Expat of the week

Daniel Charles Thomas is a poet who lives in Tijuana and runs his own website and blog, Tijuana Gringo. I asked him why he lives in Tijuana. I think his reply email gets right to the point:

Hi please excuse my slowness in responding I have been not very good at checking my email the last week or so.

I have lived in Tijuana since 1999, for several reasons.

The first reason is that ever since a kid growing up in San Diego in the 60s I was fascinated by our sister city in Mexico. Eventually this grew into a deep affection for Mexico as a whole.

Thus, one reason I live in Tijuana is because it is in Mexico.

A very important reason which most United Statesians have for moving to Mexico, is the lower cost of living. Tijuana is more expensive than other parts of Mexico, but it is still relatively less expensive than San Diego. Relatively with a CAPITAL R.

A third reason is and was my desire to continue to improve my grasp of Spanish, both as a spoken language and a written art.

After moving here, however, I discovered another reason. There is something about the border which I find amazingly attractive and curious. It is a frontier between worlds. So many different people come together here.

Thanks for your interest. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Sincerely

Daniel Charles Thomas

Cross-border relations

I opened my eyes to the sound of my man, Enrique, whispering into my ear, “I’m going to Home Depot to get grass.”

I still don’t have running water in my casita, so I’ve been staying with Enrique and his boss from time to time. Enrique stays with his boss during the week because he’s kind of in between houses and a steady job. He owned a bar in Rosarito, but was beaten, badly beaten, by a man and his security guards. The man, according to Enrique, is the husband of the women who gave him a business loan. After the beating, Enrique feared for his life and was forced to close his bar — to give up his dream, in more ways than one. So it goes in Mexico.

Anyway, it occurred to me this morning, as Enrique left at 7:30 a.m., that I am dating an illegal immigrant. He does anything and everything just to make a buck (yard work, electrical work and even laundry and taking care of the dogs), and it’s all under the table. I know there are millions of people in his situation, but it’s sad to see someone you know scrambling the way he has to.

Enrique has a son to support. Pay in Mexico, even for a decent job, is still way below normal living standards, so people have to get creative just to survive.

The hardest thing for Enrique, I think, is the pride thing. He’s got so many amazing qualities but they’re all trumped by the fact that he was born in the wrong country.

The nightlife side

I was feeling dirty and depressed Saturday night after a long day of failed apartment searches so I grabbed a book, curled up in bed and was asleep by 10 p.m. At 1 a.m., my phone rang. It was my friend Jorge Tellaeche (one of the best young artists in Tijuana in my opinion) and my friend Jamie Davis who works at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

If you know either one of these two, you know how hard it is to say no. Before I knew it, I was up and out of bed getting dressed for what would be a long night out. See, in Tijuana, the nightlife really doesn’t get going until around midnight. By 2 a.m., the after-party begins, and you typically don’t make it home until the sun comes up — there’s usually a late-night taco session involved somewhere in the mix.

Jorge, Jamie and I stopped by Tentaculo first. It’s a bar promoted by Radio Global, a Tijuana-based Internet radio station, so the DJs are always fantastic. We danced amongst the 18-years-olds, I hit on the bartender (he gave me his myspace page address; what the hell is the dating world coming to?) and by 2:30 a.m. we were ready for the after-party.

We headed to Plaza Fiesta in Zona Rio. Jorge whispered something in Spanish to the bouncer at the famous Tijuana Swiss Bar. The guy opened the gate and we walked upstairs to a salon. The place was packed. There was free booze and food (a tray of marshmellows and a candle by which to roast them was part of the super sweet spread) and music provided by Mark E. Quark, a San Diego DJ who played the funkiest electronic music I’ve ever heard. We danced until 5 a.m. then headed home when we all started feeling a bit puke-ish.

By the end of the night, my depression magically disappeared. I was reminded why I love Tijuana.

