September 7th was our third annual "Peek Behind the Curtain" event, which was held at the beautiful Wittner Museum in Nogales, Arizona. Unlike prior events, which Voices and Sierra Club Borderlands jointly sponsored, this event had an additional roster of sponsors including Pimeria Alta Museum, La Linea, The Patagonia Museum and We Love Nogales (Santa Cruz County Public Media).
(To learn more about the Border Before Project, see our previous blog: Exciting New Project and a Reprise of A Peek Behind the Curtain)
"Peek Behind the Curtain" is a forum Voices and Sierra Club Borderlands developed to showcase The Border Chronicle, a critical source of accurate border news founded by award-winning journalists, Todd Miller and Melissa del Bosque. This particular event was also the launch of The Border Before project that is being developed by the expanded group of organizations who sponsored this event.
It featured two interviewees:
Celia Concannon: Raised in Nogales and since 1984 she has trained many local students in theater, dance, and ESL in Santa Cruz County.
Gustavo Lozano: A multimedia artist and music producer who is passionate about social justice and community empowerment. He is the founder of Borderbeatz music collective in Nogales.
Attendees found the event very engaging. Celia recounted that in times past Border Patrol would simply open the border to allow festivals and parades to take place. She described a lively binational life in a time when the term Ambos Nogales (both Nogales) was a daily lived experience. She contrasted it with the current moment and its particular impact on the Mexican side of the border. Before the massive border security apparatus was put into place, she recalled that a variety of wonderful shops and stores run by artists and craftspeople thrived, attracting many cross-border visitors. Now the remaining businesses are primarily dental and medical offices.
Gustavo recalled the important fact that the border first began to change with NAFTA (in anticipation of dislocations in Mexico created by the impact that the 1994 policy had on small farmers in the region). He also recounted that when he was living on the Mexico side as a young boy, he and his friends would sneak past the chain link fence to visit the US side, only to be caught by Border Patrol and be sent back with a stern warning not to cross again. The next week they would do the same thing, and the very same agent would issue the very same warning, once again illustrating the permeability and more relaxed attitude that existed in "the border before".
Currently, we're in conversation with the Special Collections Library at the University of Arizona about this exciting oral history project. Voices will be seeking interviewees from the borderlands that will highlight the changes resulting from massively increasing border militarization over the past thirty-plus years.
You can listen to the full podcast HERE.
Stay tuned for more information about how to be involved in this exciting project!
(Picture credit: Tomas Jonsson).
This piece appeared in the October issue of our monthly newsletter. You can subscribe HERE.
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