Saludos desde Border Field State Park in San Diego.   I can say this because this guy looks like he is surfing just to the north of the famous border wall that divides Mexico and California.    The twelve-foot fence extends about 300 feet into the sea (to prevent people from swimming over).    It’s made of metal shafts and rods and probably not much different than what you see between Mexicali and Calexico.   You can’t see it here, but the Tijuana side features the upscale Las Playas neigborhood.  Tourists come here to enjoy bars, restaurants, and watch the sunsets.  Others visit the colorful Friendship Park.  This is like a “safe area” created by both Mexican and American activists to promote peace and hope in a time of despair.     On the American side, you won’t find much of anything.  The Border patrol has cleared the area near the fence for security reasons.  There is now a second barbed-wire fence  that is fifteen-feet high that will further deter ilegal border crossers.   I mean if you can jump the first fence, I suppose you have dangerous little time  to make it over the second fence before the border patrol arrives.  They watch you on camera 24/7.   At the very end of the fence a sign is posted in both English and Spanish warning of DANGER/PELIGRO.  This sign may refer to the raw sewage that is dumped into the ocean from the Tijuana River.  Or, it may be warning to border crossers of the lethal rip currents that can carry you off to  a place where you don’t want to go – and/or won’t come back from.    I haven’t been to Tijuana in maybe twenty five years, but back in the day, when I was training for marathons, I remember running  along the American-side beach on Sundays fairly close to the image you see in this postcard.  Of course, this was before Trump.  If I felt ambitious, I would drive over into Tijuana and run along the Mexican-side  beach.  Not too bad.  A lot more people.  A few more surfers. By the way, the surfer in this picture has adopted the famous “Goofy-Foot” stance.  This is for surfers who position their right foot forward and their left foot back.  Surf’s up !  WATCH OUT FOR THE FENCE!   Paz, JL

This summer in English 105 we read a novel  about a  San Diego family that has deep roots to Tijuana. The Sahagúns  are a fairly large family.  It seems to me that half the kids were born in Mexico and the other half born in the U.S.   The author Patricia Sanatana emphasizes multiple scenes where family members question their identity.  Some of them may feel atrapados between two worlds.  There is at least one DISASTEROUS road trip to T.J.

The SETTING is IMPORTANT, for most of my students will relate to living near the border.  I expect our classroom discussions to be lively.  To supplement our reading, I have asked my students to contribute to Jay’s Tijuana Scrapbook.  I will sprinkle in three or four assignments over the semester that will require students to scour the campus databases for information regarding the history, culture, and politics of Tijuana. By the end of the semester, I expect everyone in the class will have a better FEEL for the NOVEL. I find the extra steps lead to a HIGHER LEVEL of our WRITING.

The story behind Motorcycle may not be what my students are used to reading in their high-school or college English classes. Take a look at the cover to the novel and amidst the mosaic of bright and happy colors you‘ll catch the blast of a street bike and a young girl’s naked thigh.  What you don´t get is a frightening story that takes place along the mean streets of an East San Diego Barrio. Yoli is 14 and is feeling it –  emotion,  culture and  sex – on the verge of her coming out party.  For Chuy, her favorite brother and returning Vietnam veteran, the party is over.  Patricia Santana paints a picture of a young girl´s innoncence that she will never get back.  You see, her brother has changed since returning from overseas.  His voice is distant. The gleam in his eye is violent.  The picture is dark and brooding.  Chuy’s soul has  gone up in smoke like the exhaust out of a tailpipe.  

