This content was published on July 30, 2022 – 12:16
Martha Garde
Washington, Jul 30 (EFE).- Thousands of people cross the border between Tijuana (Mexico) and San Diego (USA) every day to go to work, study, buy or do business. A reality that the binational and bilingual group The Frontera Project has taken to the stage to break down stereotypes with the power of art.
The project began to take shape in 2019 and has arrived in Washington this week as part of a tour that has already toured part of the United States and will go to Tijuana in the fall to bring these stories closer to both its protagonists in real life and those who do not know them.
Its 80-minute runtime is made up of a mosaic of anecdotes, many of them autobiographical, that outline the day-to-day life of those who live in both countries: from the hours it takes to cross that border to the discrimination suffered by those who do not have all the necessary papers.
The most flagrant injustice that is denounced, according to what its co-director, the Mexican Ramón Verdugo, told EFE, is depriving people of the possibility of moving: “Migration is a natural law. We move to be able to be in a place where we feel more comfortable and safer.
For this reason, their message takes on special meaning when they make themselves heard until this coming Monday in the US capital, “a city where so many decisions are made” and which has made room for them in the National Building Museum.
POLITICAL BORDERS
In that same museum, the exhibition “The wall/El muro” delves into the fact that borders are political constructions and emphasizes that the one between Mexico and the United States was defined as part of the negotiation process of the treaty that ended the war in 1848.
The Frontera Project puts a face to the outcome of those historic decisions. It does so through a protagonist who had to get up at four in the morning in Mexico to get to school in the United States at eight, or another who has come to the conclusion that one can belong to more than one place. at once.
The story is accompanied by figures. Customs and Border Protection puts the estimated number of migrant deaths along the southern border since the late 1990s, many from dehydration, at 8,032.
“The statistics are part of reality, but they are not everything,” says Verdugo, artistic director of Tijuana Hace Teatro and who signs this latest work together with the American director Jessica Bauman.
BINATIONAL AND BILINGUAL
The performance takes place in English and Spanish, with a family audience as its target audience. It is designed as an interactive show, which makes it easier for the youngest to get to know other perspectives through music, performance and games.
“The performing arts are very powerful because they allow us to talk about ourselves through art. They not only obey a rational issue, but also an emotional one,” adds the co-director, who in his day was surprised to see how such an internalized life for who can go and come back was so particular for the rest.
In his confrontation before the public, he shows both those who have the privilege of crossing daily from one city to another and those who see that road blocked. In 2019 alone, according to their figures, 600 people died in the attempt, of which a fifth were women and children.
“The stories that the border brings are multiple and very diverse. Many times they have been consumed thanks to the media, certain news or stories that everyone listens to. What we do with this is add a perspective. This is another face,” he concludes. the co-director EFE
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