Yes, we all love being able to come back and forth, but we also acknowledge that for others it’s an impossibility. At one moment in my life, I used to live in San Diego for six years and still crossed weekly to Tijuana to visit my family and friends, and now that I am back home because I needed it, I still cross almost every day to San Diego to go to work and to visit my siblings. Some days I wake up in Tijuana and sleep in San Diego, and some other days I wake up in San Diego and sleep in Tijuana… As you all know, there are people coming to Tijuana from all over the world, they come to either pursue a dream or just to survive. I am able to come back and forth almost every day of my life since I was born… That is my life and I really do wish that someday, everyone is able to do that as well.

This is an excerpt from my monologue I wrote for The Frontera Project (produced by Tijuana Hace Teatro and New Feet Production and seen recently in performances at The Old Globe). It’s a play that has been traveling in various states across the United States since fall 2021. With this play we tell the story of our borderlands, of us as trans-border humans, and the dynamics that go way beyond these two great cities as neighbors. Yes, we live on the busiest border in the world, California being one of the most prominent states in the United States, and Baja California being that for Mexico, with reports of people coming back and forth of approximately 120,000 passenger vehicles, 63,000 pedestrians, and 6,000 trucks every day.

(from left) Cultural Attaché of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego Gaspar Orozco, General Director of CECUT Vianka Robles Santana, The Old Globe Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, and The Old Globe Arts Engagement Programs Associate and Teaching Artist Valeria Vega. Photo by Lucia Serrano.

And in 2022, The Old Globe also crossed the border to Tijuana to further our mission through these borderlands, the mission of making theatre matter to more people and creating spaces for those who cannot reach us here at Balboa Park. We are reaching people who had never seen a play before or had never been a part of the art of theatre making or any such thing as being creative. Much of this enormous effort is thanks to our partners in Tijuana, and we couldn’t have asked for better allies in this effort than the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT), the only infrastructure of the Secretary of Culture outside the country’s capital with access to local and national multidisciplinary artists and a department that focuses only on community work—as we do in Arts Engagement. We have reached shelters for LGBTQIA+ community members who are waiting for political asylum, and also rehabilitation centers that shelter people from across Mexico and Latin America as well as deportees. Yes, thanks to the support of a great group of humans who believe fervently in our mission, we have made this a reality and are in full strength to continue with more.

This Tijuana-born and -raised human, who crosses this border almost every day to pursue her dream, thanks you in your seat (who is for sure watching a great production) for making this possible.

Header image: Valeria Vega in Tijuana Hace Teatro and New Feet Production's The Frontera Project. Photo by Christina Byrne.