Experiencing Tecate

I came to Tecate today just to check it out.  I´ve been looking for a quiet-tranquil place to live and although I'm not quite ready to move yet, I needed a break from the action.  I was the sole passenger on a full size ABC bus out of the Central Camionera in Tijuana.
¨¿Sí vale la pena el viaje si nada más soy yo?¨ I asked the chofer.
¨Si de todos modos me tengo que ir pa ya.  tengo pasageros en Mexicalii¨
¨Y sigue la lluvia¨ I commented to the chofer as we left the station.
¨Sí parece granizo¨
We traveled East for about 15-20 min and there were still houses, colonias along the freeway. ´This far from the beach and its still the same city´ I marveled.  The road was flooded half way up the tires in spots.  Finally the city stopped and the green hills and orange rocky cliffs started.  I feel asleep.
¨¿Cual es el horario para los caminones que van para Tijuana?¨
¨Salen cada hora al centro de Tijuana¨
¨Gracias¨  I said to the friendly lady behind the desk at the station.
That's prefect.  I came out of the station onto the main strip in Tecate.  Ma and Pa restaurants and other small business locales lined the street.  I walked into a restaurant, don´t even know the name, I just read ¨Comida casera¨ and thought they must have a chicken and vegetable soup here.  Sure enough Rosi had some homemade soup served with rice and beens and made me homemade lemonade and gave me the sugar to put in ¨...a tu gusto¨
Rosi was from Guadalajara and opened the restaurant 4 years ago.  ¨No se' pero ve pa alla' y pregunta.  Me imagino que alguien te puede dar raid.¨ Rosi told me when I asked if they new of transport to SD from the other side of the border.
¨Y si no, me regreso pa ca.¨
¨Pos sí.  Nada pierdes¨
Her husband was working on a new sign ¨¿Tu eres Americano o Puertoriqueño?¨
¨Americano¨
He went on to explain that once there was a guy that came into the restaurant who said ¨i ama e uanca y a e egro¨ and then he repeated what the guy was trying to say ¨mi mama es uanca indigena y mi papa es negro.  Es que cuando se cruza asi la gente, los ninyos no saben hablar bien.¨  He then went on to give other examples of uniteligible or barely understandable Spanish that the guy spoke.
¨¿De dónde es usted?¨I asked.
¨Yo soy de Acapulco.  Es que allá hay gente negra NEGRA como los del otro lado.  IGUALES¨
It later came out that his Mom is Uanca Indian and his Dad is black and that's why he doesn´t speak Spanish that well.  I didnt notice any problem with his Spanish.  I guess he was self consciencous.  I chatted a bit more with the husband and wife and a nephew who was from Tijuana but liked it much better in Tecate.  ¨No tan rapido todo¨ he commented.
I came out onto the street in the pouring rain feeling really good after the nice warm delicious ´caldo´.  Really enjoying seeing a new place and the tranquil vibe.  I stopped into a computer store to see if someone could fix my laptop.
¨Regresa hasta las 6 el técnico¨
The border was a bout 4 blocks away.  A couple blocks from the town park-plaza. 
I had a hard time finding the port of entry cause there were no people to follow.  I walked down the 20 foot railing walkway to an office building.
I walked in and there were two agents and a guy having a coffee talking to one.  I walked up to the other one.
¨You didn´t stop at the stop sign man.  go back¨
I walked back 5 steps to the sign and then he waved me back to the desk.
¨What were you doing in Mexico?¨
¨Visiting, exploring¨
There were about 3-4 more ?s to follow and he looked through both my backpacks.  Very suspicious of every answer I gave him.
¨Is it always like this here?  I mean with nobody in line?¨
¨I don´t know i don´t work here¨ he said.
I looked at the other agent ¨Do you know?¨
¨There´s no one here cause there´s no people here.¨
¨Oh, i was just asking cause I´m thinking about moving here from Tijuana.¨
They finally loosened up just a tad and said that in the morning there is sometimes a short wait but nothing like San Ysidro. ¨Hence only two booths¨  He had to get one more sarcastic remark in.
I told them to have a nice day and they didn't answer.
I walked out after stopping at the BP restroom and had the overwhelming feeling that I was still in the same place.  Unlike Tijuana-Sd where I feel like im walking into another city when I cross.  There was, however, a sharp drop in populous.  There were no houses in site and one shopping center, a tow yard and a church.  I walked over to the church and talked to missionary folks who gave me the card of the guy who runs the mission.  ¨We came from up north and we´re helping him with some work down in Mexico.¨  They were friendly.
I kept going and ran across an office behind the tow yard, insurance brokers.  They all spoke Spanish and lived near by on the other side of the border.  I knew there had to be an area where people lived on this side cause it said on the internet there was a population of 207 people.  ¨Viven muy separados en Ranchos, unos por acá y otros por acá¨she told me as she pointed over one shoulder and then the other behind her.
They told me where the bus going to SD was leaving from (back at the shopping center).  I got there and it turned out that the last one had already left.  ¨Sale a las 7, 11, y 3.¨  said the guy working the coffee stand.  I looked at the sign it was an MTS bus.  I guess it goes to El Cajon and then you take a trolley from there to SD.  ¨Sí. Te vi cuando pasaste y pensé ya no va alcanzar.¨  That was pretty thoughtful that he just figured I needed to take a bus and was worried about me.
´I guess Ill just hang out on that side until 7 or 8 and then catch a bus back to Tijuana´ I thought as I walked the couple blocks back to the border xing where there were two customs agents and bp agent standing with a drug dog at the entrance to Mexico.
¨Why are you going to Mexico?¨
¨What´s your citizenship?¨
¨What do you have in your bag?¨
¨Do you have any illegal narcotics?¨
¨Where do you live?¨
I answered all their questions fully while wondering why I was being asked them.  There were more I can´t remember.
¨Do you use illegal narcotics?¨
¨I don´t want to answer that question.¨
The young BP agent, the only male, and the one with the dog and a large tatoo of a dragaon on his arm stepped in my path and looked up at me and yelled ¨You better answer that question right now!¨
¨I dont want to.¨
¨Whats your citizenship?¨
¨I already told her.  Can I go now?¨
Getting even more angry, ¨You better answer the question right  now or Im taking somewhere else and we´re gonna have a conversation!¨  I didnt find the humor in it at the time cause i felt a bit intimidated, but now i realize how funny that would´ve sounded to a relaxed person.
¨Ok.  Lets go have a conversation.¨  I was relaxed enough to keep my calm and a little determined that I didnt need to answer that question.¨
The customs agent stepped in ¨We need to know because we have a narcotics dog and we need to know if you have any drugs on of any kind at all.¨
¨As I already mentioned, I dont have any drugs whatsover on me and I can guarantee you of that.¨
¨That´s all we were asking.¨  Said the green uniform as he edged slightly out of my path.
¨No its not.  Can I go now?¨´
¨Yes you may.¨