The Third-World side

Fuck. I got home late last night, went pee, tried to flush and found that the water was off. It’s happened in the past, mostly it was old pipes breaking and the problem was solved within the day. This time, though, my neighbor had this horribly worried look on her face.

From what I got out of her bad English and my bad Spanish, our landlord hasn’t been paying the water bill. Apparently, he hasn’t paid the water bill for the last 10 years. To make matters worse, he was recently a kidnapping victim (yet another of Tijuana’s seemingly unsolvable problems), which means he changed his phone numbers and moved. We really have no idea where he is. My only point of contact is with the landlord’s son, who actually owns the building I live in. He lives in Europe, so I’m not sure he’ll be able to handle it. I know for sure he won’t be able to handle it in a timely manner.

Which brings me to a kind of state of emergency. I have to find a home, stat.

Jogging for fun

 

I went for a jog in Tijuana on Tuesday. Not five seconds into my run, a taco vendor yelled out, “El bano, necesitas el bano?”

He thought I was running to find a bathroom. Apparently, no one in my ‘hood runs for fun. About five minutes into my light, afternoon jog, the cat calls began. Picture the worst construction-guy harrassment you’ve ever experienced, ladies, and multiply that by a million. The machismo part of Mexican culture was at its height — cars honking, dudes whistling, a street vendor with a stare that burned holes into my semi-flabby thighs.

I went on the run because I decided I’m not going to be a big sissy anymore (I was carrying my pepper spray, so don’t worry too much, mom and dad). I also decided I’m going to adapt to Mexican culture, but I’m also going to keep the gringa attributes that I like; jogging, for one, and being a ballsy independent female for another.

The violent side

I didn’t go home to Tijuana last night; I couldn’t. The city was in chaos after a shooting in the Tijuana central hospital. The violence has reportedly been connected to organized crime, an ongoing and seemingly endless problem in the city of Tijuana.

I was with mi novio last night, the Tijuanense, and he talked to his friends in the city who said there were checkpoints every other street and the police were pulling everybody over. I’ve already been pulled over and, a few years ago, arrested by the Tijuana police, so I know how that goes (20 dollars usually handles things, but it’s a hassle I just didn’t need).

Last night’s violence brought up a conversation that comes up often between mi novio and me. “Why do you live here? Why do you like it? It’s so ugly and violent,” he says. “It’s not like the rest of Mexico.”

He’s right, of course, but I still have a Tijuana-sized hole in my heart. Chalk it up to my gringa-grown ignorance; a life lived in supposed impenetrable safety and happiness. I’ve never really seen violence up-close, so it really doesn’t exist in my world. Yet.

Tijuana represents excitement and a kind of vibrant and colorful life I never found in all the places I lived in the States; Colorado, San Francisco and San Diego. I wonder if the violence and sitting-on-the-verge-of-chaos-and-complete-anarchy part of Tijuana is actually part and parcel to the aliveness I feel when I’m there.

Hangin’ with Mexicans

I’m dating a 38-year-old Tijuanense, born and raised in Tijuana. Enrique (that’s his name if you’re me, but his real name is Javier) is showing me the ways of the border world, changing me slowly but surely. Take, for example, my Saturday afternoon. Enrique took me to his friend Mota’s seafood shop, a stand set up on the sidewalk just outside of downtown Tijuana.

For four hours, we did nothing but drink Tecate and bullshit. Enrique calls Mota’s shop “The Love Shack” because most of the bullshitting was about their crazy love lives (yes, many Mexican men like to have more than one girlfriend).

Normally, this much hanging out and doing nothing would make me anxious. I’m an admitted workaholic, so too much down time truly does make me crazy (an all-American affliction, I believe), but Enrique and his strange bunch of buddies somehow got me to calm down and actually relax, Mexican style. I think the Tecate had something to do with it.

Also, on more than one occassion I have had five grown adults in my tiny Honda Civic; a direct result of Enrique demanding to drag around an entourage at all times. Cramming into cars is a Mexican tradition, a fun Mexican tradition I might add (I felt like I was back in high school cruising Main Street with all my ladies). Mexicans seem to maintain their adulthood friendships better than we white folk do. That’s a fact.

