Con el Tratado de Guadalupe-Hildalgo en 1848 la gente vivía en Texas se convertiaron de mexicanos hasta mexican-americanos, pero no tuvieron el bienvenido en los Estados Unidos. Aún asi que ellos ambos vivían en las tierras de Texas, California y New Mexico antes del tratado y que, con el tratado, se convirtieron en ciudadanos de los Estados Unidos, los gringos (uso gringo en esta esayo por los estadounidenses quienes son blancos y quienes tienen el poder en el libro) los trataron como ellos fueran imigrantes ilegales. Después del tratado, hay muchas leyes en Texas que hizaron facil que los gringos pudieron arrebetar las tierras de los Mexican-americanos. De repente, los campesinos Mexican-americanos se convertieron de nuevo, hasta migrantes que tuvieran mudarse con las cosechas, sigiendo trabajo. Sus vidas eran sin riquesas, vivido debajo de los gringos. Contra esta fondación, Tomás Rivera pone su coleción de cuentas, dicho de la perspective de un niño. Rivera pone sus cuentas en la frontera, donde las relaciónes entre gringos, mexican-americans y los migrantes mexicanas eran más complicadas y conflictadas, especialmente con las vidas migrantes de las mexican-americanos.
Las vidas en la colección son llena solamente con esperanza y sueños de una vida mejor. Con …y no se lo tragó le tierra, Tomás Rivera hace el mundo de la frontera uno en que la realidad brutal quebra todos los sueños que traen la gente. Con “Los quemaditos,” Rivera realiza el tema de los quebrados por medio del maltratamiento de los gringos.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Border Fence, Tijuana, MX
Avenida Internaciónal become Calle Al Aereopuerto west of el centro de Tijuana in its run along the south side of the border. It passes the airport and continues east towards Tecate.
I wanted to return to a particular section of the border fence, just behind the airport. I’d seen it yesterday while Oscar Ortega was driving me over to the site of his newest sculpture.
The border fence stands more prominent in the lives of people who live south of it. In the U.S., cities stop well north of the border, far enough away that the border fence remains out of sight unless you go looking for it. I stand on a hill in Colonia Reynosa, and look west, the fence continuing out into the Pacific, rising and falling with the desert hills. On the U.S. side, all I see are hills spotted with low desert shrubs; on the Mexican side, urban landscape continues right up to the wall. On the southern side, cities roll right up and crash into the border. In Colonia Federale, I have seen garden plots cultivated in the shadow of the fence, vines growing up the fence itself.
People have draped and decorated the fence with their prayers and fears and criticisms, with wood and paint and cloth, with sculpture and words and image, turning it into a veritable alter.
The images are all black and white, and repeated several times before the next print begins its run. The images reveal many perspectives of the fence in haunting simplicity. The back of a woman and her children, sitting on a hill that overlooks the border fence accompanied by the sunburst aura of Guadalupe, empty space where the saint herself would normally be. A collection of silver jewelry against black velvet. A man climbing over the fence. Shadows of people waiting. Men in cowboy boots and hats in an airport, looking overwhelmed and confused.
One after another the images line the fence itself, giving depth to what the fence is, what it means in people’s lives. The printed cloth blows in the wind, and will hang there until the weather tatters it and it falls off.
Further west, but beginning just where the prints end (or begin), simple wooden crosses hang. They have been painted white, and assembled with the crosspiece not always at right angles. In black paint, names of people who have died crossing the border have been painted on the crosses, and desconoscido for those who died anonymously and were discovered anonymously.
These desconoscidos make me think, more than the named crosses, of who it was that found the body and who waits, at some point south, for contact, reassurance, a note, a postcard, something, anything, from this person? It is those crosses desconosidos that make me painfully aware of the webbed links of each person’s life, of how many people, however far away they are, the fence has affected.
In seeing the border itself, it is difficult to understand what it stands for, but these two installations make the human implications of the fence painfully clear.
I wanted to return to a particular section of the border fence, just behind the airport. I’d seen it yesterday while Oscar Ortega was driving me over to the site of his newest sculpture.
