Tijuana
Life in Tijuana goes on. The buses run, people go to work, kids go to school, traffic still jams the city’s arteries. But something has changed in the last year or so: the city’s residents …
“In July 2004, I was coming out of my house and discovered the whole Colonia Federal being invaded by police and soldiers,” says Border Council of Arts and Culture founder Luis Ituarte. “I found out …
When it comes to crossing the border, Carlos Hermosillo plays it by ear. As he gets close to the San Ysidro crossing, he calls 700-7000 on his cell phone, and a recording gives him the …
Spanish slang connoisseur Roxana Fitch grew up in Tijuana, birthplace of some of the most distinctive slang words — or jergas — in the entire Spanish-speaking world. The proximity of Tijuana, and of Mexico's entire …
Aha. There he is. Right down the pasaje. Willy Clauson. He’s sitting under a way-big vaquero hat, smoking a cigar and playing his guitar in front of his museum. Song’s “Adelita,” about the Mexican Revolutionary …
I didn't recognize where I was. "Things have changed a lot," said Jorge Rodríguez, leading me out of the rain, into his two-story cinder-block house. "I came to Los Arenales looking for new horizons," he …
Fifteen or 20 miles east of downtown Tijuana, on the toll road to Tecate, neighborhoods of roughly paved streets and concrete houses give way to dirt roads running amid shacks made of pallets, plywood, and …
“They might have a relative who is sick or who just died. You see, most of them have left their families in the south, and they're working here and sending money south to Oaxaca or Puebla.”
Fear of kidnapping has long spurred the upper classes in Tijuana to build high walls around their homes and mansions. Some even purchase insurance policies that will pay ransoms. But the literary community, never feeling …
When Ginny Silva began her singing career, Tijuana’s Avenida Revolución was infamous, a raunchy place of strip clubs, where hookers and drug pushers worked in the open and where we young fellows went if we …
Just north of Third Street, on the east side of Avenida Revolución, florista Esperanza Cervantes and her husband José Arias sit in metal folding chairs. Their backs are to the street. Across the street, American …
“On the morning of January 20, 1974, the police came. The neighborhood’s name was Tierra y Libertad, ‘Land and Liberty.’ The police marched right into the neighborhood. Perhaps they were state police. I’m not sure. …
Jose Quezada, 47, calls himself a talón. “A talón is like a hustler. And a talón is important here. Some of the workers–” he rolls his eyes back to the shop where men are banging …
"My patient is Tijuana," says Dr. José Rubio Soto. "My hospital is city hall. These are the X-rays." He's peering at a computer screen filled with blobs. It's a map of the city. Tijuana looks …
The evening began a little after eight in the bar at Sanborn’s on Revolución where eight poets gathered for drinks and chisme (gossip). Around midnight one of them suggested we move on to El Lugar …