BajaNomad

Do you remember....cardboard town in Tijuana?

surfer jim - 1-27-2009 at 10:41 PM

The main road used to go through this area of cardboard "houses" just after you crossed the border. The first time into Mexico this was quite a shock to say the least. Once we stopped on the return trip to give some of the kids whatever we had left from camping and seconds after stopping kids/people came running from everywhere towards us....made a quick exit and never stopped again.

N2Baja - 1-27-2009 at 10:53 PM

I remember that. I remember walking across a bridge and looking down at the cardboard houses that were underneath. It always made me sad.

CaboRon - 1-28-2009 at 05:27 AM

Yes, I remember the cardboard town under the bridge ....

As I recall sometime in the late fifties it was bulldozed ...

Didn't look like anyplace I would want to go :wow:

CaboRon

surfer jim - 1-28-2009 at 09:24 AM

I thought it lasted until they tore it down to make a shopping center(?) sometime in the 90's.

CaboRon - 1-28-2009 at 09:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by surfer jim
I thought it lasted until they tore it down to make a shopping center(?) sometime in the 90's.


That wasn't the first time it had been bulldozed.

Perhaps you wern't around in the fifties :lol:

CaboRon

Salsa - 1-28-2009 at 10:26 AM

My friend joked about a flood in TJ.

News Broadcast -- Big flood in TJ, Estimated $40 in damages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don

tjBill - 1-28-2009 at 11:00 AM

A flood wiped out the shanty town. Then the tijuana river was designed with better flood controls.

BajaWarrior - 1-28-2009 at 05:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by soulpatch
There are a lot of them here in San Diego county if you look closely..... some are pretty substantial in size.


Big problem in the Sweetwater River in Spring Valley near the Swap Meet I hear... It's like a city they say...

Packoderm - 1-28-2009 at 08:59 PM

You mean something like this?

Cartolandia:

Martyman - 1-29-2009 at 10:23 AM

During one of our trips to Half-Way House (late 60s), my mom was so upset about seeing the coca cola sign shacks that we stopped coming to Mexico as a family. Next time we came without her. The fishing was great off those cliffs!

CaboRon - 1-29-2009 at 10:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BajaWarrior
Quote:
Originally posted by soulpatch
There are a lot of them here in San Diego county if you look closely..... some are pretty substantial in size.


Big problem in the Sweetwater River in Spring Valley near the Swap Meet I hear... It's like a city they say...


Are these settlements comprised of illegal aliens ?

Or something else .

CaboRon

elgatoloco - 1-29-2009 at 10:59 AM

My family had been hanging in northern Baja before I came along. Some of my earliest memories heading down to our casa by the sea included stopping by the side of the road after crossing the border and watching my mother and father drop off bags of clothes and food she had collected from family, friends and neighbors. When I got a little older I would get out of the car and assist in handing out items to the "residents" many my age or younger. My mother and father would always make a point of telling us kids that the people living there were suffering from hard times and not there by choice. Growing up I never complained when I got my older brothers hand me down jeans or a jacket from my cousin or a somebody else's repainted bike they had outgrown for Christmas. I knew that I was luckier then most. I remember the time when we crossed and it seemed the whole "town" had vanished but we new that the plight of those living there had likely not changed much , just the location of their misery.

DENNIS - 1-29-2009 at 11:08 AM

Although the location may be history, the condition lives on. Most here wouldn't believe the squalid life for those who live in the city dumps. The "Rag-pickers" as they are called. Large cities, such as D.F. have communities of such unfortunates, so many that they have a union. I'm betting Tijuana isn't far behind.

mulegemichael - 1-29-2009 at 11:12 AM

I recall the cardboard "city" as i hitchhiked south back in 1970...those were the hippie days for me; we ended up on the beach at punta banda where we set up a driftwood camp and stayed for a year...some of the fondest memories i have of baja...but i'm not done yet!

Barry A. - 1-29-2009 at 11:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by elgatoloco
My family had been hanging in northern Baja before I came along. Some of my earliest memories heading down to our casa by the sea included stopping by the side of the road after crossing the border and watching my mother and father drop off bags of clothes and food she had collected from family, friends and neighbors. When I got a little older I would get out of the car and assist in handing out items to the "residents" many my age or younger. My mother and father would always make a point of telling us kids that the people living there were suffering from hard times and not there by choice. Growing up I never complained when I got my older brothers hand me down jeans or a jacket from my cousin or a somebody else's repainted bike they had outgrown for Christmas. I knew that I was luckier then most. I remember the time when we crossed and it seemed the whole "town" had vanished but we new that the plight of those living there had likely not changed much , just the location of their misery.


Excellent story, Crazy Cat-----------and I shared your feelings and observations. I drove past that "village" so many times in the 50's and beyond--------"there but for the grace of God go I"

We are SOOOOOO lucky, us Norte Americanos.

Barry

BajaGringo - 1-29-2009 at 11:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by DENNIS
Although the location may be history, the condition lives on. Most here wouldn't believe the squalid life for those who live in the city dumps. The "Rag-pickers" as they are called. Large cities, such as D.F. have communities of such unfortunates, so many that they have a union. I'm betting Tijuana isn't far behind.


