Last month, I had the opportunity to spend some time in Mexico, with students from the Seattle area. Other experiences in Mexico have been much different from this visit, to the borderlands. Border Studies, the US Mexican Border, was a class I took in 2004 at the University of Washington, as a part of my Spanish studies. This trip created the opportunity to synthesize my learning on campus to the actual experience, exploring the same issues from those studies, on site.
Tijuana is a metropolitan city, decorated by vibrant artwork. Some areas enjoy the conveniences of any other world city, with pockets of third world poverty, interwoven through-out. And all is pushed by the pressure from the South to the North and from the North to the South, based in political and economic interests.
Highlights included visiting Casa del Migrante, reading with children, and eating with local families and migrants to hear their stories.
A surprise visit to the prototype walls, watching them under construction, left a lot of raw thoughts.