MAP OF REGION WITH [mouseover] appearance of zonal boundaries.

At the center of the region, es decir the Kumiai world, was - is - the sacred mountain we now call Tecate Peak.  Some seemingly non sequitur digressions are deliberate.  One way to spell its holy name is Kuchama. It is still there, and still sacred, although now scarred, sixty kilometers from the ocean.  The international border runs right up over its southern flank.  Country ranchos and new-age spas cluster about those slopes.  Some of the best climate in the world - Mediterranean - is claimed to favor its arms and shoulders.  Tijuana/San Diego is a vast mass cell (sic) growing in your west.

The Mexican town of Tecate, just southeast of the holy mountain, is a delightful small-scale alternative to Tijuana, with an attractive traditional town plaza, brewery and beer garden, (a stop on the impossible railroad). On the U.S. side, state highway 94 gives access to the turnoff by the mountain.  From Tecate you will find easy and scenic motor travel via the back-country highway south through Guadalupe valley wine tasting rooms and later Ensenada.

A branch of the upper Tijuana river drains the flanks of Tecate Peak and falls down through a wild, scenic, jagged canyon where the superhighway toll road runs between Tecate and Otay (Tijuana).  The water downstream used to be much cleaner than what you will smell in the city walking from the border to downtown.  If you've passed there then you know what I mean.

     __________________________________________________________


          there are floors available
          in an office tower
                         across from
                         the
          Plaza Rio
          shopping mall

          eyeballs and cheekbones
                         of glass
          gaze
          across
                         shops
          restaurants
               cars
                    busses

          that noisy current burns more gas
          than water flows in the river

          where hands of cement
          wash themselves

          seagulls harvest trash
          emigrants wait for departure

          and the border patrol     watches
          from the other side

          over that channel
                             tourists
                             cross
          by the bridge
          that leads to Revolution
                             Avenue

          who cares if it stinks?

     __________________________________________________________

Rainwater falls upon the holy mountain to flow downhill into the Tijuana River, and pass to sewage before the city coast.  So, then, in this abiding mythological sense, here in Tijuana we are both at the edge of the Earth as well as within sight of one of its sacred centers. The international boundary between Mexico and the United States actually climbs over the shoulder of that holy peak.

Often, the ancient ones went even farther than this coast and its hills, over, and now beyond the mountains, into the deserts, across the barren flats toward their Yuman cousins on the great river, with whom they shared sister-language.  Sometimes the Yuma came over the mountains to the coast to find and take things they did not have in the desert.  We moderns call this war, and might think it was only for Yuman beans, not much at all compared to now.  Nevertheless it was so.

One of this writer's brothers followed the trails on foot twenty-five years ago from the coast over the mountains and down from Jacume to the desert (on the U.S. side, not Rumorosa).  This was during the day before, and night of, an absolute total lunar eclipse.  He slept near a hot spring, then awoke at midnight to witness a small black circle in the otherwise star-spangled sky... until the Moon returned in a crack of light.  We are a... an intense family.  One of our fathers invented a machine to make water in the desert flow over the mountains toward this coast.  Just so you know where coming from here... to there.

New neighbors, new neighbors...

Then the New World changed.  Two hundred years after its "discovery", the Spanish finally got it in gear to colonize Alta California in order to protect it from the Russians and the British.  Baja California had already been undergoing the process of colonization under the Jesuits, for a hundred years, until the King of Spain decided to expell that order from all "his" possessions in America - but that is another story. The "colonial" history of Tijuana is, in fact, linked to that of San Diego. Be that as it may, after 1769, this frontier land - which for thousands of years had been the home of wandering stone-age tribes - now undercame (underwent) invasion, colonization and conquest by a new way of life.  Cattle, horse, donkeys, swine and sheep arrived from New Spain, along with the missionaries, Mexican ranchers, farmers, and soldiers.  The newcomers settled in, built adobe and wood cabins, raped and killed the Indians with measles, smallpox and syphillis, turned the survivors into servants and ranch hands, and thus brought European civilization and culture to this end of the continent.  Many of the Indians refused to submit, either to the "good-cop" missions or to the "bad-cop" Mexican soldiers and rancheros, and withdrew into the mountains and deserts, abandoning the coastal strip to the Spanish-speaking Californians.

