Please Don’t Feed the Gringos: The US-Mexico Divide
Claudio Lomnitz
Translated by Jessie Mendez Sayer
A few years ago, when I was in Tijuana for a conference, some colleagues from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte took us to see some of the city’s places of interest, including a couple of sectors of the famous border wall. I should mention before continuing that I had always felt a certain admiration for Tijuana’s air of bravura. I was surprised to pick up on a sense of freedom (or at least of existentialism) in the midst of that funnel-city, which leans against the border wall with roguish self-assurance, cigarette in hand. Even the famous wall brought to mind images that were somewhat unexpected.