The border fence stands more prominent in the lives of people who live south of it. In the U.S., cities stop well north of the border, far enough away that the border fence remains out of sight unless you go looking for it. I stand on a hill in Colonia Reynosa, and look west, the fence continuing out into the Pacific, rising and falling with the desert hills. On the U.S. side, all I see are hills spotted with low desert shrubs; on the Mexican side, urban landscape continues right up to the wall. On the southern side, cities roll right up and crash into the border. In Colonia Federale, I have seen garden plots cultivated in the shadow of the fence, vines growing up the fence itself.
People have draped and decorated the fence with their prayers and fears and criticisms, with wood and paint and cloth, with sculpture and words and image, turning it into a veritable alter.
At this particular point, a series of artworks cascade into each other. An anonymous photographer has captured images relative to the border, to Tijuana, and transferred them to cloth, which s/he then draped over the fence for nearly a half mile.
One after another the images line the fence itself, giving depth to what the fence is, what it means in people’s lives. The printed cloth blows in the wind, and will hang there until the weather tatters it and it falls off.
Further west, but beginning just where the prints end (or begin), simple wooden crosses hang. They have been painted white, and assembled with the crosspiece not always at right angles. In black paint, names of people who have died crossing the border have been painted on the crosses, and desconoscido for those who died anonymously and were discovered anonymously.
These desconoscidos make me think, more than the named crosses, of who it was that found the body and who waits, at some point south, for contact, reassurance, a note, a postcard, something, anything, from this person? It is those crosses desconosidos that make me painfully aware of the webbed links of each person’s life, of how many people, however far away they are, the fence has affected.
In seeing the border itself, it is difficult to understand what it stands for, but these two installations make the human implications of the fence painfully clear.
Monday, October 11, 2010
McCarthy's Blood Meridian or, The Evening Redness in the West
In Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy tells tales of the U.S.-Mexican border that today, is long forgotten. He picks up the story of the forming of the Glanton gang, a group of felons hired by the Mexican government to annihilate the Apaches, for that matter, any remaining American Indian, just after the treaty of Guadalupe-Hildago, 1848 that cemented the U.S.-Mexican border where it is today.
Blood Meridian is a historical novel, bringing to light not just the tumultuous history of U.S.-Mexican relations, but the nebulousness of the border, the ease of crossing back and forth, and the American Indians that lived on and near the border.
The Glanton gang was formed in 1849 and did, as the story tells, traverse the Chihuahua-Texas area, scalp hunting. As brutal an act as scalping is, in the world of the novel, it becomes an almost serene act of violence against the unimaginable violence, brutality and cruelty that occur on nearly every page of the book. Their work was possible only in the complete lawlessness that existed at the time. The violence, horrific in both its high frequency and in its ruthlessness, characterizes the novel, and the border.
Focused on the border at Ciudad Júarez and El Paso, McCarthy foretells the ongoing violence at these border towns. In the novel, just before the Glanton gang begins their scalp hunting foray into Mexico, a Mennonite tells the boy, the only name the main character ever has, that if they cross over the border they will wake “the wrath of god…hid a million years before men were and only men have the power to wake it” (40). After the ambiguous ending (was the boy murdered? What was there to see so terrible in the jakes that couldn’t be spoken on these pages that have described in gruesome detail horrors I didn’t even know man could wreck?), the epilogue describes what seems to be a man making post holes for a fence, and fire comes with each post hole. With him are wanderers searching for bones. These two scenes seem to indicate Ciudad Júarez now, haunted by the brutal and epidemic femicides. It seems to me that the Mennonite’s warning of what the Glanton gang will set into motion the violence that we still know of today. I read the hole-augurer as setting out the border fence, cause for more violence and the unending hell. The wanderers looking for bones brings two images to mind: one of the myriad migrants that don’t make it across and end up dead in the desert, only to be found later and the bodies and bones in the desert around Júarez.
The border has been rife with violence since its inception and will be defined by violence until it is no longer. For me, the importance of the border story that McCarthy tells is important in how it points to the continuation of the story in today’s border violence.
Blood Meridian is a historical novel, bringing to light not just the tumultuous history of U.S.-Mexican relations, but the nebulousness of the border, the ease of crossing back and forth, and the American Indians that lived on and near the border.
