At the US-Mexico border wall with the Friends of International Friendship Park
Friends of International Friendship Park on the border
I drove to Border Field State Park (which encompasses Friendship Park) on August 16, the day that it was reopened to car traffic after a two-year closure. The park sits along the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and along the southwesternmost stretch of beach in the U.S. The reopening was intended to mark the 54th anniversary of the park, which was inaugurated on August 18, 1971, by First Lady Pat Nixon. When I walked up to the beach near the border fence, a group of people associated with the Friends of International Friendship Park were standing in a circle on the sand. Many of them were holding large painted props in the form of butterflies, celebrating the reopening of the park. Another prop, supported in the air on poles by three people, was in the form of another migratory species, a 10-ft long eagle.
A young woman in a keffiyeh and sunglasses, Natalia Ventura, was speaking into a megaphone to the people on the beach. They were coordinating their movements with their counterparts across the border, in Mexico, who could be seen marching around with their props, through the bollard fencing.
“We are friends,” she said. “We are families. We are neighbors. We are not enemies. We reject disinformation, coercion.”
She also led chants. “From Palestine to Mexico, these walls have got to go,” she said.
Panoramic images taken of the gathering of the Friends of International Friendship Park
From the Mexican side of the border, I could hear similar chants in Spanish.
On that side, artists are allowed to use the border fence as their canvas by Mexican authorities. On the U.S. side they are not. Having made trips across the border occasionally for the past decade, I’ve seen successive waves of murals painted on the fence bollards. But that steel canvas is subject to removal and replacement. This past year, the 18-foot-high primary fence near the beach was replaced by a 30-foot-high fence. But the artists on the Mexican side, rather than being deterred, are just expanding the scope of their murals.
As far as the subjects addressed by the artists is concerned, let’s just say that you’re not going to encounter any pro-MAGA murals on the Mexican side.
The border fence and the 100-foot buffer just south of it on the U.S. side are now controlled by Border Patrol, off-limits to artists and other civilians. (The Friends of Friendship Park were gathered just north of this zone.) But when First Lady Pat Nixon inaugurated the park on August 8, 1971, the border was delineated by a mere four-foot high barbed wire fence that you could reach across. A picture from that day shows her shaking hands with a smiling Mexican national. The restrictions on cross-border contact kept growing over the years—and were turbocharged in the past decade—to the point now where the name “Friendship Park” might now be something of a misnomer. It is physically possible to walk up to the primary fence, because the 30-foot-high secondary fencing—a duplicate fence parallel to the primary fence stretching 14 miles inland—ends approximately 100 feet from the shore. There are at any given time, however, three or four border patrol officers adjacent to the beach, in their green-on-white striped vehicles, to make sure nobody gets too close.
During the celebration, Friends organizer Nanzi Muro made sure no one approached the border fence, lest they provoke Border Patrol to put the ixnay on their beach activities. Later, I asked her about the meaning of their celebration.
“Fifty-four years of legacy, friendship, community, beauty, building, resistance, history,” she said. “So we're here to celebrate. But the most important thing is that Tijuana, Mexico gives us the example of how a park should be and how communities should come together to heal, because we're just one planet, one land, one sky, one ocean.”
A Day of the Dead altar for fallen migrants on the US-Mexico border wall — Indy Correspondent
Muro, who refers to herself as an artivist—a portmanteau of artist and activist—was referring to the Friends’ activities on the Mexican side of the border fence. These include gardens of native plants, and many organized activities including poetry readings and festivals. One of those activities was going on at the moment, an all-day-long festival marking the park’s anniversary. One of the people instrumental in these activities was Daniel Watman, who I had met many times, the founder and coordinator of the Borderless Friendship Garden of Native Plants inside friendship park. Unfortunately for Dan and everyone involved with Friends of Friendship Park, the garden on the U.S. side had been plowed over in the name of border security. The most recent heightening the border wall is the reason the park was closed for so long. There was still no word on when, if ever, family contacts would be allowed again at the border wall. The last such contacts, which took place under severe restrictions, took place in 2016.
After the formal celebration was over the volunteers and community members walked or drove up to the picnic area, where the Friends of Friendship Park were providing food and beverages. I hitched a ride up with Muro, who wasn’t the only activist present. I also said hello to Maria Teresa Fernandez, a photographer who has spent the last 25 years documenting the border and has had her work exhibited in multiple exhibitions. (Her daughter Ana Teresa Fernandez painted the first large scale mural at the border wall at the beach, titled Borrando La Frontera in 2011, where she painted the fence sky-blue so it looks like you could walk through it.)
Robert Vivar, who has his hands in many cross-border activities, was also present. He is co-director, Unified U.S. Deported Veterans Resource Center, Tijuana (assisting deported veterans with aid, healthcare, and border reunification), host of Via Café at Via International, (a community space in Tijuana promoting solidarity and outreach (a community space in Tijuana promoting solidarity and outreach), vice president, Veterans for Peace in Baja California, and member of the Friends of Friendship Park core leadership team. But this partial listing really doesn’t really begin to round out his biography or define his importance to the cross-border community.
Border Diary: “Whiskey 8” in San Ysidro — Indy Correspondent
I met for the first time a retired furniture-owner turned photographer named Bob Davis. As I munched on a vegetarian sandwich provided by the Friends of Friendship Park, we talked about his photography and our shared disdain of Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel after he revealed to me that he is Jewish. I’m also a member of the tribe, as some of us sometimes call ourselves. But let’s just say I’ve found myself walking into one too many Reform congregations where the rabbi has invited his congregants to say a prayer for the Israeli Defense Forces after it was clear they were involved in conducting a genocide.
Davis told me of the activities his wife is involved in, her current one, AntoniasArt.com and our other group that is not currently active but interesting to look over nonetheless, PuppetInsurgency.org. He also let me know of the album of photos from the exhibit that Natalia Ventura, he and his wife Antonia had at the Chicano Park Museum called, "Their Walls, Our Canvas” as well as an album of his photos.
Before I left, and I had to go sooner than I wanted to, I walked back down to the beach, past the sign warning people not to enter the contaminated water, and walked up as far south as I could towards the border fence. I didn’t really have in mind antagonizing the Border Patrol — there were four vehicles present in the vicinity — I just wanted to take some more photos. But a Border Patrol officer, who apparently didn’t like what I was doing, even if I hadn’t yet entered federal property, and drove his 4x4 down to the beach specifically to wave me away.
Border Diaries, part 1: San Diego — Indy Correspondent
