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Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: San Ysidro Blues — 30 Years After the Massacre

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By Francisco J. Bustos

I remember playing on the kitchen floor when the shots started firing.
I remember my cousin and I running outside the apartment, like many others did.
The sound of bullets instantly changed everybody’s eyes and nobody could
explain it.
We lived on Sunset Lane, just a couple blocks, de aquel Mac Donals, 30 years ago.
We jumped outside at the sound of more bullets,
if we could make it to the corner, we could catch a glimpse of our San Ysidro
Boulevard.

I don’t know why we tried running to that corner. Something pushed us. With every step that we took, more shots sliced the air,
and more shots and more shots, again and again and again.   [Read more…]

The Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe

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On December 12th millions of Catholics will go on a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. They will celebrate the feast day of the Virgen de Guadalupe, which has been a national holiday in Mexico since 1859.

Tijuana, too, has its pilgrimage to their most beloved church: the Cathedral of Our Lady Guadalupe. Located in the heart of downtown, the Church is considered a historic site.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: Livin’ La Vida Logan

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Barrio Logan is one of the oldest neighborhoods in San Diego. It used to be one whole community called Logan Heights, named after congressman John A. Logan, but the creation of the Interstate 5 freeway that bisected the neighborhood changed that. Then the building of the San Diego–Coronado Bridge changed it again. Thousands were displaced from building the freeway and the bridge. Now Barrio Logan encompasses a relatively small patch of land sandwiched between the San Diego Bay and the I-5 freeway and north of National City and south of San Diego’s East Village.

Fewer than 5,000 people inhabit my barrio. Thousands more come during the day to work here in the shipyards, the Port of San Diego and the other companies that line the bay side of Barrio Logan. Of those 5,000 barrio denizens about 85% of them are non-white, most of which are of Mexican descent. But things are changing.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: From the Border to the Fields

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By Juanita Lopez

It is the year of 2014 and both of my grandparents are very old but alive, though suffering from dementia. I decided to pay them a visit to interview them. Believe it or not, they still live in the same one-bedroom apartment in San Ysidro where they established their U.S. residency in the late 1970s. From their yard, I am able to look at the thousands of tiny houses in Tijuana, where they once lived, dreaming of crossing over for a better opportunity. I look at my dark-skinned grandmother and admire her toothless smile. Her eyes light up every time she sees me. She normally asks me how my brother is doing, and I tell her he’s okay, working like always since he has a baby to take care of now. She smiles and two minutes later asks me the same question. I go over to her kitchen and wash some strawberries that were in her refrigerator. I offer her some after I cut them and sprinkle some sugar on top—my grandmother smiles again and starts telling me about her life, a not-so-sweet story about the times she labored as a farm worker picking strawberries and cutting flowers.   [Read more…]

North Of The Fence: Water Rates, Dead Dolphins and More Mexicans Leaving U.S.

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Water Rate Hikes

On Tuesday, November 17, members of the San Diegans for Fair Water Rates Coalition rallied at the San Diego Civic Concourse Plaza asking the SD City Council to vote against the recycled water unitary rate proposal. They lost. The City Council approved a five-year, 40 percent increase to the price of city drinking water overall and then also approved the recycled water rate with a vote of 7-2, Alvarez and Kersey voting against it.

Imperial Beach

Vince Farnsworth at the San Diego Reader reported three dead dolphins washed up on the shores of Imperial Beach in the past month. Investigations are underway to determine whether their deaths were due to Navy sonar exercises. According to Earthjustice, there are only 323 bottlenose dolphins known to live in California coastal waters.   [Read more…]

DOJ Will Not Prosecute Agents Who Murdered Anastasio Hernández Rojas

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By Southern Borders Community Coalition

In a shocking turn of events in the case of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday that they will not prosecute the agents involved in his death.

The DOJ cited a lack of evidence to meet the standard for federal criminal prosecution. Despite eyewitness testimony and video, DOJ concluded they were unable to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the agents committed homicide or civil rights violations.

Following are statements from the family of Anastasio Hernández Rojas along with representatives from the Southern Border Communities Coalition.   [Read more…]

Border Life: Unprecedented Waits for Bi-National Commuters and Tourists

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By Beryl Forman

Before getting married, my Brazilian husband lived in San Diego for several years with an expired visa. Acknowledging the circumstance, he remained acutely nervous of military bases, checkpoints and kept his distance from the international border.

Before anything bad happened, he returned to Brazil. After my first visit to see him, we decided to get married and applied for a fiancé visa. As assumed, the process was arduous, inconvenient and expensive, with several unexpected hurdles.