¨Uno viene de trabajar y le dan broncas a uno, verdad?¨  said a man who obviously had had similar experiences coming home after work.  I vented to him and told him how I wouldnt anwer all their questions.  He told me he worked in National City.
¨Wow como le haces para ir a tabajar todos dias?¨
He explained he has two cars and parks one on the us side cause ¨En carro duras horas pa cruzar pero a pie 10-15 min máximo.¨
I went to a couple Tel Cel places to see if anyone coudl fix the camera on my phone.  ¨No. Tendrías que dejarlo para el técnico.¨was the answer they all gave me, ¨¨... hasta mañana.¨¨ It got me out of the rain and some nice smiles, though.
Im now at a cyber cafe-computer repair store waiting for the guy that can work on macs.  Have another hour to boúnce around the town before the bus back to Tijuana.   I think I´ll get some dinner.

Tale of the Binational Friendship Garden Part III

This is the third and final part of an historical account of the Bi-national Friendship garden. The entire tale comes from my perspective as the principal organizer of a program called Border encuentro which initiated the project as one of our "Common interest themes" to bring people together through the border fence in order to get to know each other and make friends.

The garden is located about one-hundred feet East of the historical bi-national Monument and Friendship Plaza at the Southwestern most point of the United States and Northwestern most point of Mexico and sits atop a Mesa overlooking the Pacific Ocean dissected by the international border between Mexico and the United States. A community project, the garden of native plants is united as one through the rusty metal fence in the spirit of bi-national friendship and collaboration. It’s main purposes are to create a space where people from both countries can get to know each other, make friends, and collaborate in contributing to the improvement of the region’s environment and native habitat across the US/Mexico border.

This from the end of Part II, during the first two weeks of Dec, 2009:

[...I called and emailed several times over the following couple weeks with no response. Meanwhile, a couple of the plants that Agent Parks had planted that day had been uprooted by a storm and in general they needed to be tended to. I was becoming a bit more anxious about it all and I called the Imperial Beach station and this time asked for Patrol Chief in Charge Agent Zazueta instead of Agent Parks to see if there was anything that could be done as far accessing the plants. I asked if Agent Parks or anyone else could work with me and the answer was no and that they'll call me, don't call them. I felt, again, abandoned and betrayed by Border Patrol. I still had the general idea of civil disobedience in mind as an option and I now saw no other alternative than to try to access the plants myself to, if nothing else, make a statement about the importance of the garden, and hopefully actually reach them and be able to tend to them.]