At first, the mission system was reasonably successful.  Hundreds, even thousands of Indians were baptized, concentrated into camps and quarters beside impressive new churches, taught how to make soap, grow wheat and corn and vegetables, rope and brand cattle and horses, and generally become good civilized European peasants.  And Christians, of course.  Then they began to die from European diseases, epidemics which were exacerbated by the people being all concentrated together in one location, even as the infections spread into outlying villages by Mexican soldiers who had no women and found it very convenient to rape the Indian girls.

It is ironic that in a certain sense the mission system was destroyed by its own success.  Technically, legally, all these lands of California were supposed to be held in trust for the natives, who would assume title once they had been properly Christianized and Hispanicized. But, jealous of the vast herds of cattle and horses held by the missions, the local Mexican governors and settlers felt superior to the simple Indians and did not hesitate to take their land when it became legally possible to do so.

After Mexican independence from Spain (1821), the mission system was dissolved by decree from Mexico City, (a process assisted by the fact that most of their captive Indians had either died or run away) and the great ranchos - which had originally been created for the Indians (under control of the missions) - were given to Mexican soldiers and settlers who had served for many years with little or no pay - or who had good connections with whoever happened to be governor of the province at the time.  There is an entire history of rebellion and internecine political struggle among the Californios which we will not go into here - you may consult, say, Bancroft for the details - but suffice it to say it was a long struggle for power between the northern and the southern parts of the province, as well as between various family groups and, naturally, between locals here in California and the official center of power, so-very-far-away, in Mexico City.

In every case it was easiest to pay old debts by giving land.  Almost everyone, it seems, had served without pay on the frontier, and had a good claim for repayment by land, when no money was available.  All the ranchos - which orginally were to have been for the Indians - now became secular Mexican holdings.  These rancheros - the dons - and their children would all use the few surviving Indians (who had been trained in the ways of European civilization by the missions) as servants and ranch-hands and cowboys and farm-workers, and this, among other factors, led to continuing violence between the Indians in the mountains and the Spanish-Mexicans on the coast.  In fact, during the 1830s, the Californios pretty much abandoned any effective control or use of "their" mountain lands.

Meanwhile, the great, romantic age of ranchos (which would give birth to the myth of Zorro) began, with an economy based on the herds of cattle and horse that were driven every year to pasture in the valleys and mesas all around here. We tend to think of the great Californio dons in their silver-buttoned suits riding around on horseback and dancing all night at fandangos with women who whispered behind fans, and we forget that it was the poor little mission Indians who actually had been the first "great" ranch-owners, before their way of life was destroyed and all their land taken away. History, you should know, is written by the winners, and the Indians either all died or ran away, or learned to speak Spanish and became peons, whom not even Zorro (a myth, we repeat) could protect from the new land-owners. Nevertheless, if the truth be served, some of the rancheros could be benevolent, as long as you were a good Indian, not a bad one. Good cop, bad cop; good Indian, bad Indian; plus ca change plus la meme chose.

The ranchos, now under Mexican, not church, ownership, began selling cow-hides to Yankees who came by sea, seeking raw materials for their factories in New England.  These "Americans" bought up cattle hides by the thousand, carried them away in their sailing ships back to Boston and other northeastern towns, where tens of thousands of Irish immigrants were working for practically nothing.  The sailing ships then brought them back next year as shoes to sell to the Californios.