The Glanton gang was formed in 1849 and did, as the story tells, traverse the Chihuahua-Texas area, scalp hunting. As brutal an act as scalping is, in the world of the novel, it becomes an almost serene act of violence against the unimaginable violence, brutality and cruelty that occur on nearly every page of the book. Their work was possible only in the complete lawlessness that existed at the time. The violence, horrific in both its high frequency and in its ruthlessness, characterizes the novel, and the border.
Focused on the border at Ciudad Júarez and El Paso, McCarthy foretells the ongoing violence at these border towns. In the novel, just before the Glanton gang begins their scalp hunting foray into Mexico, a Mennonite tells the boy, the only name the main character ever has, that if they cross over the border they will wake “the wrath of god…hid a million years before men were and only men have the power to wake it” (40). After the ambiguous ending (was the boy murdered? What was there to see so terrible in the jakes that couldn’t be spoken on these pages that have described in gruesome detail horrors I didn’t even know man could wreck?), the epilogue describes what seems to be a man making post holes for a fence, and fire comes with each post hole. With him are wanderers searching for bones. These two scenes seem to indicate Ciudad Júarez now, haunted by the brutal and epidemic femicides. It seems to me that the Mennonite’s warning of what the Glanton gang will set into motion the violence that we still know of today. I read the hole-augurer as setting out the border fence, cause for more violence and the unending hell. The wanderers looking for bones brings two images to mind: one of the myriad migrants that don’t make it across and end up dead in the desert, only to be found later and the bodies and bones in the desert around Júarez.
The border has been rife with violence since its inception and will be defined by violence until it is no longer. For me, the importance of the border story that McCarthy tells is important in how it points to the continuation of the story in today’s border violence.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Ortega's border sculptures
Oscar Ortega is currently working on a series of sculptures that will stretch along the length of the border, each one documenting the time and place of its site. The energetic and affable artist began this series with La esquina de un mundo (The Corner of a World) in Las Playas, the most northwestern corner of Tijuana and “the last, or first, depending on your view, corner of Latin America.”
The next sculpture in the series, Entre ventana y puerto (Between a window and a door), sits on a meridian in the center of the main thorough fare out of Tijuana and into San Ysidro, about 100 feet from the border crossing. Here, there is always traffic, and men and women walk among the cars, peddling food and drink, puppies and piñatas, magazines, jewelry, entertainment by way of juggling and acrobatics, anything that could turn a dollar.
With Entre ventana y puerto, Ortega combined many elements of the border: the industrial aspects, the motion, the traffic, the cultures coming together, so the sculpture has elements of Aztec and U.S. culture, suns and stars and stripes; cement tire wheels jutting out from the edges.
Ortega took me to view the site of his newest work, in Otay Mesa, the industrial center of Tijuana. When we went, all there was was a deep hole, with a rebar structure that would help to stabilize the cement base once it was poured. The area seemed desolate, with abandoned big rigs and windowless industrial buildings set on massive plots of land, though we were just a few minutes away from the chaos of Tijuana.
The base of this sculpture will mimic a large cog and wheel, but Ortega will mosaic symbols – letters, numbers but also the ubiquitous symbols of today; the circle with a line through it that is now always on the “on-off” button on electronics – and will boast a cityscape at the top, with a mosaic of people in buildings, office buildings and maquiladoras, showing the variety of positions that people hold.
The next sculpture in the series, Entre ventana y puerto (Between a window and a door), sits on a meridian in the center of the main thorough fare out of Tijuana and into San Ysidro, about 100 feet from the border crossing. Here, there is always traffic, and men and women walk among the cars, peddling food and drink, puppies and piñatas, magazines, jewelry, entertainment by way of juggling and acrobatics, anything that could turn a dollar.
Ortega took me to view the site of his newest work, in Otay Mesa, the industrial center of Tijuana. When we went, all there was was a deep hole, with a rebar structure that would help to stabilize the cement base once it was poured. The area seemed desolate, with abandoned big rigs and windowless industrial buildings set on massive plots of land, though we were just a few minutes away from the chaos of Tijuana.
 | ||
| The model of Ortega's newest work |
As Ortega works his way across the border, each of his sculptures will represent the specific area that it resides in. In the end, Ortega will have captured the characteristics of a specific time for each place through his work.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Ingrid Hernández
Ingrid Hernández is a young Tijuanense photographer who speaks carefully and works in earnest. The main characteristics of her city as she sees it inspired her work. She sees her city as in a state of flux and conflict. Out of these two, have risen the unincorporated colonias, the neighborhoods that have sprouted up around Tijuana, built by people who have arrived in Tijuana with nothing.
