19 minute read
The Unseen Barrier Maria Poblete
A: Depending on the situation, in my personal predicament it wasn’t necessarily an obstacle. It’s in our human nature to want to be part of something or to be accepted. I prefer my solitude and follow the general guidelines I have grown accustomed to. However, in order to proceed further in communicating with others changes do have to happen. Nothing drastic but small ones that enable a person to function with society. It’s similar to the concept about a group discussion about a topic, how one person is limited on their knowledge and the others are fluent with it. The conversation may be strained to the differences but it still creates a discussion that works.
Q: Do you think we deal with these differences in a day to day basis?
noticeable unless someone looks into depth with every encounter. We are all used to the necessity of conversing with people that the question never pops up unless someone points it out. We have grown accustomed to it and head-butting through topics is just something that can appear from time to time. It’s already a known idea that everyone has their own opinion A: They can overlap. A person’s abstract border can overlap another because it holds no specific physical form. The way an abstract border works is that it is built from a person’s experience and ideas. These experiences can interact with other people and ideas can be similar to others thus creating a sense of overlapping.
Q: Can there be a way to interact two or more different cultures into one to blur the line of what is seen as a border?
A: When we interact with other people we do deal with the differences. However, it’s not
A: When groups share something similar to one another, this can create a link that crosses over that invisible boundary. Interaction is the key element to allow cultures to lose its boundary or at least blur it to the point that it’s hard to detect. Without the interaction, everything is stuck within their specific spots never crossing forth to the other side. ●
Discrimination as a wall | Participant/Author to Participant/Author
Estefany was born and raised in Queretaro, Mexico. Currently residing in San Diego, CA. She is 23 years old. This conversation took place at Woodbury University Library on September 26, 2016.
Maria Poblete: The border can be a physical obstruction such as a wall but have you ever seen it as something else like an abstract element?
Estefany Gonzalez: Well,..yes because when I have been in Tijuana, Mexico, I haven’t seen a E: There are changes happening in every culture, so sometimes it’s weird when you don’t know wall separating the two territories. I see a wall that is covered in crosses that signifies each if you are doing something wrong towards them. That’s why I try my best not to offend person that tries to cross the border but they end up dying as they try to. Yes, I think that’s what anybody. the wall is to me as an abstraction limit.
M: Have you become accustomed to the differences?
M: You say that the border has caused discrimination, since you moved here how did this affect your way of living? E: Yes, I think the custom that everyone does is a like a routine, that in the morning you wake
up, go to school, go back home, and then the day is already done. I think you start forgetting E: Yeah..I feel sometimes feel the discrimination by people’s comments, that they stereotype your other cultures. For example mine, in my Mexican culture I usually walk to the store. But the idea of other people in a general way. So I think people need to know the person first in here you have to do everything really fast. After school you go to the store, then you head home order to talk about them because not everybody is a bad or good person. We need to know them to make dinner to eat after that..that’s it all your day [smiles and laughs] I think the different
41 first in order to make a comment because when they don’t that’s when I start feeling discriminated. M: Do you think this idea of the border still affects you until now? E: Yeah, I think that it also affects everybody else, especially, for people here at San Diego. For example here at school there are some classmates that are living here but they go to West Valley. So every day they come and go back, this affects everyone positively and negatively. M: Has your lifestyle change due to the move? E: Yes, I think so because I’m from a very small village in Mexico. And the life there, from what I can describe, is kind of slower and here it’s faster. You have to go everywhere with a car and even when it’s just to go to the store. This is because the store is far from your home and school. Also the traditions, customs, foods, and everything are different. M: Has discrimination been a factor to the changes you now deal with in a day to day basis? E: Yes, sometimes when I’m at a store people would look at me in an inappropriate way even while driving. I don’t know why but there are just people who can see you as a Mexican and they just generalize you right away. M: Since there are a lot of differences between Mexico and California, has differences create a barrier when you interacted with people around here? custom makes