Every year these Yankee merchant ships sailed all the way from Massachusetts, to China and to California.  In effect they became the first floating shopping centers, and when the Californios rowed out in little boats, they went to shop right on San Diego bay, wandering between decks selecting silks and leather goods and porcelain from open trunks and caskets and boxes, and paying for it all with drafts for hundreds and hundreds of raw cowhides.  It was in those days that a cowhide was dubbed a "California banknote" by the Yankees. At first this business was technically illegal, and many times the ships had to quickly hoist sail and slip out to sea, but soon enough the American seacaptains and businessmen were marrying the daughters of local ranchowners, moving their shops right onto shore, and becomming legal residents.  Many even converted to Roman Catholicism.  Of course their obvious mercenary business interest in the resources of the province soon raised suspicions (and proverbial eyebrows) that they wanted to take over this fertile land for their own people.  In a few years' time that reality would lead to invasion from the United States and the subsequent creation of the international border, which would divide Tijuana from San Diego.

An engaging vision of this world, as seen in the 1830s by a gringo, can be found in Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. (PHILIP: FIND AND PLACE LINK, PLEASE okay, mikey, done 61 autumn 48 spaceage).

One of those ranchos given by a Mexican governor to a Spanish/Mexican family, the Arguello family, was the Rancho Tijuana. Unlike many ranchos in California, it was never actually taken over by Yankees.  Probably because most of it stayed in Mexico after the war of 1846.

There was another industry involving American shipping at this time, (1800-1846), namely the whaling ships, which slaughtered the vast oceanic cetacean herds and rendered their blubber into whale oil for lamp light at night.  This was in the days before kerosene lanterns.  There was a rendering station on Point Loma, on San Diego bay (see Dana), and the few dozen to a hundred people who actually lived in or around the Tijuana rancho would have known about it and its Hawaiian laborers.

In 1846, the United States invaded and conquered Mexico, and forced President Santa Ana to surrender (excuse me, to "sell" or secede at point of cannon) almost half of his country.  Alta California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico thus became the "southwest". A column of forces (most Mormon settlers who had been headed for Utah) was sent to California as part of this war.  Following the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a joint US/Mexican commission of surveyors drew the new international line just south of San Diego Bay (still a very strategic harbor).

The influence of American culture and investment did not stop at the line, however: it stretched further south into Baja California, especially during the Baja gold rush of the 1880s, when Ensenada boomed, filled up with Mexicans and foreigners, and became the first real city - as well as the new capital - of the territory.  (Mexicali is the capital now.)

THE NAME OF "TIJUANA" The earliest known written record of the name appears in the old San Diego mission records of baptisms.  Of course, people had to have spoken the name for some time before it actually got written down.  But the phenomenon of spoken speech has vanished like smoke in the wind.  Only the written record remains.  We are unable to look back in time and hear the voices of the people who lived here two hundred years ago, and so we will probably never really know exactly where the name came from.  There are several stories, some incredible, others possible. But first, what we do know is that the Indian village ("rancheria") in the valley got named on the mission archives of baptisms which Franciscan priests kept at San Diego Mission.  By Spanish law of the colonies, the mission was in charge of all the Indians' spiritual and physical welfare.  There was still no border between Tijuana and San Diego. HISTORICAL FACTzOID: ("Baja California" started about forty some miles further south, beyond Rosarito.  From that point southward, the Dominican monks had charge of the missions of Baja California. From San Diego north, the Franciscan monks were the rulers of the missions of Alta California.) The official mission records from San Diego mission are the earliest extant surviving occurence of the name "Tijuana" which was written in alegedly very bad handwriting of the monks, and also several different ways, viz: "Tijuan" and "Tiajuana" and "Tijuanh" and "Taguana" and even "Llantijuan" and "Llantiguan" - (the last two were the first written versions, FYI).  All of these variations were presumably forms of the name of the same village, and perhaps of the river itself.

We should also point out that the Indian village of Tijuana was Not the Most Important Indian Village around here.  That honor went to a village located at the southern end of San Diego bay, about two miles north of the border. La Punta was the name of the village, and it was the capital village for all the villages around the southern end of San Diego bay.  It was there that the San Diego Mission fathers eventually built an outlying chapel to which the Tijuana Indians would have walked (7 or 8 miles) for mass. 