When I was working in South America I saw several of those "garbage dump villages" in Brazil, where families would live in cardboard huts held together with twine and whatever else they could find. It was heartbreaking to watch people fight over the trash as each new dump truck would arrive, small children eating the decaying food remnants that could be found. I visited one such village with a friend in Rio who dedicated two days a week of her time as a pediatrician, trying to help the kids. She told me that 1 in 4 of the newborns would die before the age of 3.

It was one of the most humbling experiences I ever witnessed in my life and like Barry it made me realize how incredibly fortunate many of us are, solely based on where we happen to be born...

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

N2Baja - 1-29-2009 at 01:27 PM

I also remember in around 1980 when the flood gates from Rodriguez Dam were opened due to heavy rains and bodies were washing up on the beaches in Imperial Beach and Coronado Island. :(:(

oldjack - 1-29-2009 at 01:59 PM

Made almost monthly trips from Riverside to Ensenada(late 60's thru 78), to fish, and was always distracted by the smell in advance of the border... then to look off to the side and see the pitiful place all those poor children had to live within... I did some volunteer work with Los Amigos and took food and clinic building supplies to the T.J. dump... but frankly I wasn't strong enough to put up with what I saw that the children had to deal with on a daily basis.... I am not embarrassed to say that I quit that program because of what I saw... I still donated money and had great admiration for those volunteers who were so much stronger than I....

Stickers - 1-29-2009 at 02:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Packoderm
You mean something like this?

Cartolandia:



I remember just cardboard boxes not shacks.

Driving through the area as a small child in my Dads brand new Pontiac on our way to Ensenada. I was in shock. I never thought anything like this could exist just a few yards form the U.S. boarder. It just looked like boxes that large items had shipped in and then families were living inside. I have never forgotten. When our car slowed down we were swarmed by kids looking for handouts and we gave them anything we could.

BajaWarrior - 1-29-2009 at 04:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CaboRon
Quote:
Originally posted by BajaWarrior
Quote:
Originally posted by soulpatch
There are a lot of them here in San Diego county if you look closely..... some are pretty substantial in size.


Big problem in the Sweetwater River in Spring Valley near the Swap Meet I hear... It's like a city they say...


Are these settlements comprised of illegal aliens ?

Or something else .

CaboRon


CaboRon, it aired on the news here in San Diego about 9 months ago and it was actually a mix of legal and illegal residents, they practically had a little city going on there. I believe they cleaned it out, but you know the problem comes back...

Kell-Baja - 1-29-2009 at 06:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by N2Baja
I remember that. I remember walking across a bridge and looking down at the cardboard houses that were underneath. It always made me sad.



Me too....

Kell-Baja - 1-29-2009 at 06:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CaboRon
Yes, I remember the cardboard town under the bridge ....

As I recall sometime in the late fifties it was bulldozed ...

Didn't look like anyplace I would want to go :wow:

CaboRon


I remember this from the late 80's???

pappy - 1-31-2009 at 09:08 AM

first went to baja with family in the 60's. i was a young boy then and what struck me most-just blew me away actually, because i had no idea something like that could exist- was the cardboard structures(and whatever else they could find to build with). i though we were poor, but my eyes and heart were opened that day....

ELINVESTIG8R - 1-31-2009 at 09:14 AM

I lived in that cardboard and tarpaper town for three months when I arrived homeless in Tijuana. I was 13 or thereabouts. I lived with a prostitute named Maria who nursed me back to health before I left. It was a horrible place to live but better than living under nothing.

Tomas Tierra - 1-31-2009 at 10:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by pappy
first went to baja with family in the 60's. i was a young boy then and what struck me most-just blew me away actually, because i had no idea something like that could exist- was the cardboard structures(and whatever else they could find to build with). i though we were poor, but my eyes and heart were opened that day....


Myself included...As an 8 or 9 year old boy, standing on that bridge pitching pennies to the kids below...One little girl I wanted to get a penny so bad, she just never could.All the older, stronger kids just pushed her down out of the way. Her little face, dirty and sad, stayed in my head for years.. A real eye opener..

David, you were fortunate to survive those times as an orphan.

TT

Skip_Mac - 1-31-2009 at 10:08 PM

Jim, 1974, trip to Mulege/Bajia Conception with a Geology class....my first to Baja. It was the cardboard and car hood shacks at Guerro Negro that hit me hardest, a short distance from the (unfinished and unoccupied) steel eagle monument. What a contrast. Later I would help build schools in east TJ and would come to respect the people in the least shack. They kept their pride and honor, no matter how poor. That was a deeper and stronger lesson. They are a powerful people who have developed survival skills under conditions that would leave an Alta Californian despairing and helpless. I have a deep and abiding respect for those who maintain their humanity, under conditions which would have my neighbors shedding theirs.

I guess you can tell that the experiences affected me deeply.

surfer jim - 1-31-2009 at 10:52 PM

Once you saw it you realize "rich" and "poor" can take on many meanings...and how important that line that marks the border can be.....