Four years passed, and he was finally granted a visa and we were married. On the day he received his green card, we accompanied some friends for an evening across the border. With the intentions of parking in San Ysidro, by accident, and quite ironically, we drove across the border. Luckily, the border agents allowed us to avoid the headache of the border wait by assisting us in making a U-turn directly in the front of the line. That night, my husband successfully crossed the border twice with his brand new green card.   [Read more…]

My First Tour of the US/Mexico Border

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By ChaKiara Tucker

On October 24th, I woke up at 7:00 am and brushed my teeth. As I stood in the mirror executing my morning routine, my mind raced with thoughts about my plans for the day. I, ChaKiara Tucker, a black woman from the most southern parts of the U.S., was going on my first tour of the United States/Mexico Border. To say that I was nervous would be an understatement, I was afraid.

Would they shoot me on sight because of the hue of my skin? Would I be stopped and have my constitutional rights snatched from me? Am I coming back home? 

Questions that may seem farfetched to others were running a marathon through my head.   [Read more…]

Day of the Dead: When Indigenous Practices Meet Spiritual Traditions

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By Antonieta Mercado

The Day of the Dead celebration is a syncretic mix of Latin American indigenous practices and Catholic spiritual tradition. Families in many Latin American countries and U.S. communities honor the spirit of the dead as the ancestors did by creating altars or ofrendas (offerings), placing favorite foods, photos, special bread (“pan de muerto”) and other items associated with the ones who are gone.  

The traditional cempazúchitl or zempoalxóchitl flower (marigold) that is used in altars symbolizes the color of death (yellow) for many indigenous groups, such as the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Nahua. It is believed that the yellow color of the flower can be seen by the dead, so its petals are placed forming a road directing the souls to the altar. Abundant marigolds are placed in different forms, either as an arch, or in flower vases around the altar.

European colonization also brought religious syncretism to this custom, and placed the current celebration on November 1st, to honor the souls of dead children, and on November 2nd to honor the adults who had passed. November 2nd is also All Saints Day in the Catholic Tradition. Pre-Colonial festivities honoring the dead used to last from one to three months, depending on the particular group or region. For example, the Nahua, Totonaca, and Maya, believed that the dead would go to the underworld or Mictlán region to meet Mictlantehcutli, the dual male/female deity of death.   [Read more…]

San Diego Celebrates the Dead: Días de los Muertos 2015

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Candles. Photos. Marigolds and other flowers. Some favorite foods. Maybe a beer or shot of tequila. We all remember differently our loved ones who have passed.

Some remember with regret, others with joy, sadness, longing. But we remember.

Death is but a natural part of life. We carry our dead with us in our hearts and some are hoisted upon the bony blades of their forbearers. But we remember.   [Read more…]

North Of The Fence: It’s All About The San Diego-Tijuana Border

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By Barbara Zaragoza/ SouthBayCompass

The Times of San Diego reported that former Arkansas governor and Presidential hopeful, Mike Huckabee, visited Border Field State Park on Saturday, October 10th. Standing alongside former congressman, Duncan Lee Hunter, Huckabee talked about illegal border crossers, saying: “They’re not coming to make beds and pick tomatoes. They’re coming to sell drugs. They’re coming to commit crime and to bring the mayhem that they have in their hearts upon the American people.”

Huckabee didn’t cite his sources. The statement was interesting because more than 68% of the 1.6 million people living in Tijuana legally cross the border at least once a year (sometimes once a week); they have in their hearts a desire — to shop. They spend at least $6 billion a year, or more than $1 of every $8 in retail sales in San Diego. (Check page 7 of the linked report.) That means legal, peaceful Tijuanese put a heck of a lot of sales tax dollars into our economy each year.   [Read more…]

Turista Libre Teams Up With Tijuana Photography Festival

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Turista Libre tour of Tijuana Photo Festival captures border town’s moment of change

By George Howell

What better way to get to a photography festival than to sit in an old school bus with the artist-organizers and a handful of curious Americans, listening to booming dance music while the eastern hinterlands of Tijuana whiz past your window?

On Saturday, October 3rd, I hopped on board the bus tour co-sponsored by Turista Libre, the Tijuana-based tour operator, and the coordinating team of the modest, but highly ambitious First International Festival of Photography Tijuana (FiFT). As artist Rebecca Goldschmidt told me, “We don’t just want to take people to the sites where the festival events are taking place. We want a dialogue.”   [Read more…]

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