Abstract
I begin my story of leaving home with my first recollection of coming home. As I ran through the door coming home from school, my mother was in the kitchen making flour tortillas, a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice ready for me. I was about seven years old and I remember helping my mother make the tortillas—I can still smell and taste them to this day. She would show me how to mix together just the right amounts of water, flour, lard, baking soda, and salt. We would form the dough in the palms of our hands into small,