(Picture taken through the fence from Mexican side after a storm at the beginning of December, 2009)

Part III - Dec 13th, 2009 - May 7th, 2010

On December 13th, 2009, I was planning to step over the plastic chains that have been installed to guide people into the restricted cage area at the Friendship Monument in order to get to the garden, which is in an area strictly prohibited for public access. There was a family there waiting to go into the enclosed area who had come from Los Angeles to meet with other family members they hadn’t seen in seven years waiting about 150 ft away, separated by immigration status and two fifteen ft high walls. The family members on the Mexican side had traveled four days on a bus from Vera Cruz. Two of the four were grandparents who would see there three and four year-old grand children for the first time. I remember, clearly, the young father's "Woo-hoo" with his daughter's hand in one and the other raised with a victory fist as they walked through the metal door and found a way to unite his family with his wife's parents and cousins. I was the only other person in the cage and met them all, but didn't say much cause I knew their time with each other was limited. The family members on the US side were in a half circle enclosed with a chest high railing as they looked and conversed with their family members pressed up against the tall rusty corrugated thick metal fence about five feet away. After thirty minutes, two agents watching over from the outside entered and asked all of us on the US side to leave.

Originally, as silly as it sounds, I was told that you had to leave every 30 minutes and, as long as there weren’t people waiting to go in because the 25 person max had been reached, you were allowed to re-enter, "like a ride at an amusement park" (quote from Border Patrol agent explaining rules about two minutes into this video). To my surprise when I stepped out, the agent told me that I could not go back in and that the rule was that you’re only allowed 30 min. I argued with them and called the station. At this point the family had already left. I called and no one that could help me answered. A supervisor arrived and told me that his understanding is that the rule is 30 min per person per day. I was very upset that I wasn't allowed to stay and make friends and that the family wasn't allowed to visit. In addition, it had foiled my plan to step over the railing and tend to the plants.

After attempting for another hour to get a hold of the station and getting the run-around, I realized the only way to get to the garden would be to go down the hill to the beach where the secondary barrier converts into a chainlink fence and ends at the mean high tideline. I would walk around it and then back up the hillside onto the mesa over to the garden. I decided it was worth it and was more encouraged when I saw my friend on the Mexican side had finally arrived and was standing by the garden with his camera ready to take a picture of me and whatever they did to me as I disobediently tended to it. My heart raced as soon as I decided to go through with it. The kind of racing where the only thing holding you back is fear. I felt right about it and was able to overcome the fear. I walked down the hill to the beach feeling the agent up on the hill’s eyes burning into my back even though he probably was just barely noticing me. I rounded the end of the fence into the no trespassing zone without hesitation and started up the hill toward the plants in need. The plants that represented, literally and symbolically, the unification and collaboration, that are so vital to our region.

I had walked around fifteen strides across the beach and started up the hill when I saw through the fence to my left, the Border Patrol vehicle rearing down. A few more strides up the hill and out of the corner of my eye I see the agent standing at the limit of the no access zone down on the beach. I could feel his anger as he hollered “Hey, come back here! You can’t be in there!“ I continued to walk and calmly turned my head toward him and said “I’m just going to walk up the hill and plant some plants”. Again he yelled and I answered back maintaining the same calm voice and façade. My nervous and scared energy on the inside was fueling me to be even more determined and focused and continue my trek up the hill. He ran up the hill and continued to yell as he got closer. I continued to walk and speak calmly as his rage came closer and closer. I knew, at this point, that I wasn’t going to reach my destination but I had to keep walking.

He reached me and grabbed my elbow and pushed my upper arm toward the ground making my body follow. I felt an overwhelming sense of calm. I’d done what I could do that day. I did not resist. I was a little upset because we were hidden from view. As he threw me to the ground, I may have even said out loud slightly, “darn, no one can see us.” The wall to the south hid us from view of the spectators from Tijuana and, being on the hillside still, no one could see us in the park above on the mesa top and the camera friend I had planted by the garden up on the hill still another 100 ft away, had no idea what was going on. The agent continued to make movements as if I were resisting even as he put the handcuffs on me and I lay flat on the ground. “It’s ok. You’ve got me.” I told him and he relaxed a bit. When we got back down the hill and out of the restricted area, he said in a raised voice “You’re putting your life and mine in danger.” He was blush and sweating and had a confused and angry look in his eyes.

“To plant some plants?!?” was his repeated WTF reaction every time I answered his incensent question of why I went in there. He eventually took the handcuffs off and detained me in the back of his vehicle that is made to transport people to custody.

He took me to the top of the hill and radioed in some other officers. While we were waiting, he opened the back door of the detention vehicle as I sat there. He had calmed down quite a bit and asked "What are you an activist or something?" I took about ten minutes to explain to him the reason for the garden and purpose of Border encuentro to bring people together across the border to make friends. I told him about all the events that we had done and how this is my contribution to bettering the region.

