TIJUANA FEELS MUCH YOUNGER THAN ITS OFFICIAL AGE
Since I was a little girl, I’ve been captivated by my birthday. All day I’m overwhelmed by an internal joy, whether I celebrate it or not. My mom stopped throwing parties for me because I cried when kids hit my piñata. Another time, while I was visiting my daughter in New York, I ended up in the emergency room because a strange growth appeared on my hand. (Nothing I had to worry about, though.) No matter how many years go by, my birthday continues to fascinate me.
When I moved to the U.S., my daughter and I decided that we would celebrate our birthdays for a week because our dearest always forgot to congratulate us on the very day. We worked out a seven-day spread of greetings — three days before our birthday and three days after.
July 11, 2022, marks Tijuana’s 133rd anniversary, and I’m sure that the celebrations will last for several days. The first celebration took place when Tijuana was founded on July 11, 1889.
Humans, unlike cities, celebrate the day of their birth. “Las Mañanitas” — Mexico’s equivalent of America’s “Happy Birthday” song — has a verse that says that the day you were born all the flowers were born, too (but I doubt it because when I was born in the Northern Hemisphere in January, it was winter).
I like to sing “Las Mañanitas” to myself on the day of my daughter’s birthday, not on my own, because when she was born, I experienced a huge transformation. I also like to sing it to celebrate the date when I got my bachelor’s degree in communications, which required enormous effort, discipline and stubbornness for a woman who usually changes direction when exciting situations arise.
In fact, I wanted to sang “Las Mañanitas” on the day I became a U.S. citizen because the passion to obtain that citizenship guided a long and important part of my personal history.
All this boggles my mind when I think of the festivities in Tijuana. Historian David Piñera Ramírez says we are celebrating the 133rd anniversary because 1889 was “the year in which the heirs of Mr. Santiago Argüello and Mr. Agustín Olvera entered into a judicial agreement which laid the foundations for the progress of the current population of Tijuana.” These families where the beneficiaries of concessions granted by the Mexican governor of Alta California, Jose María de Echeandía,
in the early 1820s and 1830s, to retired soldiers as compensation for their services to the nation.
However, there are 6,000-year-old records of Yumano communities in the Baja California peninsula. The ancient settlers had a nomadic culture guided by the knowledge they inherited from Maija Awi, the Snake of Wisdom, la serpiente de la sabiduría, and honoring our peninsular ancestors.
What would you think if the celebration were done jointly with San Diego, and we celebrated 253 years together? Or if we considered the founding of the San Diego Mission in 1769 when it was a viceroyalty of New Spain and then celebrated the entire region? Or take 1810, when El Descanso, the closest mission to the border, was founded? Then we would celebrate our mestizo culture.
For nationalists, the birthday could be celebrated along with the signing of the Treaties of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which is when Tijuana was established as a border point, and boundary stones where built to designate the territorial limits. Tijuana would then be 173 years old.
When we were designing the Museo de las Californias at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, it was fascinating to listen to the discussions between historians, museographers and consultants to define the contents to highlight in the exhibit design. The moment the specialists came to an agreement was magical for me. I was directing their work.
It seems to me, however, that those who live in this border city have agreed to celebrate the 133rd anniversary of a city that does not look its age.
In humans, there is sometimes a clear difference between chronological age — when we are born — and biological age — which depends on our lifestyle. The same goes for Tijuana. Its enormous capacity for resilience, innovation and reinvention reveals a city much younger than the birthday we’re celebrating. But due to the challenges that Tijuana has had to overcome to continue to have the investment and creative talent of its inhabitants, Tijuana’s age would be equivalent to the old Mexican colonial cities.
Old city or young, let the party begin. Happy Birthday, Tijuana!
Basurto