She focused mainly in Nueva Esperanza, inspired by the homes built by their owners. She is drawn to the creativity in using objects in new ways, refrigerator doors as walls, for example, and by the mix of Mexican cultures present in the same neighborhood.
She rarely photographs people, instead revealing them through their homes and surroundings. In her photo essay, Tijuana Comprimida, Hernández captures the neighborhood that she has come to know over her year of work there. The essay reveals much about the inhabitants without ever presenting them; in frame after frame it feels as if a person is there, just out of the reach of the frame, and I begin to want to be welcomed in to the community . Hernández has done her work well: in these forgotten and traditionally undesirable neighborhoods of Tijuana, she has made access to them desirable by personalizing them.
To see her work, visit her website,http://www.ingridhernandez.com.mx/
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Diario de Tijuana
Sábado, 17 de abril de 2010
Fui a Tijuana temprano y caminé por el centro. Vi el arco de la calle revolución y “La Bola,” el Centro Cultural de Tijuana. Caminé por el Río Tijuana, que está pequeña ahora. Descubrí un “restaurante:” una mujer pone tres mesas en la calle cerca de su casa y cocina afuera y entonces gana su vivenza. Su comida y aguas frescas son ricas y sencillas. Comí con gusto. Pero asi es Tijuana: sin planificación urbana, la gente contruye sus casas donde puede, y crea trabajo. Hay casas en que sus propriatarios venden ropa, jugetes de niños, las cosas electrónicas, más ropa, el equipo deportivo, comida y más afuera de sus casas. También la gente vende sus servicios de lavar ropa o casas, arreglar los carros, cuidar de los niños.
Él es American Indian, y todo su trabajo toma la historia de los American Indians y los estadosunidenses de su subjecto. Subimos al techo donde está un bar y de donde pudimos ver Tijuana y San Ysidro a la misma vez.
Cerca de las cinco de la tarde, regresé a San Diego y visité mi hermano y encontré mi sobrino; que viaje tan llena!
Friday, April 16, 2010
diario de Tijuana.
Viernes, 16 de abril de 2010
Llegé en Tijuana al mediodía para encontrar Óscar Ortega, otro artista tijuanense. Él tiene 50 años y habla sin parar. Tiene pelo negro con una mancha de gris al frente. Es muy alerto y casi nunca para hablar.
Tiene muchas obras del arte pública. Su primera escultura que hizo conocida está por Las Playas, el parte más oeste de Tijuana. Esa escultura es el inicio de una série de esculturas por la frontera. Todos son demonstrativas de las características del lugar donde está. Por ejemplo, la segunda escultura en la séries está en el centro de las carreterras que van al norte. Estas siempre están llenas de tráffico y su escultura representa el movimiento hasta al norte y al sur, tiene símbolos de los dos países.
Fuimos a su taller, donde me mostró los planes para la escultura de Otay Mesa y pude ver el proceso de hacer el “mold” para las partes decorativas de la escultura. Su taller está en una casa pequeña en el centro de Tijuana. Detrás de su taller hay una de los casas más viejas de Tijuana. Está construida de adobe, en vez de cinder blocks que son el material más usado en Tijuana hoy.
Fuimos al sitio en Otay Mesa, que está tan cerca de la frontera que recibí llamadas en mi cellular. Ahora donde va a estar su escultura hay solamente un hueco grande y el inicio de su fundación de rebar. Ortega dice que no quiere hacer una declaración con su arte, quiere hacer los representaciones de un lugar y un tiempo.
Regresamos al centro por la carretera del aeropuerto, la carretera más al norte de Tijuana que corre por la pared. He visto un mural de tela, con imagines de la gente esperando cruzar, escalando la pared, corriendo.
Almuerzamos juntos y regresé a San Diego.
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