This large village of la Punta was, in fact, sort of

resumably, their Tijuana neighbors, participated in the rebellion of _____. (PHILLIP CAN YU CLEAN THIS UP??? no, do it yourself, I put the link in for you cousins, now you do your part.... heh)

That question itself: of where, exactly this name "Tijuana" came from is much debated - like the question of where the word "gringo" came from.

1. "Aunt Jane"

The most popular foundational myth, which every schoolchild here, and even the-man-or-woman-in-the-street has heard, is that there once was an old Indian woman named Jane (Juana) whom everyone called "Auntie" (TIA) & this tia Juana she did cook very well much goodes foodes for ye travelers and wayfarers who crossed over the river and passed by the old rancho on horseback or in stagecoach.  So they called this place TIA-JUANA.  Ahem.  Sounds like they called Adam "man" and Eve "woe-man" eh? Another story made up to explain how something got named. We got a million of 'em, yes sir-ee, we do.  That, too, is all part of human nature, folks.  Lore persists, in spite of all the arguments of academics.

One evening at the sala de Esplandian in the library at Teniente park, the late, great Professor Vizcaino furiously laughed when we mentioned this "myth" (and I thanked God we had used the word "myth") to ask his opinion).

2. "Another" Tijuana in far southern Baja California

THEN Professor Vizcaino pointed toward another explanation favored by the scholars here, that Tijuana received its name from the earliest Spanish Mexican soldiers and priests who passed by when they saw the valley with its river and said: this looks like that place way south in the peninsula, named Tijuana, that other valley with a stream, remember? The other place has been forgotten in old archives and books, but our beloved bordertown has made quite a splash with its "borrowed" name.

3. "Ti-Kuan" = "Stinking Water"

There is also often mentioned possibility - also very popular among people on the street and in the cantinas - that THE NAME comes from "Tikuan" a native word perhaps meaning stinky-sulphur water.  Any tourist walking across the river pedestrian bridge and smelling the sewer will quickly agree that this is STILL a historical fact.  But that is a false derivation, because the only stinky water back then was the hot springs where the casino bath house later grew up BUT Which Fact, in fact, then lends great credibility to this story.  It is, simply, too convenient that the river now stinks.  The original stink was from the hot springs.

BUT the village of Tijuan was probably not near the hot springs.

AND FURTHERMORE It is Also Argued by Ethnolinguists that the Indians did not originally call themselves "Tijuana" - because even though the word sounds native, like Jamul or Jamacha or Cuyamaca there is apparently NO WORD like "Tijuana" in the Kumiai language.

We cannot swear to this (the word, that is, the stink IS Real) as we do not speak the tongue - only Spanish and English and French.

4. And we make up another one: "Teguex"

THERE IS, However, Another Explanation which We Ourselves have discovered and/or completely made up: Oh Reader, Look To the Fabulous and Mythical Kingdom of Teguas or Tiguex or Tejuax et al, a legendary land and city which doth appear between Cibola and Quivira on the early European maps of North America dating from the 1500s.  We kid you not.  It's really out there, often set over toward the Colorado river instead of the coast. But Ortelius draws it on the Pacific coast right where Tijuas is now. Go look for yourself.  We only saw it first.  Heh he hee... naranjas dibs.  Thanks to the Library of Congress history in maps archives for opening that book. They hold all rights of ownership except free copies. OH, we should tell you that there really are a Tiguex people... they live in New Mexico. The map is just a mistaken location. Too bad.

IN SUMMATION, then, it is a Fact that the priests at the mission San Diego (which originally "ruled" Tijuana) wrote down their baptisms and marriages and funerals of the Indians from the native village (or "rancheria" or rancho) of Tijuana or Tejuana or Tiajuana.  That much is certain: the name was used even in the earliest Mission years, before the rancho became private property.

