The absence of a family photograph is of quite significance in my life. I have searched in my mom’s house back in Mexico, and I have searched in my sister’s house in San Antonio for a picture of my mom, my dad, my two sisters, my younger brother and myself. That picture doesn’t exist. It says a lot to me about why it doesn’t exist, and it’s because we’ve never, all of us, lived in the same place at the same time. We’ve always been separated by the border. It makes me quite sad, actually, to think about that. There isn’t a family picture of all of us. There’s some where my mom’s missing, my dad’s missing, my little brother hasn’t been born yet, I’m not there, or my sisters aren’t there. The absence of a family photograph, I think, says a lot about my experience as an immigrant, actually.

Learn more: www.my-america.org 

Relationship:  Im/migrant who arrived as a child Im/migrant who arrived as a child