The U.S. - Mexican Border: El Paso, Texas
May | 2015
May 6, 2015 — El Paso, Texas is where I grew up and it's where my family — my parents and three siblings — still live. El Paso is where I chose to begin my photo journey because this is the place I will think about every time I visit a border town; what I will use to compare the lives of immigrants who I meet in the next 18 months, to my own life on the Mexican-U.S. border.
When people ask me where I’m from, I say El Paso—but really, my home is the whole region where Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua blur into each other. El Paso and Juárez aren’t just “border cities” to me. The border here feels almost invisible, a line you don’t notice until someone points it out. The people, the food, the music, the way we speak—everything flows back and forth so naturally that it feels like one big community spread across two countries.
Growing up, going to Juárez was as normal as crossing town. And Las Cruces, just up the road, feels like part of the same rhythm of life. It’s a place where being bilingual isn’t special—it’s just how we live. Where families, work, culture, and stories all cross the river every day without hesitation.
So when I say I’m a fronteriza, I’m talking about that in-between world that’s really a world of its own. A place stitched together by people more than politics—El Paso, Juárez, and New Mexico, all part of the same heartbeat.
My home.
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