El Viento de Santa Ana

I was okay with coming to Tijuana for two reasons: the weather and the proximity to various activist groups that deal with border issues. The weather was definitely not panning out. On Independence Day, I decided to get in contact with some border groups. While volunteering in Arizona with No More Deaths, I had heard about a group called Border Angels that had a similar mission, distributing water to migrants, yet in the California desert. I was also familiar with Casa del Migrante, a mission house that served migrants that had been deported in Tijuana. I contacted them both and was flattered to receive quick responses.

Alec and I arranged to meet the Border Angels coordinator at Playas on the morning of the 19th. We would participate with her in Coastal Cleanup and learn a little about Border Angels' activities. That morning, Alec bought a newspaper before we left to catch a series of buses and collective taxis that would take us across town to the beach. Lurid headlines were spread across the front page, three police officers ambushed and shot by traficantes, in, of course, Playas. The drug crime here is a little different than in the U.S. From what I can gather from various crime related television shows I watch at home, organized crime generally avoids targeting law enforcement in order to avoid confrontation with a well armed police force. Here, the traficantes target the police and political figures; they are better armed and usually force resignations through intimidation. Or they just shoot them. Or cut their heads off. One evening during my low period, we went to the Chinese buffet restaurant near the grocery store, better said, in downtown Villa Fontana. I grabbed some food and plunked myself at a table near the television, in order to see the Mexico vs. Whoever soccer game. As soon as I sat down I was cursing myself, why, why, why did I choose to sit near the table full of cops carrying automatic weapons??? They had bullet proof vests on, if someone took a shot at them we would be in the line of fire. "You could have picked another place to sit" Alec muttered, as he sat down by my side. On our way back from Ensenada a few weeks earlier, we had to pass through a military check point in order to re-enter Tijuana. They had a tank sitting on the side of the road with a soldier manning the gun turret. So, off we went to Playas to clean the beach, lightning doesn't generally strike twice, right?

We botched the meeting with the Border Angels coordinator, but cleaned the beach anyway. We rescheduled for the evening of the 22nd. I don't go out during the week usually, it takes too long to get across town and it's scary in many parts of TJ at night. I would make an exception. We got a taxi back out to Playas, traffic was surprisingly clear by the border in the centro. The border wall looked even worse than normal, bathed in orange flood lights with lurking migra trucks on the U.S. side. The Border Angels coordinator arrived late, flustered, with a small child in her car. "I work in San Diego" she said breathlessly. "The border is closed, there was a shooting, something happened, I was afraid they wouldn't let me pass!". We talked for over an hour about how I could volunteer with them; distribute water in the Imperial Desert, pass out breakfast to day laborers outside of Home Depots in California, visit desert canyons where migrants congregate after crossing. Exactly what I was looking for. We got a collective taxi back to the centro. It was late, dark and kind of quiet, yet people were buzzing about "la línea", it was closed, our collective taxi driver said over his radio that he had "Dos americanos y cuatro de nosotros" in his car. I felt nervous riding through TJ that night.

Three vans full of migrants had attempted to crash through the check point at San Ysidro. The border patrol fired on them, killing a few and the border was promptly sealed. I have to admit this was the stupidest plan I had ever heard of for getting into the U.S. The border is a militarized zone, even if they had made it through they would have been picked up in minutes, detected by helicopters, virtual towers and BP on the ground. But, my bleeding heart tells me that it isn't responsible to fire across 24 lanes of traffic. Thousands of people enter the U.S. illegally every year, seventy-four more men is not worth accidentally gunning down a person waiting in traffic. Además, entering the U.S. illegally is not cause for getting a bullet in your head. In Arizona, a first offense is a misdemeanor. Those who feel differently generally sit in lawn chairs in the desert wearing night vision goggles with the Minutemen, instead of working for the Department of Homeland Security. I guess retrospect is always 20 / 20, those agents didn't know what was going on when the vans crashed through; TJ is a pretty violent place. I could only imagine the men in those vans. Saving, borrowing money to pay a coyote to bring them to the U.S. They probably imagined walking at times, staying in safe houses, laying in the trunk of a car through checkpoints. The horror they must have felt when those vans pulled up to San Ysidro and they realized the harebrained plan thousands of dollars had paid for.

The wind woke me up the next morning. The windows were rattling and doors where slamming shut throughout our house. I stepped outside and the hottest wind I have ever felt was tearing through east TJ. We had a gas leak in our big ass crazy tank and the whole house reeked. I went to work. I had to take each of my classes down the rickety, tire "stairs" to a building down the hill, to visit an exposition about various states in Mexico. The kids were howling and the girls were scrambling to keep their skirts down in the wind. The sun felt like a laser and the hills around the school were on fire again. Why did it feel so crazy here? "Es el viento de Santa Ana!" Hector wailed. "It's gonna knock the gel out of my hair!" Yeah, outta mine too.