you forget a little bit of your own usual daily routine. M: It’s been five years since you moved here can you detect any differences between when you got here to this current point in time? E: One of the things that have changed for me is my language. My English may not be as perfect but I consider myself bilingual. Also right now the food that I cook is more Americanized as well. There are a lot of differences but you also learn from the different cultures. You have the opportunity to share knowledge with more cultures that are here from all around the world. This is one of the differences that have come to me since I moved here. M: Do you still practice the same culture? E: I try to because sometimes you forget due to the things that you have to do in the house or at school. For example in my religion, I’m Catholic; I usually go to church every Sunday. But now I haven’t been there in almost a year because of school and all the other things that can consume your time. I always try to keep my traditions and my behaviors that my parents have given me as well as the rules that I have to follow when I’m in Mexico. I believe the tips that parents give to their children is different here compare to at Mexico. Plus I prefer the ones I learned in Mexico maybe because I was born there but I try to practice the same culture here too. M: Do you still see the border as an obstacle even when you have crossed over it? E: Yes, even if it’s been 5 years since I’ve been here. I have all my family there and my
E: Yeah, sometimes it’s hard because here in the United States you find a lot of cultures. For childhood memories in Mexico. All of those things are part of me. I remember the things that example the Japanese or Chinese cultures, it’s sometimes difficult to say hi to people who make me feel like I’m not part of this place. I don’t feel like I’m from here. I feel that I’m still practice it. When I was in college I had a friend from China. In Mexico, the way I say hi to from Mexico no matter what. Because of this I still see that border, it is still a wall. I try my best friends I usually shake their hands and kiss them on the cheek. I did that automatically from to keep in touch with my family there and when I have the opportunity during Winter Break I my head without thinking and she felt bad when I did that. try to go there just to visit them. I even go see the places that I usually walk and see my family
I have there to witness the changes that have happen when I was away. ● M and E: [laughs]
NOTES
visit: www.collectivemagpie.org/book for another interview conducted by Maria Poblete along with the full collection of 82 interviews
The wall has become an extremely politicized symbol of the region, of SD/TJ. Twenty minutes away from our home in San Diego 50,000 northbound vehicles and 25,000 northbound pedestrians cross the US/MX border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry daily. You can stand at the closest beach to that port at the International Friendship Park and be a part of the surreal i image of three different layers of border divisions. La Mojonera, or Western Land Boundary Monument No. 258 is a 9-foot high obelisk which sits completely out of place at the beach like a tomb marker from a historic cemetery. It marks the start of the 1,952 mile line separating Mexico and the United States. In 1851, representatives of the Boundary Commissions from each nation placed the marker together in a collaborative effort that seems difficult to imagine today. A foot away from the territory marker is a sight impossible to fully ii understand. There is a 10 foot steel fence that divides the concrete, then the sand along the beach and continues on into the ocean for several hundred feet as if to attempt to divide that as well. This is a security border wall to prevent the passing of people from Mexico into the United States as a result of the 1994 Operation Gatekeeper. The wall is made of steel military iii landing mat and has small gaps between slats. Separated families have used those spaces to see each other, talk and hold hands between the bars for years. The latest wall is a double v iv reinforcement, first built after 9/11 when more federal legislation allowed for increased security at the border. This secondary wall built in parallel, several feet away from the first, also vi put an end to the possibility of physical contact through the fence. It created a further strange division of a policed no entry zone between the two fences that is occasionally opened for cultural events and often increases the pain of this division. If you go there today, you will see the barren US beach of Border Feld State Park under watch of a border patrol officer. On the MX side, you can see the lively festivities of the Playas beach front, food vendors, live musicians, seafood restaurants and children playing. What we see here is a landscape that separates families, creates tension between nations and instills fear of each other. The wall is a constant reminder of war, failed humanity and the incessant power play for the 1%. President Trump’s scheduled 21 billion dollar border wall will only reinforce and reassure us of all of many years of tension.
