With each new semester, I try to build upon the novel we are reading in class with a group research project focused upon its respective setting. I mean, this is the class I would want to be in. Something that would take me far way from the everyday monotony of life as I know it. In one of my classes we read a New York City novel. It’s about two young lovers, not too far from the age of my current students are now; they journey from Columbia to the Big Apple in search of their American Dream. The class is rigorous enough without the extra work of a group project, but to my pleasant surprise, my students appear to eagerly apply their newly developed research skills to New York City history, people, music, theatre, architecture, street food….
As we progress through each novel, I have my students brainstorm ideas for a semester-ending presentation in front of the rest of the class. Each group needs to decide on a geographical or cultural theme for their project that relates to the novel. I have this habit of practicing my assignments before I present them in class. Below I create a teacher’s model for a group that would research NYC Street Food. Before they start writing, I ask my students to utilize academic skills we have developed through the semester to build upon their presentation. I have even come up with a name for my group:
LOS TRAGALDABAS – THE CHOWHOUNDS
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| Jay | Arish | Ana Lucia |
| Character Analysis – Anthony Bourdain | Definition – White Castle Sliders | Summary – NYC Street Food |
| Author of best-selling memoir, Kitchen Confidential. Host of popular television cooking shows. He may be responsible for inspiring our interest in international food and cuisine. For a time he was a full-bore Heroin Addict. He took drugs to come down from high-pressure restaurant jobs. He once said, “I’ve been free to do whatever I want / To make the shows I want anywhere I want with whom I want / In any style I want / So I, at first I don’t know any other way / And by now I won’t have it any other way.” | A slider is a square hamburger, small and greasy. They are called sliders because you can “slide” them down fast and easy. Most people associate sliders with the New York City chain of White Castle restaurants. Maybe a few students in this class have seen the movie, “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.” It’s a stoner movie, but you don’t have to be a stoner to enjoy a White Castle slider. | New York City is often the primary destination for immigrants from all over the world. Think Reina and Marlon. Food Carts are a HUGE business. You don’t have to go into an ethnic neighborhood to find true ethnic food. The carts will come to where you are. This isn’t Mexicali. I see carts all over the city, but not like this. Korean Barbecue Chicken. Belgian Waffles. New York-Style Pizza. There is something for everyone. |
Let’s Face It: Many of my college-level students arrive with a blatant disregard, even contempt, for reading. Their experiences up to this point in their learning, NOT GOOD. It seems to me they have been assigned books to read by their teachers based on a standardized, haphazard list provided by the division office. This is often called the “One-Size-Fits-All Approach.” We force these books down the throats of our students without any consideration for their interests, motivations, strengths, weaknesses, experiences. No wonder the drastic uptick in AI-generated submissions I grade every night. I mean, if we – the teachers – are not going to invest in our reading, why should our students care? So what to do?
If you ask me – and no one does – I choose books off my shelves here in Mexicali to assign to my students. Most of them I have read in both Spanish and English. This is a good idea, Jay, for most of these books do not provide summaries or analyses on any internet sites that students can copy from, but most of all, I choose books that I already like. I’M IN! Because of the language challenge, I’ve read these books multiple times. I know the INS and OUTS of each. In fact, I’ve developed this habit to buy additional books with the same themes, ideas to support my reading experience. Many students, I fear, believe reading in college has to be HARD WORK. I read these book one time and the next, because I like the experience. That makes it a lot LESS WORK. My hope is for my enthusiasm to carry over to my students. My current NYC novel is called Paradise Travel, and it’s written by a Colombian author, Jose Franco. Not only does it treat the challenges immigrants face when they come to this country, in this case it exposes the wear and tear and stress that can comes with it that can crush a love relationship. The results are in: my students VOTE YES.
I’ll get to Tijuana in a moment, but my effort to incorporate a NOVEL DESTINATION in each of my classes appears to to draw my students into their reading. When I say “novel destination,” I mean we concentrate on the setting of each novel as if it was a specific character. This means I encourage students to dig deeper into each novel to understand geographical, cultural, and historical implications of the setting. ( I hold my breath while they choose what they believe is important!) For example, last Spring 2026, we read The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo. Mexican author F.G. Haghebeck took on the challenge of fictionalizing both Frida’s Life and Death from the study of her personal diary entries. I know this because I have the same copy of her diary that he must have, here on my shelves in Mexicali. Haghenbeck artfully transformed many of these entries into vivid, heartbreaking chapters in his novel. Apparently, my students enjoyed the reading experience. They all integrated different components of Frida’s Life, Love, and Art into a lengthy MLA research paper. Upon completion, we transitioned to group research projects focused upon Frida’s hometown, Mexico City.
We cap off each semester with Jay’s Student News Conference. This is what I call it. I look at the event as a way for my students to share their hard work in a meaningful way.
The Setting: We bring in a professional podium. We have reserved a large screen for students to support their discussions with meaningful visuals. In a brief three to five minutes, they highlight the most interesting aspects of their writing projects and writing experience. At the end of their presentations, they take questions from the audience.
Jay’s Origin of Press Conference Idea: This student news conference idea came to me at the beginning of the first Trump presidency; from watching news clips of Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Sara Saunders, Rod Rosenstein, presenting important information to a roomful of reporters. And taking questions! I thought what a great format to generate and perpetuate student engagement at semester’s end. The communication goes two ways. Everyone wins!