"You never learn do you Dan?" said Fish and Wildlife officer Arnold Grassi as he rounded the corner of the detention vehicle and the sarcastic look on his face came into view. Arnold had arrested me seven-months prior when I stood in front of the bull dozers that were building the secondary wall in the park and had threatened to arrest me on a few other ocassions when I was filming the construction of the entire 3.5 mile wall project from 2006-8. Border Patrol, although I think they are qualified to, aren't used to arresting US citizens, so they always call Arnold to be the designated "hard-ass" to take care of "punks" like me that get on Border Patrol's nerves. He genuinely scares me sometimes and although it appears he might actually relish in the "asshole" role, I believe that he takes his job very seriously and somehow is convinced that he needs to be this way in order to complete his enforcement duties. I suspect, and have seen signs, that he's actually a nice guy. Whatever. He gave me a sermon about how much of a pain in the ass I am and how I should follow the rules more and then let me go with a 72 hour restriction from frequenting the park. The annual Posada Sin Fronteras was that afternoon/evening at the same place. I really wanted to participate, so I rode my bicycle over to the Mexican side and joined everyone from there. I still had a bit of adrenaline left over from the incident and barely noticed a slight knee injury that had occurred when agent Field forced me to the ground. It was swollen slightly, but was minor.

There really was absolutely no danger for anyone in what I did trying to get to the garden and I couldn't make sense of what Agent Field was so flustered about. Later that evening, I was telling my roommate the story and she thought he was probably genuinely scared. This makes me wonder if Border Patrol are trained to believe that the border is an extremely dangerous place. This would be more dangerous than any perilous situation that might actually occur there.

At the end of January 2010, I was called in for a meeting with acting San Diego Sector Chief Barlow, Assitant Partrol Chief in Charge at Imprerial Beach Daniel Parks (who still hadn’t contacted me), and Patrol Chief in Charge at Imperial Beach Moises Zazueta. The purpose of the meeting was to talk about the garden and to talk about Border encuentro events in general. I sent and brought in a set of proposed terms for access to the garden I wanted to negotiate, slightly adjusted from the original terms I had sent in November 09. Agent Zazueta wanted to know how long I needed to wait before I break the rules and said that I didn’t give them enough time to respond to my emails. He wanted to make a deal with me and said he would work with me on events allowing for more than the normal thirty minutes, as he did with those who organized the Posada, and if he found that he could trust me after doing this for four months then he would consider re-looking at the garden. He was unwilling to talk about the terms I had brought in to negotiate. I wasn’t ok with the deal because it was the same story I’ve been told by border Patrol for 2 years now that “we’ll see how things go in X amount of time and see what we can do then…”

Trust was the word throughout the meeting that the three agents continued to repeat and go back to. The Chief expressed from the beginning that that’s what he was looking for, trust. I told him I was glad about that and was looking for the same. At one point, Agent Zazueta asked me if I’d be willing to go through a criminal background check if they asked me to. It was a weird question, had nothing to do with the subject at hand. Of course I told him I would be especially if it would help to establish the trust. There was an uncofortable feeling at the end of the meeting, a bit of sour discord. The three agents came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to be happy until I got my way and therefore I wasn’t worth dealing with. I was willing to negotiate the terms I’d brought to the table and the only thing I was insisting on was that they actually be negotiated instead of put off for four more months. During the meeting I was a bit upset, frustrated, nervous, and sleep deprived, and I didn’t express myself as clearly as I would’ve liked and my frustration came through and probably got in the way of a more civil discussion.

I view my work as important as Border Patrol's and yet the policy at the border is set up in such a way that they are told and believe that their work of enforcement is more important than my work of bringing people together to make friends and collaborate across the border. I view enforcement as important. All I want is an equal spot at the table of working together to improve the region. I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by it all and I wasn't having fun anymore.

I decided the situation might be a bit more than I could handle on my own and decided to propose to the bigger Friends of Friendship Park Coalition that we take the garden on together as part of the mission for more access. I feel like I have a strong support in the coalition and this showed when four of us had a meeting with some of the same agents in February as the representatives of the Friends of Friendship Park coalition (John Fanestil, Pedro Rios, Christian Ramirez, and I) and one of the major points of the meeting was that we would be developing a proposal for them that would include three points of bi-national access, the monument, the beach, and the garden. We established a standing quarterly meeting with Border Patrol and, with the help of architect James Brown, we put together a concept proposal and presented it to Border Patrol on Friday April 23rd, 2010. We presented it as an idea that could be worked on in conjunction with Border Patrol and the Friends of Friendship Park Coalition. It is an ingenious concept that James Brown came up with and it was well received, but without promises, from Border Patrol.

I feel like now, things are starting to come to a head with the garden as, on the Mexican side, they are working on a redesign of the whole bi-national park area, per a directive from the first lady of Mexico, Margarita Zavala. This wasn't necessarily good news for the garden at first as it wasn't included in the original concept design. It took a strong voice from the organizations involved to make it part of the design. One of the architects assigned to the the redesign on the Mexican side of the park also happened to be a member of one of the twelve organizations working to maintain the garden. After some informal meetings with him, several of us met with his colleague and the lead architect for the project. The lead was a bit obstinate about the plan that didn't include the garden and proposed moving the garden to another area. I insisted that it would loose it's binational purpose in this case. At one point he reacted to my bi-national friendship persistence by saying "...too bad you guys put that fifteen foot wall up." I can't say I blame him for this attitude. I look at it as a defensive reaction to an aggressive and offensive act...more fallout from the construction of the wall and division.

