Across A Hundred Mountains

“‘It has two faces. She only shows one face to the world. Even though it changes shape constantly, it’s always the same face we see. But her second face, her second face remains hidden in darkness. That’s the face no one can see. People call it the dark side of the moon. Two identities. Two sides of a coin.’” 

When Juana, under the name Adelina, first arrives in Los Angeles, a homeless man makes this comment to her about the moon. At this point, the reader doesn’t know that Adelina is really Juana, and this line foreshadows that Adelina has a secret. It also speaks to the secrets and grief that many characters carry throughout the novel.

“When they opened the door Juana turned to glance back at La Virgen de Guadalupe. She felt that La Virgen must have disappeared and left her, too, for she was now only clay, paint, and eyes of glass.” 

Apá has just told Juana that he is leaving their home and traveling across the border to find work in the United States. The thought of losing Apá makes Juana feel scared and alone, and not even religion is a comfort to her.

“Then she ran back into the shack, hoping Amá had not heard the owl’s hoots. Owls always brought bad news. News of death.” 

There are many examples of luck and omens throughout the novel. This moment happens shortly after Apá has left for the United States, foreshadowing his death.

“For thirteen years now, that box of plates had sat in the wardrobe. Amá refused to use it, saying that one day, when Juana got married, the set would be hers. ‘It gave me and your father good luck, Juana. We’ve had a good marriage,’ Amá always said.” 

The box of plates becomes a symbol of Amá and Apá’s loving marriage. This moment represents just how much Amá and Apá loved each other, and makes it even more heartbreaking when Apá leaves for the United States and doesn’t return.

“Amá sat on Juana’s cot, and Juana was glad that now Amá would be sleeping beside her every night. She needed to be able to touch her mother—she was afraid of losing her, too.” 

At this point, Amá and Juana are the only members of their family left. Juana’s desire to be close to her mother illustrates Juana’s grief over the loss of her father and siblings.

“‘That’s too bad,’ the man said. ‘But you’re glad to be back, right? You’re finally going home.’ She thought about what the man said. Was she really going home?” 

By the end of the novel, the reader realizes that Juana has been living in Los Angeles as Adelina for almost twenty years. Even though Juana is returning to her hometown, she is not sure if the village she left as a teenager is really her home.

“‘I do not know why our prayers have not been answered. It is as if La Virgencita cannot hear us anymore. She’s deaf to our pleas.’” 

Amá makes this comment after deciding to enter into a sexual relationship with Don Elías in order to repay her debt to him. Amá has always been a religious woman, and this moment shows not only how desperate she is, but her doubts surrounding her faith.

“‘Give it to me. Give it to me,’ Amá said. But Juana dug her heels into the ground and pulled harder. Finally, she stood in front of her mother holding on to the last plate, the only plate left of her inheritance.”

Amá has a set of dishes that she and Apá received on their wedding day, and that were meant to one day be Juana’s inheritance. By destroying the plates, Amá is showing that she has lost faith in their family’s happiness, but Juana is determined to hold out hope that her family will one day be reunited.

“But it was the mountains to the west that most held her attention. Those were the mountains Apá had pointed at and said he would be on the other side of.” 

When Juana is most missing Apá, she is able to look out at the mountains and remember his promise to one day return. However, Juana will eventually learn that the border is much farther than simply on the other side of the mountains.

“Juana watched the moon beginning to inch its way across the sky. Over the course of the month, it had changed from being a sliver to what it was now, almost a complete circle, bright and full. This was how Amá had changed, too. Little by little.” 

After Apá fails to return home, Amá becomes weaker and weaker. The moon is used here to represent the changes that the family is about to face.

“‘Let me be. I’m praying to my dead daughters. I’m asking them for help. They are angelitos in Heaven. They can intercede for me and ask God to help me, to listen to my pleas.’” 

Over time, Amá becomes more destitute and eventually becomes an alcoholic. Juana finds her one night drunk and crying in the cemetery. This moment shows that Amá has never stopped grieving the death of her daughters, and shows just how desperate Amá has become.

“Apá was not on the other side of these mountains. And in order to find him, she would have to cross not just these mountains, but perhaps a hundred more.” 