Why: I envision our student news conference as an exciting, non-threatening collaborative atmosphere to reinforce our semester learning and motivate my future students to do the same. I call it a “Celebration of Student Writing.”
Why did I read Tijuana Straits? Way back when I was close to the age my students are now, I read Kem Nunn novels. He is known for “surf-noir” novels; like drugs, despair, and dark stuff along the California beaches. This summer, I’ve assigned a sixties novel to one of my classes, Motorcycle on the Sea of Tranquility by Patricia Santana, it’s about a rather large Mexican-American family that lives near the border that separates Mexico and Tijuana. In this story, it seems half of the siblings were born in Mexico, and the other half on American soil. No surprise here, the family members find themselves crossing back and forth across the Tijuana port of entry. This gave me the idea for proposing an end-of semester Tijuana group research project.
Kem Nunn’s novel was a great read for me. The protagonist, Sam Fahey, was once a promising world-class surfer as a young man, but that was a long time ago. Now he is worn for wear. He appears to be a drugged-out beach bum who lives in a trailer near the beach not too far from the border wall that separates Tijuana and Imperial Beach. He still dreams of mystic waves, but the only ones he sees come to him in speed induced hallucinations from days without sleep. I’m not writing a book report here, but everything changes when he comes a cross a young woman on the beach stumbling out of the mist near the border wall. It’s clear to him she’s Mexican and she has been assaulted. How she has got across the border is a mystery. I like this novel. Surfing seems like such a solitary experience, but for the first time, in a long, long time, Sam seems ready for a change in his life. He take her back to his trailer and cares for her – not knowing that a dark wave of violence will follow. The woman’s name is Magdalena, and the Tijuana thugs who attacked her in the first place want to finish the job. They will kill anyone who gets in their way.
I’m not going to bring Tijuana Straits to my classroom any time soon, but I’m so HAPPY for all the ideas it has provided me that I can now share with my students. I mean, we begin this semester with a Sixties Research Paper to supplement our reading of Motorcycle on the Sea of Tranquility. I grew up in the Sixties, but for my students, the the decade may seem like ancient history. I provide them a list of juicy topics in my assignment introduction: Twiggy, the Story of a Surprise Super Model, the Moon Landing; Three Days of Peace and Love at Woodstock; the JFK Assassination; the the Historical Emergence of 1964 Ford Mustang…
Now, after reading Tijuana, I feel more confident to push Surf Culture on a few students who show up to class with their skateboards. They research the history of surfing, the shapes of surfboards, the surf music that for a brief time was bigger than Beatles music! As I write this, a pair of my students are preparing a presentation to discusss the American Amazon company’s nasty exploitation of cheap Mexican labor in Tijuana. For all the riches the Mexican labor provide the Americans, the workers live in cardboard cities surrounding the super-modern American facilities. In this setting of desperation, the women are often sexually abused. In Tijuana Straits, Magdalena is like a Mexican Erin Brokovich character, a paralegal who has dedicated her life to fight for the rights of the poor and marginalized. Her male antogonists are glue-sniffing survivors of sweatshops like Amazon. They have lost their families, their identies, and any respect for the human race. The man that wants to kill Magdalena brandishes a tattoo of human eyeball on the back of his head.
I FINALLY GET TO JAY’S TIJUANA SCRAPBOOK! This week in my Summer Session 2026 class, we make the transition from our Sixties History Research Papers to our Tijuana Group Projects. As a warm-up exercise I ask my students to create an interesting Tijuana Postcard based on the topic of their Tijuana Research. I’m not looking for a vacation story; rather, I want a visual analysis of a Tijuana image that will provide the rest of us with key details and insight. Here are the writing prompts I provide in my Canvas instructions:
- Discuss the basic elements of your image: picture, captions, description, colors, shapes.
- What visual element grabs your attention first. What seems to be most important?
- Can you SUMMARIZE what is happening in the image?
- Are the people in you postcard important. What are their facial expressions. How are they dressed. What may they be thinking at this moment?
- What probably happend the moment before this picture was taken. After?
- Is there something IMPORTANT that WE DON’T SEE in this PICTURE?
- Is there something YOU DIDN’T SEE the FIRST TIME, but now you SEE IT’S IMPORTANT?
- Share your discovery with your classmates!
Here are Three Images I considered in my Brainstorming process:
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| 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. |
On Final Exam Day, I decorate Jay’s Student News Conference with our Tijuana Postcards.
I encourage students to share their writing in their brief presentations and answer questions from our live studio audience. Of course, they have already posted their Postcards on Canvas, so I can broadcast the images on the Big Screen behind them. The summer, most of my students are in their first year of instruction on our campus. They may not be comfortable speaking in front of a group. But here, they can turn their back on us if they so wish, to point out to the most interesting details of their image on the Big Screen behind them. Jaja. That should make things easier for everyone. Below I model my Tijuana Surfing Postcard. This was fun for me. I was able to combine my reading of Tijuana Straits with my research of the Tijuana Border Wall.
I found an image with THREE things I could write about
- The Border Wall
- Surfing
- Danger
Paz, JL |
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