Quite recently, I came up with the idea for my students to write postcards to reflect interesting information, insight, and/or perspective about the setting of our class novel-reading projects. This past year, I felt really good about our postcards for New York City and Mexico City (see samples below). In our second week of the summer, I will ask my students to use both their CREATIVITY and RESEARCH to create a TIJUANA POSTCARD. It could be about ANYTHING ( Well, almost ANYTHING – They are expected to use their common sense to choose something appropriate for classroom use. )

Jay’s Tijuana Brainstorming – Fast Three Postcard Ideas:

Julieta Venegas – I can describe her hair, clothing, jewelry, and of course her accordeon.  Where are her fingers positioned? What note is she playing? What does the expression on her face tell you?  Jaja, I once read a 400-page novel called Accordeon Crimes. It was all about ONE accordeon and like THREE or FOUR generations of immigrant families.	Tijuana Tattoo – The Hummingbird.  In another class I teach my students to analyze their favorite tattoos.  I know where to find information about hummingbirds.  More importantly, I have read what they may symbolize in Mexican culture.	Tijuana Low-Riders.  I know they are still a big thing in Mexicali. I often see them line up on Sundays in front of the UABC campus near my house.  The hardest part of this assignment will be choosing the right car for me to describe.

The goal and purpose of our Classroom Postcards is to help students  to become  more organized and creative in their school work.  As we delve deeper into our novel-reading projects, I ask my students to process information and skills learned in class and apply it to the back of their postcards.  It seems to work.  They make their own connections with their topics when previously there were none.  In a few of my classes, we read a New York City novel  I recently plucked off my shelves here in Mexicali. It’s called Paradise Travel, and it is written by Jorge Franco.  I’m not giving any spoiler alerts, but it focuses upon the American Dream – two teen-age lovers, Marlon and Reina from Medellín, Colombia, who successfully make the long, ardous journey to New York City but learn tough, life-changing lessons along the way.   I like this novel, for the CHANGE in characters that happens right before our eyes.  Both Marlon and Reina become Hard and Knowing.  They are entirely different people at the end of the novel.  Did their journey to the U.S. change the way they saw each other? How did their struggle to fit in, to find their place, to define their identities…Affect Their Love?

So, I think to myself, “What if I were in this class?” What image of New York City and/or The American Dream would I choose to include in my Postcard. I first practice with my own. I try to follow my own instructions the best I can, Jaja, to create a model.

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Back:

Saludos from New York City:   These two young lovers are two of my literary heroes.  On the left, that’s playwright Sam Shepard dressed in a long-sleeved polo shirt with a strand of hair falling into his eyes.  On the right, that’s poet Patti Smith looping her arm around Sam’s shoulder.  I studied Sam’s works for my Masters thesis in English. Patti is famous for converting her poetry into song.  Very soon thereafter, she became the Godmother of Punk.  In 1971 they carried on a brief and torrid love affair at the Chelsea hotel.  For a few years, Smith rented a room with a balcony. That’s where this picture may have been taken. Neither of them are smiling, in the convential sense.  That doesn’t mean they are not happy.  But the photo clearly captures their attitude.  This is an exciting time for both of them.  The world is changing, and they are both making their contributions.  They don’t care what you think.    The Chelsea Hotel is where Sam and Patti wrote the play Cowboy Mouth.  It became 27 pages long and it  took them two days to finish.  This happens in Patti’s room  #1017, the smallest room in the hotel  One day, Sam comes up with the idea of writing the play together.  Patti tells him that she has never written anything like a play, but that doesn’t matter to Sam.  He pulls his portable typwriter onto the bed in between them and tells her it like this:  You start with a detailed description of the setting.  Pale blue walls.  A white metal bed.  A small sink and a mirror and chest of drawers.  That’s pretty much it.  Sam wanted his character to be called “Slim.”  A dude who looked and acted like a coyote.  He then pushed the typewriter towards Patti and told her it was now her turn to type.  Patti wanted to call her character Cavele, “a chick who looks like a crow.”   In my English classes this semester, we are reading a novel called Paradise Travel.  It’s about two young lovers from Colombia who come to New York City to seek the same things Sam and Patti did. Their names are Marlon and Reina.  They are both dreamers.  They find themselves in the same type of beat-up room, but that’s OK.  All they want is a chance to be free. Paz, JL

