As the US government builds its latest border wall, Mexico is making its own statement by placing the remains of the Berlin Wall a few steps away.
The 3-tonne gray concrete slab sits between the bullring, the lighthouse and the boundary wall, which stretches out to the Pacific Ocean.
“May this be a lesson to build a society that tears down walls and builds bridges,” read the inscription below the towering Cold War relic, attributed to Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero and titled, “A World Without Walls.”
For Caballero, like many of Tijuana’s 2 million residents, the US wall is personal and political, part of the city’s fabric and a fact of life.
He considers himself an immigrant, having moved from the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca when he was 2 years old with his mother, who fled “a vicious cycle of poverty, physical abuse and illiteracy.”
The coronation opened on August 13 at a ceremony with Caballero and Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s former foreign secretary who is now a leading presidential candidate.
Caballero, 41, is married to an Iranian man who is a US citizen and lives in the United States.
She and their 9-year-old son once crossed the border between Tijuana and San Diego.
The slabs of the Berlin Wall are located between the bull ring, the lighthouse and the border wall.AP
Since June, Caballero has been living in a military barracks in Tijuana, saying he acted on credible threats against him brought to his attention by US intelligence officials and recommendations by the Mexican federal government.
A few weeks earlier, his bodyguard had survived an assassination attempt.
Caballero said that he did not know who wanted to kill him but suspected payback for having seized weapons from the violent criminals who plagued his town.
A closer look at the 3 ton gray concrete slab marked bopeng.AP
“Someone might be disappointed in me,” he said in his spacious City Hall office.
Fragments of the Berlin Wall are scattered around the world after it fell in 1989, with collectors placing them in hotels, schools, transit stations and parks.
Marcos Cline, who makes commercials and other digital productions in Los Angeles, needed a home for his artifacts and found an ally in the mayor of Tijuana.
Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero has been living in a military barracks in Tijuana since June because of security concerns.AP
“Why in Tijuana?” Caballero said. “How many families have shed their blood, labor and lives to cross the wall? Social and political conflict is different from the Berlin Wall, but it is a wall at the end of the day. And the wall is always the sphinx that divides and sheds the blood of the nation.”
President Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office to halt construction of the wall, ending a signature effort by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
But his administration has moved forward with smaller contracted projects, including replacing an 18-foot (5.5-meter) two-story wall in San Diego with one that rises 30 feet (9.1 meters) and extends 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) to the ocean. .
President Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office to stop construction of the border wall.AP
The wall divides Friendship Park, a cross-border site inaugurated by then US first lady Pat Nixon in 1971 to symbolize binational relations.
For decades, families separated by immigration status met through barbed wire and, later, chain link fences.
It is a cherished festival destination for tourists and residents of Mexico.
Then-first lady Pat Nixon speaks at the dedication of Friendship Park in San Diego, on the border with Tijuana, Mexico, Aug. 18, 1971.AP
At an art festival in 2005, David “The Human Cannonball” Smith Jr. was showing off his passport in Tijuana when he lowered himself into a barrel and was shot over a wall, landing on a net on the beach with US border agents nearby.
In 2019, artist Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana covered sections of a Tijuana wall with paintings of adults who immigrated to the US illegally as children and were deported.
Visitors who hold up their phone to the barcode are taken to a website that voices their first-person narrative.
Friendship Park is a cherished festival destination for tourists and residents in Mexico.AP
Cline said he was rebuffed at the White House when he tried to deliver Berlin Wall relics to Trump and then transport them around the country to find a suitable home.
He said the work has found a “second life” in a Tijuana park alongside colorful paintings on a border wall that express views on politics and immigration.
Start your day with everything you need to know
Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.
The US government has gradually restricted park access from San Diego over the past 15 years at state parks that once allowed cross-border yoga classes, religious services and music festivals.
After much deliberation, the Biden administration agreed to keep the wall at 18 feet for a small section where some access would be allowed.
Dan Watman of Friends of Friendship Park, which supports cross-border park access, said the 60-foot (18.3-meter) section that will remain at a lower elevation is only a token gesture.
“The park on the Mexican side has become kind of a one-sided party,” he said.
US Customs and Border Protection said it expects to replace the “deteriorating” two-layer barrier by November and that the taller one under construction “will provide much-needed improvements.”
The Berlin Wall installation has been well received by visitors.
Sandra Flores, 55, who was on holiday from the Mexican port city of Mazatlan, drew parallels between the Berlin slab and the US-built wall.
“It’s a little less bad here than in Germany but it’s a wall that divides the country, life, social and economic life and everything related to the United States,” he said.
A mural by artist Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana features adults who immigrated to the US illegally as children and have been deported. AP
Lydia Vanasse, who works in the financial sector in San Diego and lives in Tijuana, said the relic takes her back to her 20s when the Soviet empire fell and Germans were suddenly allowed to move freely.
“San Diego and Tijuana are sister cities,” he said. “Walls separate us, but we are united in many ways. It would be better if there were no walls.”
Direct criticism of any US president or policy is rare.
David “The Human Cannonball” Smith Jr. flies over the US-Mexico border fence from the Playas de Tijuana area of Tijuana, to San Diego, during an arts festival on August 27, 2005.AP
Tijuana’s mayor said he understands the US’s need to enforce the border and that he has friendly relations with US officials, including Ken Salazar, the ambassador to Mexico.
He said Salazar asked him to deport migrants camped out hoping for asylum in the US and block access to US border crossings in 2022.
He complied with his suggestion.
Any failure at the border is the collective responsibility of the ruling nation, the mayor said.
“We are against violence, we are against family separation, we are against division, and that is what the wall represents,” he said.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