This meeting was a bit disheartening but the garden coalition on the Mexican side continued to meet with both architects and more and more members of the coalition started attending and voicing their opinion. Margarita Diaz from Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental, proposed we make a win-win agreement that entailed the government letting us adapt this area and us maintaining it. It was a great idea because the Mexican government had allocated funds for the redesign but not for the maintenance yet and we had already established a calendar that distributes the work of tending to the garden so that each month of the year one of the organizations is assigned to the garden to water, weed, expand, and add their own touch.

Eventually the lead architect assigned the garden area to the original architect and we're now in talks with the government to adapt the area and anticipate it being official by the middle of summer, 2010. In the meantime, we continue to meet with the architects throghout the construction process and the garden has been incorporated into the redesign.

I'm proud of this coalition (El grupo de los doce) and feel a deep sense of satisfaction that so many people and organizations on the Mexican side, have gotten behind the garden and it's goal to bring people together in friendship and contribute to the native habitat of the region.

On Monday, April 26th, Architect James Brown who is helping the Friends of Frienship Park Coalition on the US side, came with me to the Mexican side to meet with the architects and the garden community coalition during our weekly meeting at the garden. The architects on both sides are including the garden as part of their designs and they were able to coordinate in general to assure their designs correspond to each other. The meeting went well and the connections between the architects and their designs made me feel really hopeful about the binational cooperation and a bright future for Friendship Park. The lead architect, after a strong message from the community and garden coalition, seems now genuinely interested in maintaining the binational garden. The creatively painted decorative fencing around the garden was removed, temporarily, for construction of the new design around it so the garden is requiring constant vigilance during construction to make sure that the workers and the general public don’t damage it.

The area covered by the garden on the US side is still off limits to the public. I've been in contact with Border Patrol and they have assigned the maintenance to the "Explorers", a junior Border Patrol (like junior life guards or the ROTC program). On Sat May 8th, one of the organizations in the garden coalition will be out working on the garden and, by coincidence, the Explorers, will also be working on it the same morning. There's a decent chance all will be there working on the garden together at the same time. I plan to be there on the Mexican side and look forward to the interaction and collaboration and to the Explorers learning about the native habitat of our region from enviros on the Mexican side through the fence.

You can now go to a separate blog dedicated solely to the binational friendship garden to keep up on how it is doing. It is populated by content received from the all the organizations involved and maintained by Ricardo Arana with Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental.

There you will find a list of organizations involved and a calendar of care. Contact me or any of these organizations if you want to get involved or simply show up to the garden on one of the scheduled work/care days.

Click here for The Tale of the Binational Friendship Garden - Follow up

Tale of the Binational Friendship Garden Part II

This is part two of a four part historical account of the Bi-national Friendship garden. The entire tale comes from my perspetive as the principal organizer of a program called Border encuentro which initiated the project as one of our "Common interest themes" to bring people together through the border fence in order to get to know each other and make friends.

The garden is located about one-hundred feet East of the historical bi-national Monument and Friendship Plaza at the Southwestern most point of the United States and Northwestern most point of Mexico and sits atop a Mesa overlooking the Pacific Ocean dissected by the international border between Mexico and the United States. A community project, the garden of native plants is united as one through the rusty metal fence in the spirit of bi-national friendship and collaboration. It’s main purposes are to create a space where people from both countries can get to know each other, make friends, and collaborate to contribute to the improvement of the region’s environment and native habitat across the US/Mexico border.

Part II - November 2008 to Dec 13th, 2009.

I developed a routine for tending to the garden in the summer of 2008 that lasted until January 09. The dividing fence made it necessary to weed, re-dig the water retention circles, and clean first on one side and then on the other. Watering of the whole garden was possible from either side and since it was more accessible on the Mexican side, I would arrive on the US side first and tend to the 12 ft by 3 ft area up to to the fence and then cross over to the Mexican side to get to the rest of the garden and water all the plants on both sides. Sometimes I had a hose and other times I had to throw buckets of water through the corrugated fence and aim just right to hit the plants 1-3 ft away on the other side.

Due to the expansion of the garden in November of 2008, the garden had become A LOT of work to maintain. Just the task of bringing buckets of water to the garden from near by on the Mexican side was exhausting. “¡Ándale , Daniel! ¡Te vas hacer más calillo!” [keep it up, Dan. You're gonna get buffed!] the parking attendant Benjamin from the Yogurt Place restaurant a block away would tell me as I walked by with two large buckets. I felt like my motivation/passion to work with the garden had no limits, but after a couple outings like this where I was working on the garden til 2am on some ocassions, I realized I couldn’t do it. I asked for help and some volunteers from Grupo Ecologista de Tijuana (GET) and Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental (PFEA) stepped up again. Although we could have used even more help, together we managed to keep the garden alive.

