Last Blog On Earth

Dan Watman

On the southwestern-most corner of the United States sits a rusty fence that separates the U.S. and Mexico. Families like the Gonzalez’s, divided by their immigration status, gather there on a weekly basis to catch up on family matters, gossip, and to share in a good laugh. “Did you hear that Mervyn’s is going out of business? I heard everything is on sale,” a cousin on the Tijuana side asked her U.S counterpart, adding “I wish I could be there—I’d clean the whole place up!” Showing off wedding and baptism pictures followed, and, at the end, a little wad of rolled up $20 bills made its way over to the Mexican side.

The “Bullring by the Sea” seems almost eerie through the fence, as blaring sounds of Banda music from a nearby seafood restaurant fill the air. In the distance, there are giggles from children playing in the beach on the Mexico side while the American side is desolate, thanks to bright Department of Environmental Health “Danger, sewage contaminated waters” signs. This is Border Field Park, the site of Border Meetup, a group started four years ago by Mesa College Spanish teacher Dan Watman in hopes of promoting cross-border friendship and tearing down ideological barriers.

“There are talks about adding to the wall,” he said as he coordinated people on both sides who were replanting the binational garden, adding, The more wall and the more Border Patrol agents, the more motivated I get to keep up this cultural exchange.”

Saturday, Watman, along with help from about a dozen attendees, replanted the Binational Native Plant Garden, after prison inmates on community service accidentally cleared it out last March. As the sun came down—true to Watman’s vision—a cultural fête ensued and a cross border poetry slam took place.

“Immigrants in their own land and I am one with them, an immigrant in my own land,” poet Jim Moreno passionately said through a microphone, adding “Pray for them, the lost ones. You are the terrorists with your cape of nooses.” Moreno, a City Heights resident, said he got inspiration for his piece Día del Duende after seeing a headless mannequin wearing a Border Patrol uniform and a white cape made out of 2,000 miniature hangman’s knots on display at Balboa Park’s Centro Cultural de le Raza.

Tijuana poet Luisa Ruiz

Meanwhile, on the other side, in Playas de Tijuana, 37-year-old Mónica Ávila remembered a more peaceful home town in her poem Correspondencia I:

Today more than ever, how I wish for the heroes of my childhood: El Santo, the Bionic Man, Wonder woman, the Hulk. How I would like to live in a city like when I was 10 years old and rode in my bicycle. I want to go around it taken by your hand and without feeling a need to rush. I want a thunderous noise to come from love, not bullets.

To find out more on upcoming border meetups including a salsa dance-off and their second annual Fandango Fronterizo, click http://bordermeetup.org/