IF THERE HAD BEEN A "Tia Juana" who gave her name to the Rancheria, Rancho, and the City, well, this woman would have been very, Very, VERY old by the time the Yankees came, in order to have give her name, eighty years before, to the Indian village.  Go figure.  Maybe there was some kind of dynasty of Tias Juanas eh?  The restaurant power was passed down from Aunt to Niece.  Hehe heh.  See how the myth is extremely durable?  We promise you this story of Aunt Jane will outlast and out-survive all our little arguments for or against.  You can even see a photograph of the "original" Tia Juana proudly displayed (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) in the Foreign Club Museum off Revolution Avenue between Third and Fourth Avenue next door to the painted Aztec Calendar copy.  Never mind that in order to have given her name to the Indian village, she would have to have been born maybe a hundred years before photography was even invented in Paris, France!  Never mind that because the woman in the picture looks like she is a hundred or two centuries old!

Then, as if to throw a monkey wrench into this entire affair, we must inform you, dear reader, that there was, in fact, a "tia" Juana, BUT that Probably She Did Not give her name to the city.

She was baptised, according to Mission records, at the age of 80 years, in 1822, that her name was Juana Piguax, and she was the "tia" (aunt) of Javier Guatar who had godfathered Apolinaria Lorenzana (who was a locally famous caregiver and nurse at the Mission).  This curious bit of "Juana" information is much commented upon by Arturo Tello Villalobos, in his book TIJUANA, el principio, su nombre y semblanzas monografica en 1930 y grafica de 1887-1945.  But in the end it is his considered opinion that she Did NOT give her name to the city.  That the name already existed, and that her being named Juana, and being an aunt, is pure coincidence.

For the record, Arturo Tello seems to favor explanation #2, as do most scholars we have spoken with.  But....

Danial and Michael would like to point out that Juana, like Jane, is a very common woman's name, and that most women on this planet are also aunts.  In fact, we ourselves have had an Aunt Jane.  Sister to Daniel's late father (and to Michael's fictive uncle), she passed in 2004.

HOW THE TOWN OF TIJUANA WAS BORN, AND FINALLY GREW.

Back in the Tijuana river valley, the earliest Mexican customs office was opened by the border, and it, or the old ranch houses up-river (near where the big bus station is now, in La Mesa) probably (no guarantees on this information) became an important stop for stagecoaches on the road between San Diego and Ensenada.  This also might (no guarantees on this information) have been the time when the "myth" of "tia Juana" began to gain credence among Anglo-Americans.  Supposedly "aunt Juana" was an old ranch woman who took care of travelers, providing them with good food (and, once upon a time 120 years later, people still come here to eat).

This "tia Juana" myth is pervasive and widespread.  Many Tijuanenses have told us it is absolutely true, while others scream and yell and accuse us of being stupid pendejo idiots for even trying to understand why people still talk about her.  To us the reason is obvious: everyone likes to eat, "Juana" is a very common name, and almost every woman in existence has been an aunt.  It does appear, however, that this city, and the rancho from which it grew, were NOT named after anyone named Jane.  The most likely explanation is... [transmission interrupted]

;-)

DURING THE 1880s, the hot springs of Agua Caliente (haunted like many places of weird water on this world) also became a tourist attraction for travelers - often called excursionists - who came seeking "the cure" (a tradition still prevalent over a century later in Tijuana, what with inexpensive and alternative doctors, dentists and pharmacies here).  Later this sacred spot became the site of the luxurious casino (since destroyed), as well as a golf course (now the Tijuana country club) and a second TJ race track (aka Caliente).  FYI: the first Tijuana race track, further down the valley, and closer to the border gate, was repeatedly destroyed by the flooding river.  It was located roughly across the (present-day) street from (present-day) Pueblo Amigo.  Remember that when it rains and you happen to be down there drinking at Señor Frog's... croak croak.