In December of 2008, there was a plastic mesh fence installed on the US side around the area that surrounds the garden by Border Patrol, disallowing access to the garden, without any consultation with Border encuentro or any other entity involved in the garden effort. Border Patrol was not responsive to emails or phone calls. We were able to water both sides from the Mexican side, but weeding and cleaning on the US side was a problem since there was no way to do this through the fence from the Mexican side. I continued with my routine by resorting to getting permission directly from the field agent on duty at Friendship Park every week to two weeks to step over the meshing to tend to the plants. He/she nearly always said it was ok and on the one occasion they said it wasn’t, I didn’t and just did the best I could from the Mexican side knowing that the next agent on another day would probably give me permission. In the meantime, I continued to try to contact BP headquarters and Imperial Beach station to discuss the fate of the garden and ask for access to no avail. As time went on, I noticed the agents, although they continued to let me go in, were more and more hesitant about it. For the first time ever, agents seemed like they knew me and about the garden before I told them who I was and what I wanted to do or anything about the garden project. I didn’t know exactly what to attribute the extra amount of attention that was focused on this small patch of land that really was not in anyone’s way to. DHS had plans for the area to restrict all access between the two barriers along the entire Mesa and the beach. They were closing Friendship Park and that’s why the garden was on their radar. I knew this at the time as well, but Border Patrol, the only entity in charge at this point of the area, was unwilling to talk to me about making some type of agreement around the garden and I didn’t have the foresight or maybe the organizational competence to get more support to pressure them to do it. In fact, I’m not sure the idea even crossed my mind. I was partially in denial that they would actually go through with prohibiting access to, not only the garden, but the beach and the historic monument inside Friendship Circle, a cement plaza that unites people from both sides of the border through the rusty metal fence that was designated as Friendship Park by Patricia Nixon in 1971 and where families separated by immigration status had met for decades.

On the Mexican side, the area right next to the garden, there is a pedestrian walkway and an open area where, with signs of warmer weather, came events held next to the garden which resulted in the plants being trampled at times and trash was beginning to be a problem. We decided to build a picket fence and GET came up with the clever idea to get a hold of some wooden pallets and sawed the bottoms off of each in order to make an already made three foot wide by two feet tall section of the picket fence.

An interesting incident ocurred on the day of the one occasion that an agent actually told me I couldn’t step over the mesh to access the garden on the US side. I later crossed over the border and worked from the Mexican side and began, with a friend from PFEA to install the picket fence. When we started, I noticed the agent on the other side drive by and look at me through the fence and shake his head in disgust. About 10 min later, a Mexican police unit showed up and five heavily armed policemen got out and stood in a row about 5 ft away from my friend and I. I heard one of them say to another “everything’s fine here” in a wtf are we doing here? tone of voice. They told us that there was a report from Border Patrol of people digging holes to cross under the border fence. My friend and I looked at the 10 inch deep holes for the picket fence posts at our feet, then at each other, and then at the officers with blank looks on our faces. They told us, "we know you’re not doing anything, but we have to take you into the station." They eventually told us we’re doing good work and let us go. The picket fence had barely been started and was later expanded to cover a good deal of the garden by me and a couple volunteers from GET.

During the Spring of 2009, a group of scouts and middle school children took the day to paint the new picket fence around the area of the garden on the Mexican side.

I wanted to continue the picket fence perimeter through the border fence on the US side to accentuate the fact that it was one bi-national garden so a few days after the fence was started on the Mexican side, I arrived to Friendship park with a pick and a shovel and asked the agent on duty if I could step over the plastic meshing to tend to the garden and dig holes for fence posts. I fully expected him to say no. I stepped up to the window of his vehicle and thought a good start would be to explain the garden project. Before I got very far, he interrupted me, "I know about your garden", which was the clearest confirmation yet that there were briefings and discussions about the garden among border patrol. I asked if I could go in. "I don't know if that's a good idea." When I asked why not, he said "Well... Ok."

I hid my elated shock and asked "Would it be ok if I called a friend and asked him to throw some pallets over the fence so I can make a picket fence perimiter around the garden?" 


He was very insecure about the whole thing at this point but didn’t want to show it “Are you willing to let me inspect everything that comes over the fence as well as everything you have on your person.”


“Sure! No problem.” Trying my best to hide how little that seemed to ask.

“Ok, then. Go ahead.”

I called my friend who was storing the pallets a block away on the other side of the fence, he threw them over, and I went to work. I was working for about 20 min and got the first pallet in and the wholes dug for the next one. I ignored the Border Patrol supervisor I saw out of the corner of my eye as he drove by to talk with the agent on duty who had given me permission. I was worried they were going to shut me down and was curious what they were talking about as they continued to converse for a good 5-10 min. I kept working. Another vehicle drove up, Fish and Wildlife enforcement, Arnold Grassi and he joined the conversation for another few minutes. The three then troded over to me and Arnold asked “Dan, what are you doing here? You can’t be in here.” I told him that I was building a picket fence and that the agent ok’d it 20 min ago. Arnold slowly turned his head toward the agent with a raised eyebrow. The agent had nothing to say. Arnold looked back at me “Dan, you need to leave.”

