The Park of Tears

In a patch of land between San Diego and Tijuana, loved ones reunite across a mesh fence, poking pinkies through the holes to touch

Suketu Mehta
GEN
Published in
11 min readJun 12, 2019

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FFor years, if you didn’t have papers or lacked the authorization to leave the United States without the right to come back, the only place along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border where you could meet your family face-to-face was at the end of the line: a small patch of land adjoining the Pacific Ocean between San Diego and Tijuana. It was inaugurated by First Lady Pat Nixon in 1971 as a “friendship park” between the two nations and originally did not have a fence. Families on both sides could meet and have picnics together without hindrance. “May there never be a wall between these two great nations,” Nixon said. “Only friendship.”

In 1994, as part of Operation Gatekeeper, the Clinton administration decided that “only friendship” was no longer the case; it would erect a barrier — a fence — between these two great nations. Families could meet across the barrier of 12-foot-high steel bollards and pass food back and forth. In 2009, the Obama administration shut down the American side of Friendship Park and put up a second fence behind the first one. After protests, Friendship Park reopened in 2012, but with a thick double mesh; if a child wanted to touch her mother, for…

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GEN
GEN

Published in GEN

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Suketu Mehta
Suketu Mehta

Written by Suketu Mehta

Author of THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: AN IMMIGRANT’S MANIFESTO. Associate Professor @nyu_journalism

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