When I was the age my students are now, I began my serious reading as an escape from my dismal surroundings. I’m not saying I had a bad family situation, but I had few friends that shared my  interests. While I was reading and writing, they were smoking and drinking.  The kinds of friends who are high all the time are the friends who like having you around, but when it comes down to it, they are disinterested in anything you have to say.  Looking back, I wasn’t really what you would call a “happy camper,”  but unlike Sam or Patti,  I didn’t have the courage to leave home on my own; instead,  I found myself  looking to distance myself by reading books about far-off places and adventures.   From this direction,   I probably became interested in learning languages.  Before I began studying Spanish, I had developed a fluency in Hebrew and French.  On my shelves here in Mexicali, I have kept hundreds, maybe a thousand, books of both fiction and non-fiction in multiple languages that cover topics from all over the world.  This is where I probably came across Mexico City Emos. In Spring 2026 my classes read a historical novel based on the Life and Death of Frida Kahlo –so,  to supplement our reading we wrote postcards about Frida’s hometown, Mexico City. I don’t remember anything or anyone that resembled an Emo when I was 17-19.  But, maybe I was one, and I just didn’t know it.   I was very quiet and kept to myself.  In a book titled, Down & Delirious in Mexico City that I have on my shelves,  I read a passage about a group Emo teens that would become the basis of my Mexico City Postcard.

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Estimados Estudiantes,   Pictured above are two Mexico City Emos.  I’m not clear of any subtle differences between Imperial mos and Mexico City Emos, but I know there are plenty of Emos here.  I’ve seen them come and go in my classes.  Many Emos go for a very dark look.  Dark hair, dark eyeliner, dark shirts, dark pants.  Black is not only a fashion style, but apparently it is also an attitude.  Many of the Mexico City Emos describe themselves as troubled or depressed.   It’s a bit confusing to me because they often choose to be sad.  I know this because I’m reading about them in a book off my shelves here in Mexicali  called Down & Delirious In Mexico City. According to this book, Emos  like the drama.  The sadder they look, the better they feel.   In this image, the guy on the left , Edgar, has a down-turned mouth.  In Mexico, the photographers ask their subjects to say “whisky”when they want a great big smile.  There is something about pronouncing the “w” that creates an upturned mouth.  In this picture, Edgar is probably saying, “cough medicine.”   The girl on the right is actually smiling a little bit. I couldn’t find out her name, but she’s probably not a serious Emo, or maybe she hasn’t been an Emo for very long to suffer any real sadness. She appears to have dark eye shadow, but it’s applied very neatly.  I’ve read that some Emos like to smudge up their make-up across their cheeks to make it look like they have been crying. This girl doesn’t even have the piercing on her face like her sad-sack friend. There are plenty of Mexico City Teens rebels who are angry with the Emos for copying their style.  Like when they cut up their arms with razor blades or stick nails in their faces,  that’s COOL, because their look represents their rebellion against their society.  The Emos, according to them, have no purpose. They want to look sad because they are pendejos.   Here is a problem for the Mexico City Emos.  They have drawn animosity and disrepect from other subculture groups around the city.  I’m talking the goths, punks, skateboarders.  Edgar says that  he’s often misunderstood by people of all ages.  They don’t understand why anyone would choose to be sad.    Rocio probably doesn’t care what other people think.  I mean, it’s her life, and she will do what she wants. Paz, JL

I plan to create a new Jay’s Scrapbook for every class I teach.  I have several books at home that showcase literary landmarks from around the world. These books guide readers around the cities, towns and countrysides where famous writers created their best art.  I may never see these locations with my own eyes, but when I jot things down on my postcards I feel like I’m going places.  I was a little bit nervous writing about Emos in my previous class.  I mean, a few of my students have either self-identified as Emos in high school or still subscribe to certain elements of Emo culture. To my pleasant surprise in this class , I received more than a few Emo postcards in return.  The topic of teen  subcultures entered our classroom discussions. My students wrote much more interesting Emo postcards than I did. One of my favorite authors, Joan Didon, famously said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”   With our classroom postcard projects, I hope my students take heed. I’ll tell you what, their writing livens up our classroom discussions.  ¿Quién sabe? Quite possibly this summer, I will learn things I never knew about surfing – from my own students.  This is what makes teaching FUN.