{"id":40628,"date":"2019-06-06T15:58:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-06T22:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/?p=40628"},"modified":"2020-07-08T20:49:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T03:49:56","slug":"friendship-park-once-a-symbol-of-binational-camaraderie-now-keeps-families-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/en\/friendship-park-once-a-symbol-of-binational-camaraderie-now-keeps-families-divided\/","title":{"rendered":"Friendship Park, once a symbol of binational camaraderie now keeps families divided"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Braulio Mayer and Juana Castillo see their children (and grandchildren, who Mayer is meeting for the first time) and take a photo of them through opposite sides of the U.S.-Mexico border wall at Playas de Tijuana, March 10, 2019. Photo: Mabel Jim\u00e9nez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On a Sunday morning in March, Braulio Mayer met his seven grandchildren for the first time, and was reunited with two of his grown children whom he had not seen in 10 years. Mayer desperately wanted to hold his grandkids, but the U.S.-Mexico border wall stood in the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cImpotence, just impotence,\u201d is how he described the feeling.<\/p>\n

The family met up at Friendship Park, a half-acre plaza that the U.S.-Mexico border wall runs right through the middle of. On weekends, the park is a meeting spot for people who have been separated from their loved ones by the wall. It\u2019s just a stone\u2019s throw from the Pacific Ocean, where the border wall reaches its western limit.<\/p>\n

The section of the wall that bisects Friendship Park is a metal grid so restrictive a pinky finger can barely fit through. People on the other side look like shadowy figures. Pressing one\u2019s cheek against the rusted metal is the only way to get a clear view of a loved one\u2019s face on the other side.<\/p>\n

Standing on the Tijuana side of the wall, Mayer pressed his camera phone up against the border fence. He carefully lines up the camera\u2019s lens to a hole on the metal grid to get a clear photo of his children and grandchildren standing on the U.S. side of Friendship Park.<\/p>\n

On the Mexico side of the border with Mayer stood his wife, Juana Castillo, who lives in\u00a0 <\/span>California with the couple\u2019s children and grandchildren. She traveled to Tijuana to offer Mayer moral support during this visit. \u201cOne step is all that divides our own blood,\u201d said Castillo.<\/p>\n

The couple immigrated to the U.S. undocumented in 1990. They lived this way until about 10 years ago, when Mayer\u2019s mother in Mexico City became ill. He had to make the impossible decision to leave his wife and children in the United States so he could be at his mother\u2019s bedside, knowing he might not be able to reenter the country. Mayer has remained in Mexico City ever since.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Castillo eventually gained U.S. residency and is now able to travel to Mexico to visit her husband. \u201cI can\u2019t move there [to Mexico] and leave my kids, and he can\u2019t come in [to the United States] because he doesn\u2019t have documents,\u201d said Castillo.<\/p>\n

The couple has a third son in the United States who did not visit Friendship Park that day. Because their son\u2019s immigration process is not yet complete, he fears entering the U.S. side of Friendship Park. Here, U.S. Border Patrol officers check the identification of anyone who wishes to access the park, then hover over people\u2019s shoulders during these emotional visits.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod did not make this,\u201d said Castillo as she looked at the border fence. \u201cThese are prison bars and we don\u2019t know which side is the jail cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Pat Nixon at Friendship Park in 1971.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Friendship Park<\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S. Border Patrol limits visitation time at Friendship Park to Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Only 10 adults (plus however many minors they accompany)\u00a0 are allowed to access the park at any one time. If more than 10 adult visitors show up, the rest are made to wait outside until someone else leaves.<\/p>\n

On weekdays, the area remains mostly deserted except for U.S. Border Patrol vehicles that occasionally drive by near the wall. The militarization of the border becomes even clearer at night, when a series of blinding stadium lights point south while multiple cameras survey the landscape at all hours.<\/p>\n

By contrast, accessing the border wall from the Tijuana side comes with no restrictions. Anyone can walk up to it, at any time of day or night, and stay as long as they wish. The area is often a buzz of activity with local joggers, tourists taking selfies, and children frolicking on the beach.<\/p>\n

But this coastal section of the border wasn\u2019t always a militarized environment.<\/p>\n

When Friendship Park was inaugurated in 1971 by first lady Pat Nixon, it was divided only by a barbed-wire fence through which Nixon shook hands with Mexicans on the other side. \u201cI hope there won\u2019t be a fence here too much longer,\u201d she said on the day of inauguration.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until 1994, amid an anti-immigrant hysteria\u2014which included California\u2019s anti-immigrant legislation Proposition 187, which was heavily backed by then Republican Gov. Pete Wilson\u2014that a 14-mile fence was constructed on the border between San Diego and Tijuana. Security increased over the coming years, but Friendship Park remained a meeting space.<\/p>\n

Back then, visitors could stick their arms through the wall and hug someone on the other side, and could even exchange gifts and shared meals. But in 2009, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) restructuring plan completely sealed off the park to visitors. Though this plan was proposed during the early years of the Bush administration as a response to the post-9\/11 world of increased border security, it wouldn’t come into effect until Obama’s first year in office.<\/p>\n