“But I’m half way done. Can’t I just finish the picket fence?”

“Dan” now very angry. “You need to leave now or I’m going to arrest you.” He grabbed a cel. phone out of my hand which I was recording him with and closed it. “Whada think? I’m stupid?” He asked.

“I’m just trying to protect myself” I told him.

“Dan. Get out now!” As he made some moves forward as if ready to pull out the handcuffs.

I obeyed.

A few days later, I got a call from then Patrol chief in charge at Imperial Beach Station, Mike Corely, letting me know that I had only a couple days to remove the garden. This was the first time an agent in charge was willing to talk to me about the garden since it’s implementation almost two years prior. I explained to agent Corely the importance of the garden and that there was an original agreement with Border Patrol. I also expressed that I thought the garden could contribute to the over all security of the region in that it helps create trust and friendship which contribute to the security of the area. He expressed that a concern for him was that he didn't want his officers to have to swerve around the garden, that it may impede their duties. I offered, as a possible solution, to put a small picket fence around the garden (:-). He simply stated that wouldn't be possible and would not give any explanation. I offered to put in writing that, if necessary to complete their duties, Border Patrol may run over the plants. I knew that it would be highly unlikely that this small patch would get in the way of BP duties. He had the same response. Seeing that he wasn't really interested in working with me to find a solution that we'd both be happy with, I asked if I could talk with his superior. He very willing agreed to this and we decide to meet with his superior officer, then Assistant Chief for the San Diego Sector Agent Rodney Scott.

Despite it being clearly the understanding that the garden wouldn’t be removed until this meeting happened, Border Patrol removed it a few days later with no warning. The only saving grace was that there was a State Parks official who happened to be in the area and told Border Patrol he would replant them in another part of the park instead of just throwing them out on the side walk as Border Patrol intended. I was grateful for this because at least the purpose of contributing to the native habitat was preserved even if the other main purpose of bringing people together across the border in friendship and collaboration was taken away. The two Agents and I met at the end of January, 2009, and discussed the goals of border encuentro and Border patrol in general. Agent Scott’s words were: “We’ll see what we can do about the garden.” Despite the garden being uprooted, I was encouraged by the new willingness from Border Patrol to dialogue and hopeful that I would finally be able to work with them in order to accomplish our mission of friendship at the border. We discussed Border encuentro's plan of re-planting in Nov. of 2009 and the dialogue made it clearly hopeful that this was a reasonable goal. November, besides giving us ample time to come to an agreement, was also just before the rainy season, the best month to plant native plants, since when they are first planted they need a lot of water to get going. I made several attempts over the months leading up to the event to coordinate with Border Patrol about the garden.

During this time period, a large number of environmental, cultural, humanitarian, and civic organizations (including Border encuentro) formed a coalition called Friends of Friendship Park (FOFP) in order to stop the incoming wall that was to close off all access to the binational area of the Park. John Fanestil, an activist, Pastor, and director of San Diego Foundation for Change had decided he was going to serve communion every Sunday afternoon through the border fence until they physically stopped him from doing it. I’m grateful to John for his efforts in this and admire him as much as anyone I know. I looked at these communions and the Friendship Park Coalition as a necessary step in activism in order to be able to get back to the normal Border encuentro activities that I enjoyed so much and viewed as vital to the region's well being.

The binational communions culminated on Feb 21st in quite dramatic fashion when Border Patrol along with, Sherrifs, and San Diego Police made a militaristic stand that stopped John from serving communion to those waiting on the beach on the Mexican side.

If we were allowed to go up to the people waiting 100 ft away for communion, I had planned to then walk up the Mesa to join my counterparts on the Mexican side who were working on the garden along with some others who had said they would join me. John and I were both picked out of the crowd of 120 people and detained by officials and then let go after a 45 minute standoff on the beach between those who still wanted to serve communion and the human-enforcement wall.

This incident succeeded in getting more attention to Friendship Park in the media and the Friends of Friendship Park coalition sent a letter signed by several representatives including the California Attorney General asking the Department of Homeland Security to spare Friendship Park. By the end of April of 2009, however, the secondary barrier was in place. I was worried about how the garden would be re-instated on the US side now that there was no access whatsoever to the primary barrier and Border Patrol was completely unresponsive.

