observing san diego-tijuana urban life 
The U.S. Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill today, after weeks of negotiation over amendments designed to appeal to the most recalcitrant anti-immigration legislators. The Democratic controlled Senate passed the bill by a vote of 68-32, but not before adding provisions for a massive buildup of border security. The “border […]
In 2012, the Obama administration deported 409,849 people living in the United States without proper immigration status. By 2014, estimates suggest that Obama will have deported 2 million. The American people cheer this effort and offer simple moral platitudes: “They knew the risks, they were here illegally. Let’s round up their […]
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 […]
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. […]
In Tijuana, urban art is everywhere, and artists find their most important contributions lie in the way their work can reactivate spaces that lie far beyond the official “front stage” of tidy commerce in the city. As the urban theorist Michel de Certeau argued in The Practice of Everyday Life, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
José Alfredo Yáñez Reyes, 40-year-old tile & construction worker, was shot and killed by a border patrol agent on Tues, June 21 at about 7:30 PM while climbing on the border fence near Dairy Mart Road, San Diego & Zona Norte, Tijuana. Husband & father of a new baby, Yáñez was originally […]
