Border Trolley Tours
June 2017, Tours between the Plaza de Panama and The Front in San Ysidro, San Diego, CA
Despite the fact that the San Diego/Tijuana border is the most transited in the world, only 1 in 4 San Diegans take the the drive south to cross.
100 years ago, during the Panama-California Exposition, locals and tourists visiting the Spanish dancers, gem exhibitions, and Native American reenactment villages of Balboa Park often hopped on a trolley and for an “enjoyable 20-mile ride” to “Tia Juana.” Many of the popular restaurants, casinos, and racetracks in Tijuana were funded by the same American dollars that built Balboa Park. Yet in less than a century, the public imagination of fluidity between San Diego to Tijuana has hardened in sync with the concrete border wall itself.
In collaboration with Cog•nate Collective and in partnership with members of Kumeyaay Community College and the teen docent program of Casa Familiar, Parkeology provided a free public tour between Balboa Park and border territories of San Ysidro. Live storytelling and audio recordings traced the humans, animals, and materials that have migrated through the region. Trolley services also provided free round trip visits to Balboa Park for San Ysidro locals.
During tour hours, the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park was transformed into the Border Trolley Tours interpretive center for tour participants and passerbys.
Cog•nate Collective’s Mobile Institute for Citizenship and Art (MICA) trailer served as the ticket booth and information center.
In collaboration with the Velaslavasay Panorama, four mobile peepshow boxes were displayed in the plaza, providing views of the Tijuana/San Diego border as it has evolved in the past 100 years.
Production + Direction
Parkeology and Cognate Collective
In Collaboration with Teen Docent Program at the Front:
Hector Castro
Shania Quiambao
Miguel Garcia
Andres Perez
Lourdes Alcala Guerrero
Ana Ortiz
Erick Rincon R.
Christopher Mendiola
Brienneth Durazog
Parkeologists
Diana Benavidez
Jeszi McPeak
Annie Meitchik
Melissa Magdaleno
Documentation
Ale Uzarraga: photo
Ren Ebel: photo, video
Audio Engineering
Steve Flato
Thanks to
Kumeyaay Community College, Tomas Herrera-Mishler, David Flores, Francisco Eme, John Lindsay IV, Erica, Sara Solaimani, Matt Baldwin, Nancy, Anne Marie Tipton, Larry Benegas, Ral Cuero, Bobo Elliott, Lori Ring, members of the Kumeyaay Community College Humanities Course, Marina Grize, Noe Olivas, Rosaura Sánchez, Beatrice Pita
Voices
Nancy Valdivia-Ochoa, Alicia Sanchez, Hector Castro Jr., Anne Marie Tipton, Lourdes Alcala Guerrero, Maria Castro Historical and Personal Memories relating to Alta California 1769-1849 by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo Read by Francisco Eme