And one more thing; I’ve been eating cactus, nopales to be exact. It’s the vegetarian asado option and it’s freakin’ phenomenal. I had tried it before I met Enrique, but he reminded me of its tastiness. I’m finding that the more obscure Mexican foods are fantastic. Sometimes I wish I could stomach meat so I could try more of the traditional Mexican menu, but that just ain’t an option.

Oh wait, here’s a scary little tidbit; the more Mexican women I meet, the more I can hear the mostly muffled ticking of my biological clock. I’m 25, and many of the Mexican women I’ve met who are around my age (or even younger) have at least a few kids already. They’re just so cute. I find myself thinking about popping one out within the next few years. Enrique’s down, of course, he already has one kid, a 15-year-old boy, and he’s lookin’ to add a baby girl to the mix.

Anyway, we’ll see how much of this sticks. My inner productive, money-loving American may erase Enrique’s Mexican effects.

Tijuana tales of expats

Whew! I’m back, and I’m ready to get all blogalicious. I’ve been hanging out in Tijuana all weekend more and more these days. Before, when I didn’t have any Mexican friends and my American friends refused to come down (most of them still refuse to come down, by the way), I was afraid to venture out on my own. My cell phone doesn’t work outside my apartment, and let me just tell you, it feels like a limb is missing when your cell phone is gone. Plus, I’m a single, young lady who doesn’t speak Spanish fluently, so you can see why going out in Tijuana alone, without any contact to the outside world and without a way to communicate, would be a bit nerve-wracking.

Now, finally, I have Mexican friends and my Spanish is getting better, so I’ve been exploring. This weekend I met a lot of interesting people, many who are expatriated gringos just like me. The people were interesting, so I decided to start a weekly series on Tijuana expats.

I want to start with a guy I meant months ago, when I first moved to Mexico. Lynn DeWeese-Parkinson, a retired trial lawyer who represented the American Indian Movement for 13 years. Lynn was respected by his Native American clients, so much so that on a prior visit to his Tijuana beach house he showed me the precious eagle feather he’d been awarded (usually an honor bestowed only upon tribal members).

As a progressive, rebelious human-rights fighter, Lynn felt stifled and uncomfortable living in the United States. Two years ago, he packed up his things and he and his wife moved to Mexico. He chose Tijuana because, believe it or not, there are less gringos living on the beaches of Tijuana than there are in places like Rosarito and Ensenada.

And that was important to Lynn. He didn’t want to be your typical retired whitey using Mexico for its cheap, beach-front property; instead, he made it a point to learn the language and even get involved with local politics and human-rights groups — he volunteers for a worker’s rights group in Tijuana called CITTAC.

When Lynn’s not fighting for equal rights, he’s writing about bullfighting, life in Mexico and more on his blog, Tijuana Bible. He’s also the man in charge of Bibliophile, an email list for buying and selling hard-to-find books.

Lynn is a good expat to start this series out with, ’cause he’s expatriated to the bone. Perhaps through his work with AIM and other liberal groups back in the States in the 60s and 70s, he’s managed to get himself on some kind of FBI list that makes it hard for him to travel or cross the American border. He doesn’t really care though; he can barely stand crossing into the US.

You see, Lynn says he’s seen greater struggles and poverty in the US than he’s seen anywhere else in Mexico, and he’s says it’s more of a problem because less people are aware. He says, in a sense, Mexico is closer to being a free country than the US because Mexico (Tijuana especially) wears its problems on the surface and people are fighting to get them fixed. The US, on the other hand, covers it problems with a buy-this-new-car-and-don’t-pay-attention band-aide. We seem to be the furthest country in the world from any kind of paradigm-shifting revolution. The rich in the US will just keep getting richer — so says Lynn.

For more about Lynn, read this fantastic interview by Barbara Lightner.