The Courier.
It was Savas who encouraged Grande to pursue writing as a major, according to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. When Grande’s home life became unstable — her father was arrested for spousal abuse — Savas offered her a place to stay. By the time Grande transferred to UC Santa Cruz in 1996, she was, by her own account, determined.
“I had more confidence in myself,” Grande has said. “I was more determined than ever to get a college education and really make a difference in my family, my Latino community, and my country.”
She became the first person in her family to earn a college degree, completing a bachelor’s in creative writing and film and video at UC Santa Cruz in 1999 and later an MFA at Antioch University. Her debut novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, won the American Book Award in 2007. Her memoir The Distance Between Us, which chronicled her childhood border crossing, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012. She has since received the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature in 2015.
Migrant Heart, her latest, is a collection of essays that moves from the violence of her hometown in Mexico to a family vacation in Europe where she found herself reconciling her impoverished past with her children’s abundance, according to the publisher. Kirkus Reviews called it testimony from “a defiant, resilient woman.” The 256-page hardcover is priced at $29; a Spanish-language edition, Corazón migrante, is available in paperback for $19.95.
Priscilla, Grande’s conversation partner for the evening, brings her own perspective on the themes the book explores. A certified parent coach and first-generation Xicana mother of three based in Santa Ana, Priscilla founded Latinx Parenting in 2018 as a bilingual organization rooted in children’s rights, nonviolence, and intergenerational healing. Her debut book, Chancla: Healing Our Families, Ourselves, and Our Culture through Nonviolent Parenting, is forthcoming from Little, Brown Spark on August 18, 2026.
Reyna Grande, in conversation with Leslie Priscilla, discusses and signs Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget on Monday, June 15 at 7:00 p.m. The event requires an RSVP but no ticket purchase. Vroman’s Bookstore is located at 695 East Colorado Boulevard. Parking is available in the structure behind the store off South Madison Avenue; check with the store for current availability. For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com/rsvp-
Grande now lives in Woodland, California, and teaches at Antioch University-Los Angeles. But Pasadena was where the writing started — in a classroom at PCC, under the eye of a professor who saw something worth nurturing.
