Archive for Category: "Migrant Stories"
Checkpoint Nation? Building Community Across Borders
In the wake of panic and anti-immigrant hysteria following the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March of 2010, Arizona legislators passed SB1070, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, one month later on April 23, 2010. The broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration measure in recent U.S. history, the law required that [...]
Mario from Guerrero
Today I hung out with a guy named Mario along the border wall near the footbridge at Los Laureles Canyon. He was hiking up the path from the culvert carrying a bolero kit, and I laughed and asked him if he gets much business shining shoes out here along the wall. He smiled and explained that [...]
Border Patrol brutality
There’s nothing more idyllic than rural areas along the border in Baja California and San Diego County. Yellow blossoms blanket the ground for miles in the springtime, and once outside of the dense colonias of Tijuana, sleepy little settlements of a few homes are scattered here and there around Tecate. Yet, if you talk to [...]
Outside the wall
In Tijuana’s Zona Norte, the north end of Avenida Lucrecia Toriz has been sealed up with a concrete cinder block wall. The effect is abrupt, a rude interruption, creating a dead space piled with trash where street dogs gather to pick through the ruins. In fact, lots of streets facing north have been blocked off–some [...]
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 natural features of this tiny [...]
DESERTED
Join Breakthrough and filmmakers Dana Variano and Ishita Srivastava and raise your voice against one of the most pressing human rights tragedies today: the everyday deaths of migrants crossing through the deserts and mountains of the southwest United States. “The remains of at least 6,000 migrants have been found in U.S. desert land since U.S.-Mexico border policies [...]
Migrant lives
Traveling along the border wall, you see many traces of the footsteps of migrants. People like you and me, who are working to improve their lives and give the opportunities to their children that they themselves did not enjoy. One of my favorites is a name I saw near the end of the old border [...]
Life on the road
I first saw Victor’s home last week when I was down in Tijuana’s Zona Norte. I was shooting photos of a mural my friends are working on at the corner of Niños Heroes and Avenida Internacional. And there it was, a mattress and a pile of personal belongings covered with a blanket, lying in a [...]
Ni de aquí, ni de allá Border Log 3
July 3, 2008, Tijuana- Today I’m walking with Dan along Avenida Internacional, the four-lane highway that runs along the border between Tijuana and San Diego, and I cringe as I feel the rush of speeding cars at my back, dragging on my body. I know we are far enough off the road, but it’s a [...]
