What is the imagery in "Legal Alien" by Pat Mora?

Pat Mora's "Legal Alien" documents the difficulties faced by people who, like the poet herself, are "bilateral" or two-sided; they are "Mexican to Americans, American to Mexicans." The speaker in the poem describes the identity crisis as being "American but hyphenated"—the imagery here brings to legal definitions, indicating that the speaker is defined by her legal status, rather than by who she is as a rounded human.
The "bilateral" imagery reinforces this idea. "Bilateral" means two-sided, but it also has connotations of treaties and alliances, reinforcing the suggestion that the speaker's legal status is a divisive one which leaves her in a third space as "the other." The speaker is perceived as "exotic" and "inferior"; as a woman and as a Mexican American, she is objectified and viewed as a curiosity. She does not feel as if she fits anywhere.
Perhaps the most vivid imagery in the poem is that which depicts the speaker as "a handy token/sliding back and forth/between the fringes of two worlds." The speaker presents herself here as an object, able to move back and forth between two cultures but never able to rest comfortably in either; accordingly, she is deprived a share of her own agency. It is not up to the speaker to decide who she is or how she identifies: rather, she is "judged bilaterally"—both "sides" are prejudiced against her, wielding her as a token when it suits them and never letting her move beyond the "fringes" of their worlds into the center. The language of this poem is conducted entirely in fringes, edges, sides, and other extraneous spaces, highlighting the difficulty of the speaker's experience of never being allowed fully into any culture.