The interviews transcribed in this publication share a Mexican-American border patrol officer reflecting on illegal immigrants, a criminal sketch artist profiling the accused inside the court, first hand observations of how the legend of Tijuana, the dangerous city, continues to haunt families over 3 generations, a self described racial identity fading away from racial tension, the resolution of an internal struggle caused by external violence, a pathway from religious crisis to the questioning of freedom and much more. These stories are tragically frustrating, violently unforgivable, some cringe worthy, or confusing at times, are all warmly exchanged, immensely complex and most surprisingly, they are strikingly honest and personal. They ignite the border from the inside rather than from the outside reminding us that the border does not start at the line between US and MX but it is here, embedded in our lives, in every one of us.
These are the stories that are here and remain here as a memory and history. These are the stories of the border residents. These are the stories of our border—the border that matters.
42 w i t h r e s i d e n t s o f T i j u a n a - S a n D i e g o border of familiarity | Self-Interview READ ALL 82 CONVERSATIONS Paul Esteban was born in San Diego, CA, raised in and currently residing in San Diego, CA. He is 30. This Conversation took place at his home in San Diego, CA. Border is extents of expectations used to either identify with or against in order to create self structure. Paul Esteban is an aspiring architect/ space creator. He enjoys leaning, laughing and being inspired. What is to be Expected Paul Esteban b o r d e r t h r e e 3 6 c o n v e r s a t i o n s PREFACE & THANK YOU We are humbled and grateful to have had the honor and privilege to cross back and forth between San Diego and Tijuana, listening to the experiences of people living in these borderlands, over these last several years. Those who have shared their personal stories, for others to read, have inspired this rich publication. We thank you all for extending your sincerity, labor and trust in each other and to us—two complete strangers—during our Globos Workshops*. The generosity extended by each participant opened a space to consciously engage together, reflecting on the complex close(d) relationship of living within the region of the most frequently crossed border in the world—And all the mess, beauty and challenges that are a part of it. The resulting 82 conversations on the subject of border were produced via four seminars from an experimental Art & Ethnography course series: HOT AIR BALLOONS and INTERVIEWS from 2015-2017. The seminars were held in conjunction with the Culture, Art & Technology Program, University of California San Diego; the Transdisciplinary Program, Woodbury University at the School of Architecture; and the concluding seminar, Transnational Edition was held in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, in addition to multiple sites in both border cities. MCASD hosted the seminar extending access and content to the their permanent collection and enabling the seminar to exist between multiple colleges, allowing joint participants from Southwestern College, University of California San Diego and Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. This interview collection and artwork consists of a series of transcribed interviews conducted and edited by millennials working collaboratively with each other and with us. * Globos Workshops were developed to produce a fleet of 25ft unmanned hot air balloons to be launched over the US/MX border at Friendship Park, TJ/SD. Balloon construction workshops were held at both sides of the border within many different communities and cultural centers. This publication is a four part series of conversations about the border. Preface & Introduction by Tae Hwang & MR Barnadas of Collective Magpie. Design by Adrian Orozco & Abigail Peña. Copyright. 2015-2018 All authors. . Printed at Diego & Sons, SD. Complete free download of 82 interviews can be accessed at www.collectivemagpie.org/book
Q: What has been the most significant border you have crossed physically and mentally? Was one more difficult than the other?
A: Heading into Barcelona was probably the most significant border I’ve crossed. It was my first trip abroad with friends. It wasn’t the first city that we stopped into but it was the most memorable. I think it was because I had shook the jitters off from being abroad and finally settled into my reality. It was definitely the most significant because it was the most emotional. I was filled with so many different feelings that I had forgotten about. The fear, excitement and alertness I had were overwhelming. The best way I could describe it is to say that it was like being a kid again, full of wonder. Everything had a new smell, look, taste, feel. All of my senses were going crazy with the new environment I was in. That is somewhere that will always be special to me and a memory worth more than any sum of money.