These early decades of the 20th century were the years when U.S. residents - especially the Hollywood crowd - helped create the "golden age of tourism" which actually was the second "boom" in Baja California history - the 1880s gold rush had been the first (and we are currently [1980-2040] experiencing the maquiladora boom).  Back in 1900-1938, Californians began to use (and abuse) Baja California as a playground for drinking, gambling, and other "sinful" tourism.  Downtown Tijuana found herself transformed from old west town to a rowdy strip of gambling salons (both fancy & seedy) and drinking saloons (with some well-dressed clubs).

How did this explosion happen? Well, from the 1890s to 1919, reformers over in the States passed laws against vice, namely prostitution, gambling, horse-racing and finally "recreational" (to use a postmodern word) alcohol.  This process - developing Tijuana as a "sin" city of dark legend - la leyenda negra - was already underway, but it became especially strong when prohibition made alcohol illegal in the States; that one change "threw the house out of the window" (a Mexican saying).

What goes up, must come down (a Newtonian saying), and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  During the "golden age," enterprising gringos came to Tijuana to make money from other gringos by providing legally what was illegal "on the other side" - first with bullfights, gambling, horse-racing and prostitution, and then, in 1919, the holy grail was delivered and the true "golden age" began with "la ley seca" - "the dry law" - the really big enchilada - alcohol prohibition in the United States.  Overnight, thousands upon thousands of Californians were suddenly driving down from Los Angeles for a beer, or three, or ten.

This period, which coincided almost perfectly with the "Roaring Twenties", was, or at least is now spoken of as, "the golden age of Tijuana tourism."  It was in those days that all the wonderful gifts of modern civilization rained down on Tijuana like manna from heaven, or at least, that is the popular legend.  Paved streets, beautiful schools and hospitals, street lights, telephones, electricity, running water, needle & thread, bread and butter, ice cubes, automobiles and trucks and lions and tigers and bears oh my, all the great and goodly gifts of god Mammon progress came sprinkling down from the heaven of Hollywood like sacred blood from the hands of some feathered priest painted on a wall down in Teotihuacan.  But we exagerrate just to show you how insidious is the story of legend and myth, especially since there are still people alive who remember those days.  Some of them were even one or two years old at the time!  There are also books written by some who were older and wiser, and they, too, echo with paeans of praise for the golden age.

Well, it is true that in those years Hollywood became a center of money and more money and still more money, and here, "in olde Mexico," they found one of their favorite playgrounds where to spend all their nouveau riches dollars.  That was why they built the string of casino hotels in Agua Caliente, Rosarito, Ensenada and Mexicali (you can still visit their old refurbished ruins in Rosarito and Ensenada).  Go ahead.  Have some fun.  And shed a tear for the destruction of Agua Caliente.

And it is true that in the Roaring Twenties the little old west frontier town suddenly and explosively boomed into a much more happenning and jumping place.  In a word, it grew.  And so did its image.

For, lest we forget, this "golden age" also marked the explosive development of Tijuana's world-renowned legend as a center of drinking and gambling and prostitution.  We speak of nothing less here than the infamous "leyenda negra" or "dark legend" with which this suddenly exploded metropolis is still branded (see the movie "Traffic" for the latest vision and revision before the taking of a toast and tea).  What's the matter, can't you see the great good business going on around this place?

The San Diego Historical Society's Journal of San Diego History has published an informative study on the first steps in this process of sin-business before prohibition (1920), and its subsequent development into the roaring twenties; this article (when their website is are up and running) can be found on line at http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/2002-3/frontier.htm that address.

One curious fact noted in that study is that early on in that process (in 1910), when the filibustering Magonist rebels (a high number of which were reputedly leftist gringo activist sympathizers and mercenaries) invaded and briefly occupied Tijuana and northern Baja California (just before the revolution), they made sure to take their cut from the gambling halls and saloons already in action.  Eventually they were defeated and chased out of town by a coalition of federales and locals (there remains ENORMOUS controversy To This Day about these events and you should NOT Believe Anything We Say Here). 

