Alma Valencia lives in California now, north of Calexico, though she grew up in Mexicali. "Life is freer there," she says, "you go out in the evenings and you see people." She crosses the border to Mexicali every Sunday to go to church there.

Inside a donut shop in Calexico, California a few blocks from the border with Mexico.

In this Chicano literature class in Calexico, students speak both English and Spanish, read an essay from 'Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul,' and, with their teacher, Jesús Vargas, ask themselves about cultural identity - are they Mexican?  American?  Mexican-American?  Or, as the title of the essay asks, 'Not Mexican?'