ABSTRACT
I began my first sketch book in 1991, five years after coming to the USA from Mexico. The books were vehicles to help me establish a new home. I see them as very connected to being an immigrant, to leaving one home and trying to find another. This search has been an internal process and while they were not diaries, the fact that I dated them shows they served a similar purpose. They became mediations on cultural shock, allowing me to process all the new things I was bombarded with. My personal experience as an immigrant was not your typical one. It was so full of contradictions; I arrived in Bel Air to live here without knowing what Bel Air was. I didn’t have any money or a car and the bus stop was miles away.