Around that time, architect Jim Brown was studying the coastal border region and created some conceptual designs for a binational park. He was approached by Friends of Friendship Park, an organization that advocates for greater access to the area. The group needed someone with Brown\u2019s expertise to correctly read drawings prepared by DHS and to offer their own proposals to the agency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Attendees at a bilingual, binational sermon for Sunday mass by the U.S.-Mexico border at Playas de Tijuana, do a \u2018pinky kiss\u2019 with people on the other side of the wall, March 10, 2019. For many people whose only option is to visit their loved ones across the wall, this is the only physical contact that is possible. Photo: Mabel Jim\u00e9nez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For a brief period in 2010, Border Patrol reopened Friendship Park during weekends. Hugging through the fence would no longer be possible due to the addition of yet another fence that kept visitors several feet away from the primary border wall. Visitors also now had to enter the park through a new outer gate.<\/p>\n

Brown, whose design proposals allowed for visitors to walk right up to the fence at Friendship Park, was highly critical of the additional barrier that separated visitors.<\/p>\n

It was \u201clike a cattle herding mechanism, it was terrible,\u201d Brown said. Border Patrol agreed to Brown\u2019s proposal of removing the additional barrier to allow visitors greater proximity with people on the other side of the wall. But this came with a compromise that included a tight mesh to prevent the passing of items through the fence.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s redesign allowed for the reopening of Friendship Park in 2012. Except for a brief closure period in 2017, the park has remained open ever since.<\/p>\n

Today, the design remains restrictive, visitors can barely stick their fingers through the steel mesh. Locals coined the term \u201cpinky kiss\u201d to describe the only physical contact that is possible through the wall.<\/p>\n

Friends of Friendship Park are currently promoting an online petition<\/a> for a redesign of the park that would allow increased physical contact for visitors on both sides. Volunteer Roberto Vivar described the proposal as a space where visitors \u201ccan hug, share a meal, and be a family, even if just for a few hours on the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specifics are still being worked out by Brown, who in October will release his design proposal for a \u201ctruly binational park.\u201d While public support is helpful, an act of Congress will be necessary to approve it.<\/p>\n

Despite the current administration\u2019s campaign for increased militarization of the border, activists are hopeful. \u201cWith Trump, we know he\u2019s full of hate, of racism,\u201d said Vivar. \u201cWell, he\u2019s not the one who gets the last word, that\u2019s up to God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus was a refugee<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vivar was six years old when his family moved him from Mexico to California. As an adult, \u201cI was very productive, I worked,\u201d he remembered. But he got into trouble when \u201clike many people, I started experimenting with drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six years ago, drug possession charges led to Vivar\u2019s deportation. After a few months stranded in Tijuana, \u201cI felt something was missing. I couldn\u2019t adapt, and I searched for something that would help me face each day\u2019s challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivar turned to Border Church, a group that organizes a bilingual, binational spiritual service in Friendship Park. He\u2019s been a volunteer with the church ever since.<\/p>\n

Every Sunday, volunteers arrive to the Tijuana side of Friendship Park with folding tables, canopy tents, bread and wine. Using a microphone and speakers, a pastor on the U.S. side gives a sermon in English, which Vivar, standing in Tijuana, translates sentence by sentence into Spanish.<\/p>\n

When El Tecolote visited the Tijuana side of Friendship Park last March, Pastor Seth David Clark recounted the story of when king Herod ordered the killing of baby Jesus, prompting Joseph to take Mary and Jesus out of Bethlehem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The wall dividing the U.S.-Mexico border as seen from the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood. Feb. 28, 2019. Photo: Mabel Jim\u00e9nez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe see that they need to run away for their lives,\u201d Pastor Seth told the crowd. \u201cThey had to run to a new country, to Egypt, a place they don\u2019t know\u2026 a place that is not home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJesus was a refugee,\u201d he continued. \u201cAlong with his parents, Jesus was someone who had to seek asylum… some of us here today might be far from home. Some of us today might be seeking asylum, and we see in the story that Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they did it too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pastor Seth finished his sermon by encouraging the crowd to touch the border wall, and then to reach for the heavens. \u201cThe sky has no borders, the sky has no limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every Sunday this little section of the border wall in Tijuana gets filled with musicians and food carts selling churros. But despite the local\u2019s best efforts to create a festive environment for tourists, an overwhelming sadness fills the air as visitation hours on the U.S. side of Friendship Park reach closing time.<\/p>\n

Watching families say their goodbyes is excruciating. Many will not see each other again for years. Visitors on the U.S. side exit the park, while those in Tijuana hold tight to the posts along the border fence, powerless as they watch their loved ones on the other side walk away.<\/p>\n

Border architect Jim Brown is hopeful his upcoming redesign proposal for Friendship Park will allow for a better connection across countries to, as he said, \u201cmaintain a close friendship with our southernmost neighbor \u2026 that provides much more security than two walls ever could.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a Sunday morning in March, Braulio Mayer met his seven grandchildren for the first time, and was reunited with two of his grown children whom he had not seen in 10 years. Mayer desperately wanted to hold his grandkids, but the U.S.-Mexico border wall stood in the way. \u201cImpotence, just impotence,\u201d is how he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":40711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3929],"tags":[10025,8235],"coauthors":[18445],"class_list":["post-40628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-friendship-park","tag-u-s-mexico-border","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nFriendship Park, once a symbol of binational camaraderie now keeps families divided - El Tecolote<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On a Sunday morning in March, Braulio Mayer met his seven grandchildren for the first time, and was reunited with two of his grown children whom he had\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/en\/friendship-park-once-a-symbol-of-binational-camaraderie-now-keeps-families-divided\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friendship Park, once a symbol of binational camaraderie now keeps families divided - 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