Shortly after this moment, Juana makes the decision to leave her village and attempt to search for her father. These lines foreshadow the difficult journey that Juana has ahead of her.

“Juana remembered the times of long ago when the saints and La Virgen de Guadalupe had been there for them. But now, all the statues were covered with dust, and the flower petals had long ago shriveled.” 

Amá used to keep the family’s altar clean but has lately stopped maintaining it. This is representative of how destitute the family has become, and how they are beginning to lose faith that Apá will ever return to them.

“The saints wanted her blood, too. Maybe then they would finally listen to her prayers. Juana took her mother’s blood-soaked whip. She raised the whip high above her and brought it down hard on her back.” 

Without many options left, Amá turns to self-flagellation to ask the saints for help and to show her devotion to God. After Amá is arrested for murdering Don Elías, Juana also self-flagellates. Juana is grieving and desperate now that she has lost every member of her family.

“Juana ran back to the woman, who was leaning against the wall, struggling with the weight of her son as if he weighed three hundred pounds. Juana knew it was her sorrow that had taken her strength away.” 

During Juana’s journey to Tijuana, she decides to stop and help a woman whose son has just died. Having witnessed her own mother losing her children, Juana is especially sympathetic to this woman.

“Love is hard to find. You must not let it go. Don’t waste your youth searching for a ghost.” 

Don Ernesto encourages Adelina to pursue her relationship with Sebastian, instead of spending all her time searching for her father. He wants Adelina to make the decision to be happy, and to finally move on from her past.

“And how would she describe her father to them? She thought hard about this, trying to remember what her father looked like. But her memory of him was like smoke.” 

After searching for her father for so long, Juana has trouble remembering what he looked like. Characters in the novel are often haunted by their memories of people they have lost.

“Always on her days off she’d go somewhere to look for her father. San Diego, San Clemente, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara. So many names of saints. But none of them had helped her find her father.” 

This passage shows again how often characters turn to religion to help them find what they are looking for. This quote also shows the lengths Juana is willing to go to search for her father, even though she has a whole new life in Los Angeles.

“Now a yellow brick and concrete house stood there, surrounded by a small brick wall to keep the river waters out during the floods. This was the house her father had once dreamed of.” 

Apá promised to build a real house for Amá and Juana when he returned from the United States. Now, a brick house sits on the property where Juana’s family’s shack once stood, but a different family lives inside. It is tragically ironic that a house now stands on the family’s property, but Apá, Amá, and Juana never got to have the house they once dreamed of.

“Adelina put her head down on her mother’s lap, and without being able to control herself, she allowed the tears to come out. She wanted to be her mother’s daughter again, not a stranger.”

There are many times throughout the novel in which Juana longed to be close to her parents, and to have a complete, loving family. Even though Juana’s decision to leave home allowed her to make a life for herself in Los Angeles, she still wishes she could be close to her mother, and that they could be happy.

“She wanted to tell José Alberto the truth. He was her brother. Wouldn’t it be a relief to remove the weight she carried on her back, to share her pain, her worries, and the truth with the only member of her family who was still alive?”

This moment illustrates how lonely Juana has been for so many years, without a family to share her secrets with. However, she also knows that telling José Alberto that he is really her brother could hurt him. Juana must make a difficult decision, whether to keep her secret or disrupt her brother’s life in order to potentially connect with him.

“But what would be gained by telling him the truth? Could he love Amá the way he loved Doña Matilde? Could he love the memory of a father he never met? And could he love her, the sister he never knew he had?” 

Even though Juana wants José Alberto to know that he’s her brother, she’s not sure if telling him the truth will really make them feel like family, or if it would hurt him instead. Throughout the novel, Juana must make the decision to keep secrets in order to protect herself and others.

“They held them out in front of them and [said] an Our Father and a Hail Mary. Then they both began to say their own distinct prayers, but not prayers they now made up, telling their parents everything they felt in their hearts.” 

Throughout the novel, Juana has a complicated relationship to religion. Juana sometimes turns to religion in order to find solace, but she also knows that she can’t always count on religion to bring her peace or happiness. By the end of the novel, Juana has created her own path and discovered her own beliefs.