Fresh military governors were appointed by Mexico City, and they came north to "take their cuts" as it were from the Yankee criminals, excuse me, "businessmen" of vice, until the reformist president Lazaro Cardenas shut down the casinos in 1938, effectively ending the golden age and finally plunging Tijuana into the great depression - from which it had been trying to hide for almost nine years already.  There are still old families in Tijuana who whisper that Cardenas was bribed by Las Vegas mobsters, but... well, everyone and his bastard brother, it seems, has a conspiracy theory - just like every city has its legends of underground tunnels. 

We honestly believe this Las Vegas bribery theory is even less probable than the existence of "Aunt Jane," because, (we believe, but what do we know, eh?) in 1938 Las Vegas was still nothing but a town next to a great big dam on the Colorado River, out there in the middle of nowhere, not yet even a gleam in Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Eye.  Back then, the U.S. mobsters were betting on Cuba, far, far away.  Or maybe, once again, WE Are Wrong How the worm doth turn, eh?  We been wrong before in the game of "ASSUME" assume making an a$$ outa yew & me, and one of our most admired fellow writers here (who stabbed us in the back and we exiled forever until hell freezes over [but it already is, according to Dante] ahemoron) once swore that a certain horse was running at Agua Caliente two years before he was even born!  So excuse us if we question our own "common wisdom everyone knows bull$h|t" ahem moron.

Howsomeever it may be, we CAN see, AGAIN, here how myth is MORE important than the facts.  But Again, you should not trust us: we admire Cardenas in spite of all.  Must be the PuritanAbolitionistProgressive streak squeaking in us little mice at the keyboards yes.

But, returning to our subject of vice, well, broad and straight is the path which leads to destruction, and the tradition of partying in TJ was reawakened and carried on into mid-century by American soldiers and sailors during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, who seemed to enjoy having w#ore$ sit on their faces, and thus left their marks upon the history, geography, bars and women of Tijuana in what is sometimes called the "silver age" of tourism.  Too many of them (even one would have been too many) were killed and maimed in the wars and so, ever gringo, we drink to them in gratitude for our freedom to write whatever the hail we want - except for respelling words so the censorrobots won't so easily snatch us up quite.  *Sigh* every silver cloud has a dark lining it seems... yes....

All the while, behind the glitz and glitter of gold and silver, millions of Mexican workers have continued crossing north - both with and without legal documents - into the U.S., looking for work.  But many have stayed here, in Tijuana, either by choice or deportation, to work in the postmodern mass sprawl of maquiladora factories, and fill the ex-rancho valleys and hills with houses and shacks, creating a border megalopolis where "one world becomes another" and sociologists trumpet their discovery of the future.  Applause, please.  We're almost done with this ancient history....

The environment where this all began, meanwhile, is very typical California geography & ecology.  A variable river, wet in winter, then half-dry in summer, reaches toward the sea.  Life comes from rain that flows down jagged canyons from the mountains to the ocean seeking valleys of the coast.  Here, in that valley, our modern human powers draw a line in sand: the border.

This is the place where the old rancho in the valley has grown from open land into giant city.  Two million souls live here now (to the right of the border on the picture above).  But that is new.  Very new.  A hundred years ago there were many, many fewer people.

Along the modern border, where the peninsula of Baja California is breaking loose from her continent America, the onetime Kumiai universe is presented in the picture from space above.  You can thus get an idea of how wild the "back country" is -- a mix of flat places, steep peaks, and jagged canyon gorges.  That is the world where immigrants risk their lives to get around the new Berlin wall built by the United States in the name of fear, freedom, and cheap labor.  Perhaps we better not go there.

Part Two of TJ Maptext -- The River

TIJUANA  GRINGO gringo tijuanense

Tur.Info   fresh gringo diarya.blog

[0.0.2   0.0.3   0.0.4   0.0.5   0.0.6] Tijuana Mapatext 0.0.0.0.1. a geographical & historical meander un meandro historico y geografico