Across A Hundred Mountains

The opening pages of Across a Hundred Mountains alternate between two women’s stories: Adelina’s and Juana’s. In Mexico, an old man leads Adelina to a pile of rocks near the United States border and tells Adelina that this is where her father is buried. To the man’s surprise, Adelina begins digging through the rocks, intending to collect her father’s bones and bring them back to her mother. When Adelina uncovers her father’s rosary, she knows the man was telling the truth, and that she has finally found her father after searching for him for nineteen years. Adelina has her father cremated, and boards a plane from Tijuana to Mexico City.

Adelina remembers when she first arrived in Los Angeles at the age of 16, in order to search for her father. She arrives in Los Angeles with very little money, and no place to stay. That night, at a park, she meets a man who tells her to go to a nearby apartment building and ask for Don Ernesto, the manager. He says, “‘The rooms are small. They’re dirty and full of roaches and mice, but the rent is cheap. And it’s a lot better than being here in the park’” (24). When Adelina arrives at the apartment building, Don Ernesto immediately takes her in.

Juana is an 11-year-old girl who lives with her mother, whom she calls Amá, her father, Apá, and baby sister, Anita. One night, Juana’s father is late returning home from his job working in the fields. It’s raining hard, and soon the family’s shack begins to flood. After a couple days of rain, and still no sign of Apá, Amá gives Juana the baby and tells her to sit on the dining room table while she goes out in search of Apá. Exhausted, Juana eventually falls asleep. When Apá and Amá return and wake Juana, the baby is no longer in her arms. They find Anita’s body in the flooded shack; she is dead.

At Anita’s funeral, Juana remembers her other younger sister, María, who died four years ago from a scorpion sting, and Josefina, her mother’s baby who was a stillborn, “as if she had given up on life, even before she was born” (19). Juana feels guilty for Anita’s death, but Apá reassures her that it is not her fault.

That Sunday, Apá takes Amá and Juana up to their favorite hill by the river, where they can look out across the fields that Apá harvested. Apá points out the brick houses beyond the fields and tells the family that one day they will live in a house like that.

Later, Apá takes Juana with him to church. He tells Juana that he is leaving for a while to find work in the United States. At first, Juana thinks that Apá is leaving her because of what happened to Anita, but Apá promises that he will return with enough money to build a house. He tells Juana to look toward the mountains at the border anytime she misses him.