Friendship Park

Fifteen years of waiting: family meets at Friendship Park
Friendship Park

Fifteen years of waiting: family meets at Friendship Park

This couple travelled from La Paz, Baja California Sur to visit with their children and grandchildren who now live in Chula Vista and Tijuana. The grandparents haven’t seen their Chula Vista family in 15 years. Grandson Jack, who lives with his dad and uncle in Tijuana, clowns around at the […]

El Muro: What are we destroying to protect? a film by Greg Rainoff
Border Wall / Friendship Park

El Muro: What are we destroying to protect? a film by Greg Rainoff

In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security began the construction of a second, massive border wall along the US-Mexico border through private property, national and state parks, wildlife preserves, sacred lands. The construction was speeded along by a provision of the Real ID Act, passed by Congress in 2005. Section […]

Friendship Park to remain open to the public
Border Wall / Friendship Park

Friendship Park to remain open to the public

Nobody ever thought keeping a little park open would be so much work. But protecting public access to Friendship Park has turned into a full-time job for members of the Friends of Friendship Park. After two weeks of uncertainty and an announcement from Border Patrol on March 18 that the […]

Communion returns to Friendship Park this Sunday
Border Wall / Friendship Park

Communion returns to Friendship Park this Sunday

This Sunday, October 14, at 1 pm two pastors – one standing in Mexico and one in the United States – will serve communion at Friendship Park, the historic meeting place on the U.S.-Mexico border. Update:  READ HERE Reverend John Fanestil’s account of the communion service.  This past week officials […]

The Faces of Friendship Park
Border Wall / Friendship Park

The Faces of Friendship Park

“Somos familia de Dios, We are family of God,” Silvia offered with a smile. I had just asked if she was here with her family, and Silvia reached out to testify. “Are you a Christian?” she asked. I stopped to chat with Silvia today at Parque del Mar, the Tijuana […]

Saving Friendship Park
Border Wall / Friendship Park

Saving Friendship Park

This is an article I wrote in January 2011 recounting the history of our coalition, published in the anthology Wounded Border/Frontera Herida: Readings on the Tijuana/San Diego Region and Beyond. Eds. Justin Akers Chacón and Enrique Davalos. City Works Press. 2011.   Click here to order ************ A PARK, OR A […]

El Norte
Border Wall / Friendship Park / Migrant Stories

El Norte

In a small grove of trees sliced in two by the rough iron bars of the border wall, a little boy looking northward has left his car. Here, in La Cañada de Los Sauces, just a few hundred yards east of Friendship Park, migrants wait and watch for their opportunity to cross. The […]

A gathering place at the U.S.-Mexico border
Border Wall / Friendship Park

A gathering place at the U.S.-Mexico border

Friendship Park is a half an acre plaza overlooking thePacific Ocean at the southwest corner of the continentalUnited States.  The plaza sits atop Monument Mesa, a  six acre state park property with restroom and picnic facilities, and part of a larger 800-acre Border Field State Park.  At the center stands […]

Friendship Park as a Tijuanense, Tijuana Day 57
Border Wall / Friendship Park / Tijuana Photo of the Day

Friendship Park as a Tijuanense, Tijuana Day 57

Today I attended an event at Friendship Park for the first time since I moved to Tijuana. I saw so many of my dear friends over on the San Diego side–and in my excitement, I wanted to greet them with a hug, but the hug and kiss I wanted to give was […]

Border Art / Border Wall / Friendship Park

Borrando la Barda/Erasing the Border

On June 14, 2011 an artist came to Tijuana to erase the border. And nobody seemed to mind. At around 11 am that Tuesday, artist Ana Teresa Fernández set an enormous ladder against the border wall separating Playas de Tijuana from San Diego’s Border Field State park, and using a […]