The Book of Unknown Americans

From the text:

After a while, I turned the television off and wandered into the kitchen. I pulled out my comal and thought, Maybe I’ll make something. Something to remind me of home. But I didn’t have any of the ingredients I needed, so I just stood there, staring at the flat cast-iron pan, feeling homesickness charge at me like a roaring wave, filling my nostrils and my ears, threatening to knock me down. I took a deep breath. I would do something else, then. I would go out. This was my life now, I told myself, and I was going to have to figure out how to spend my days. I had to learn how to outrun the wave. Or else I had to learn how to stand far enough inland that it would never approach me in the first place.