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Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá is a sculptural installation composed of laser-cut acrylic mirrors mounted on two separate wooden panels, each divided into six compartments. The mirrored surfaces are etched with the specific geographies that define my mother’s and my own origins; mapping country, state, county, and town. On one panel: Mexico, Jalisco, Ciénaga, and Atotonilco El Alto. On the other: United States, California, Stanislaus, and Turlock. These locations are not just coordinates, but markers of identity, migration, and transformation. Within each panel, a single brown, empty box interrupts the mirrored structure, signaling absence, an intentional void that speaks to what is missing in both places, in both identities.

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This work parallels my mother’s life and my own. She migrated to the United States at sixteen, where she became a wife, a mother, and a farmworker, building a life through labor and sacrifice. Yet when she returned to Mexico, it no longer felt like home language, time, and distance had reshaped her belonging. In the U.S., she was marked as the "other"; in Mexico, she was seen as Americanized. I carry that same fracture. Here, I navigate spaces, especially academic ones that constantly remind me that I do not fully belong. In Mexico, I am labeled fresa, güera, norteñita, defined by how I speak, look, and where I was born. The work holds the duality of living between cultures, where identity is constantly negotiated, and belonging is never fully granted.

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