HALFWAY TO SOMEWHERE

A nonbinary tween explores their identity after they move from Mexico to the U.S. with half their family.

Twelve-year-old Ave lives in Mexicali, Baja California, with their dad, Rodolfo, older sister, Cruz, younger brother, Ramón, and mom, Joss. When Joss is offered a teaching position at the University of Kansas, she takes the American-born half of the family to Lawrence, leaving behind Mexican-born Cruz and Rodolfo. While Joss and Ramón embrace the change and quickly make connections with locals, Ave struggles to find their place, seeking solace in an anticipated family reunion—but stumbling upon a secret instead. Pimienta explores the complexities of identity through multiple lenses, including language, culture, values, gender, and family structure. The characters, who variously identify as Mexican, Mexican American, and Latinx, are illustrated with a range of skin tones. Different-colored fonts represent language shifts: blue when English is being used and black to indicate Spanish that’s translated into English; occasional Spanish words and phrases appear. The artwork lovingly and accurately captures the rough beauty of the desert and the ambience of the Midwestern college town. In their author’s note, which includes photos of the landscape around Mexicali, Pimienta describes their engagement with “the complicated yet sincere question I’d been asking ever since I moved to the United States: ‘If I don’t live in Mexico, what makes me Mexican?’”

An intriguing variation on border stories that looks at the challenges surrounding an intentional family separation.