As for mentally, I think I have yet to cross my most significant border. I’ve always been scatter brained about what I wanted to be in life. When I finally decided that I wanted to whole heartedly pursue architecture, I set a border for myself. It was a border into a path that I could confidently use as a foundation to set my whole life upon. I would say that pursuing a profession in Architecture has definitely been the most challenging border that I’ve began. Crossing physical borders have never been an issue and the journey has been the reward. So far, in pursuing Architecture I’ve labored a ton and haven’t quite felt the satisfaction that I’m looking for. I love the feeling of designing in school and at work which lets me know that I’m on the right path but I haven’t made enough impact in the real world to feel as though I’m making a difference. I feel like it’s going to be a long chase but I am confident that I will get the fulfillment that I am looking for as well as more challenges that will create a lifetime of borders to cross for me.
Q: How has being a Native San Diegan influenced your interests in developing your person through subjecting yourself to various cultures?
A: Besides growing up in San Diego, I come from an immensely diverse family. My Mother is Mexican, My Father Filipino, My Step-Father is Italian and my Step-Mother is African American. I think this might have been a bigger factor to my openness about multiple cultures than my upbringing in San Diego. The combination of a variety of family and living in a border city have made the cross-culture, culture, my norm. I’ve never known what it was like to be “sheltered”. I basically had an extra set of parents from such different backgrounds which forced me to hear a variety of perspectives. I grew up noticing and believing that there wasn’t always an absolute answer to any question or situation. My interest in putting myself into different environments became my way of understanding the world and my place in it.
Q: What do you feel are the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple parental perspectives?
A: The biggest advantage of basically having four parents would be the experience of being totally exposed to four completely different people. I feel as though people in general have specific traits or characteristics that they are uniquely great at— so in that way I feel that I have been extremely lucky to be able to pull from a slightly larger parental pool than most people. My parents have always encouraged me to cultivate the traits from them that I thought were favorable and to eliminate the characteristics that I saw were disadvantageous. I think there is an interesting and dynamic relationship that is unique when you have more “parents” as opposed to just a large family or many mentors. If nothing else, having everyday interactions and coordinating everyday plans through that many influences have definitely helped me from a social standpoint. I think one of the disadvantages is that I find that there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to many things. There have been times where I have found myself over thinking situations trying to cycle through the “what would ____ do?” type of self-question. My father is more of an aggressive ‘take the bull by the horns’ type of person, my step father is more of a think it through type of person and my mom and step mom are both on whole other sides of their own spectrums. Sometimes, when dealing with difficult decisions, it seems like a conundrum of knowing so much that you don’t have time to just come up with a quick answer, so you feel like you don’t have an answer.
Q: How do you feel about the negative connotations that come from divorce and children raised in households of divorcees?
A: I feel that divorce itself is not something that is detrimental to a kid growing up. I think that a dysfunctional household is more of a problem. The issue of divorce becomes a problem when the parent’s interests detract from the care and general wellness of the child. I watched a comedy movie titled, A.C.O.D (Adult Children of Divorce). The movie was filled with hilarious scenes portraying the daily situations an adult child of divorce faces. Some of the awkward negative scenes were completely relatable but it didn’t show the situations where it was beneficial to have multiple parents. As in many situations there are times when something works, and when it doesn’t. I think I just got lucky, so it’s hard to see myself wanting my situation to be different when I feel that all parties involved turned out happy.
Q: Do you think your outlook on life in general has been altered because you have been raised by two sets of parents?
A: I don’t know if it has been altered. All of my parents encourage my pursuit of happiness and have always been supportive and adamant about me doing things that make me happy. Whether it is relationships, career pursuits or travel plans, I’ve always been motivated to achieve what I want and not to settle for less. They are always there for advice and there are times that their “advice” is unwavering but for the most part, they trust that I will make good choices. I think in that respect, I may have been a completely different person if I came from a family that had a prescriptive plan for me.
Q: Do you feel that prescribed plans affect someone’s capability of being happy?
