My home

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Before I begin detailing my travels, I would like to describe the place I live now, the place that I call home.

Rugged desert mountains and barbed wire fence outline the land. I stand on a mountaintop and see houses painted with poverty. Like a child I sink my hands into the earth, pull it up, and let it run through my fingers, not knowing if it is my land, or dirt blown from Mexico. Where I live a piece of fence which runs 1,969 miles divides two lands that seep into each other, creating a whole new world, a borderland. My home, El Paso, Texas, is as porous as a sponge, absorbing cultures that make the city what it is and has made me who I am.
The man-made border screams cautions that tell you where you shouldn’t go. By peeking through the dividing fence, you see a city spotted with soldiers dressed in camouflage. Although the continuous land flows together peacefully, a drug war rages and creates a violent clash between the permitted and the forbidden. My sister city, Juarez, Mexico, is blood red.
As a student journalist, storytelling is my passion. Everyone has a story, but somehow many whispered tales of them, those from the other side, weren’t being told in my school newspaper. When I moved to El Paso in the summer of 2008, I unearthed a desire to tell those stories. I wrote my first article for my school newspaper about the drug war and its consequence on families. A student from my high school told me, shuddering, that her father worked in Juarez and often saw dead bodies on the sides of roads. In my heart I knew that these people deserved to have the world watching what was happening to them, so I continued to write about immigration issues and drug use in the U.S. With each interview I gathered, and with each word I wrote, the world became more real to me. Everyday I grew as a writer; my opinions strengthened; my voice became more persistent.
Although my homeland is enclosed by fence, it doesn’t confine my mind; it stimulates my thoughts. El Paso has given me a different perspective that allows me to be more aware of the issues my country faces. With my newly discovered interest in the world around me, my mind has opened. I see beyond different languages, skin color and traditions. From the mountaintop I stand upon, I see no borders; they do not exist. We all live under the same sun, and sleep under the same moon.
My hometown is a constant port of entry. From a pack of gum, chicle, sold on the bridge by a Tarahumara Indian, to the rhythmic Spanish language, culture unceasingly pours in. I can sit on Mount Cristo Rey and stretch my feet and hands onto a piece of Mexico, El Paso and New Mexico simultaneously and know I am a part of something bigger. Although the fence is tangible, to me it is imaginary. It divides nothing but two different names; it is this fine line that is my home.


I believe that El Paso will not be the only land to stimulate my mind...I will only continue to grow throughout my travels.

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