Border Patrol continued to be non-responsive throughout the year up until the beginning of November 2009. About three weeks before the planned bi-national re-planting/reviving of the garden event,I got a response from the new Assistant Patrol Chief in charge at Imperial Beach, Daniel Parks. He offered to meet with me in person at a coffee shop and talk about the garden. I commend him and am grateful for his efforts in that he told me that he could not give access to the area to replant or tend to the garden, but that he himself would do the planting. On an individual level, I was very impressed. As far as goals for access to the garden, this was not satisfactory to me, since it was obvious that this was an effort on one agent's part and had little to do with an actual agreement to work with the community on keeping up the garden. That said, it was more than I expected and I wasn't thinking as sharply as I would've liked due to sleep deprivation. I was caught off guard by this genuine effort from a border patrol agent to contribute to the friendship garden. “Would there be someone available to do maintenance on the garden on a regular basis?” was the best question I could come up with. He said that he would do it himself and we could continue to dialogue/coordinate about it. I honestly didn’t quite feel right about it, but he was able to convince me to agree to letting him run it by his boss. I also mentioned to him that efforts to regain access for the public to the garden in general would not stop. He said he understood.


The kind of bad feeling I was getting from the deal I had made was balanced by the true encouragement I was getting from motivation and enthusisasm from organizations in Tijuana that have adapted the garden as their own. During the months leading up to the event in November, I called a meeting of all the interested organizations and proposed the idea of aiming for twelve organizations, each of which would commit to adapting the garden for one month of the year reviving, weeding, and adding their own personal touches. The goal would be for each org to tend to the garden on two occasions every month throughout the entire year of 2010 to ensure the garden continued to flourish. The orgs formed a coalition and came up with the name "El Grupo de los doce". So far all the organizations have come through with their commitments and the garden has been maintained beautifully, a few new natives have been added and there have been decorations and informative signs installed. (Visit Facebook cause and blog for more info). This dedication was started with all twelve organizations and other members of the community working on the garden together on November 21st 2009.

As this Nov. 21st date got closer, I debated on whether to change my mind on the agreement with Agent Parks or not. I had mixed feelings, happy about the fact that there would actually be plants again on the US side to re-unite the garden while at the same time, the agreement did little toward the goal of access for the public and the terms I had proposed to Border Patrol just before Agent Parks contacted me. I decided that it’d be a lot better if Agent Parks were to do the planting the day of the event while people on the Mexican side were also planting so that the goal of people getting to know each other across barriers would be met, not in the way I had originally planned, but definitely across a significant barrier, an additional one between Mexicans and Border Patrol agents. It would be another chance to break down stereotypes and for people to get to know each other on an individual basis while collaborating to improve the region.

Agent Parks wanted to plant the plants the night before or early in the morning. He made it clear he didn’t want any fanfare and just wanted to plant the plants and get out. I managed to convince him to plant the morning of the event in hopes there would be some bi-national interaction. I was feeling like I was being too pushy with Agent Parks. I met with him at seven AM on the day of the event to give him eight native plants that were donated by a California Native Plant Society member who lives in San Diego. Agent Parks arrived at the garden about an hour before the planting event was scheduled to start with his ten year-old son and another agent. They cleared out a patch where the garden had been that was about half the size of the original garden and went to work for about an hour and, luckily, some of the people on the Mexican side had already arrived. Seisen Saunders, my roommate, director of the Sweet Zen Center, and a member of the Friends of Friendship Park Coalition and I were on the Mexican side with these two early collaborators from an enviro in Mexico. All seven of us worked together and got to know each other through the fence. We were able to talk about our families and our lives and put politics aside. Agent Parks' parting words were “What’s the last line from Casa Blanca?” We all paused for a second and he said "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship". The rest of the day organizations that make “El Grupo de los doce” worked for hours to rehabilitate and expand the garden on the Mexican side.

I still felt like the goal of the garden being a place where people from both sides of the border meet and make friends wasn't being accomplished. I contemplated doing civil disobedience, when I was on the US side later that day separated from my friends working on the garden on the other side. I was inside the new caged area that now allowed closer access to the Friendship Monument. I would hop over the new railing and just go up to the garden on the US side and join them through the fence. I decided against it. Not entirely sure why and I felt like I left things unfinished.

A week after the planting event, I emailed Agent Parks to thank him again and to start coordinating on the upkeep as we had discussed. A few days later, I still hadn't gotten a response. I called and emailed several times over the following couple weeks with no response. Meanwhile, a couple of the plants that Agent Parks had planted that day had been uprooted by a storm and in general they needed to be tended to. I was becoming a bit more anxious about it all and I called the Imperial Beach station and this time asked for Patrol Chief in Charge Agent Zazueta instead of Agent Parks to see if there was anything that could be done as far accessing the plants. I asked if Agent Parks or anyone else could work with me and the answer was no and that they'll call me, don't call them. I felt, again, abandoned and betrayed by Border Patrol. I still had the general idea of civil disobedience in mind as an option and I now saw no other alternative than to try to access the plants myself to, if nothing else, make a statement about the importance of the garden, and hopefully actually reach them and be able to tend to them.

click here for part III of The Garden Tale