Terra Llantera: Placemaking and Finding Home In the Borderlands, With Photos By Vivian Grimes

By Ginger L Franklin

Terra Llantera: Placemaking and Finding Home in the Borderlands, with Photos by Vivian Grimes is a work of collaboration through and through. It is a narrative nonfiction, photo essay, and collection of research. Through these various lenses, the hidden world of Tijuana’s trash and tire-based construction is revealed in stunning fashion. A fascinating cycle of use, disposal, and reuse of tires and trash plays out in massive scale along the border between the United States and Mexico. In the city of Tijuana, impermanent communities often adopt materials that have been cast off by people and re-purpose them to build houses, parks, and a stable life for themselves. The alternative is something akin to an ecological disaster waiting to happen. The social implications of this unique ecological and economic dynamic are far from obvious, and are not trivial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387915323

Book preview

Terra Llantera: Placemaking and Finding Home In the Borderlands, With Photos By Vivian Grimes

Terra Llantera: Placemaking and Finding Home in the Borderlands, with Photos by Vivian Grimes

Copyright © 2018 Ginger L Franklin. All Rights Reserved.

For high-quality versions of these photos, purchase the printed edition at http://www.lulu.com/shop/ginger-l-franklin/terra-llantera-placemaking-and-finding-home-in-the-borderlands-with-photos-by-vivian-grimes/paperback/product-23415628.html

Acknowledgements

I must thank 4Walls International without whom this work would not have been possible. A special thank you to Steven Wright and Waylon Matson for being such gracious hosts and teaching me how to make stuff out of tires and trash.

If this book moves you to action, as I hope it does, please look into 4Walls International to see how you can help:

http://www.4wallsintl.org

Thank you very much to the women of Rancho Las Flores who were the hardest workers, kindest bosses, and best cooks at the park space. As Steven said, If you want something done, hire women.

Thank you to Vivian Grimes for coming with me and taking all of the photos that are in this book. Vivian is a professional photographer from New Mexico whose work can be found at:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/viviansphotocalendars7

and

https://www.facebook.com/Vivsphotos

Last but not least, thank you so much to BT Franklin for your hard work and dedication to helping me finish this piece. As an editor and partner, you are the best!

Introduction

Often, when people hear the word refugee, they do not think about those who still live in their native country, but there are hundreds of thousands of people around the world who are internally displaced refugees, and many of them are in Tijuana. The plight of displaced peoples and border dwellers is a universal one as ideas of home and nationality are ever changing and expanding in a world that is more globalized and chaotic than ever before. Through my writing, I want to promote empathy for others through sharing people’s stories along with my own personal journey and observations because how can people care about each other if they don’t know about each other? There seems to be no option of saving the world but interacting with those around us, and sharing empathy for the plights we all face has to be one major step forward, and so, no matter our topic of interest, we must continue to share, teach, and learn from one another. Through hearing these stories, gathering research, and having enlightening experiences in Tijuana and the Southwest United States, I learned more about the human desire to create, the omnipresent need to make a homespace, and how people can shape their environment to fit their needs in innovative and eco-friendly ways.

Learning about others requires a lot of footwork, curiosity, and humility. When I was young, I read about world travel often, and I tried to learn as much as I could while still living in my small town, but without traveling, the knowledge was limited