BiNational Conceit

Following a journey along part of the Arizona border, I return to El Paso. The Jesuit church Sacred Heart proudly stands in the center of el Segundo Barrio at the southern tip of the city. This neighborhood is a living document of just how El Paso and Ciudad Juarez are the same place. This border region has been described as a bi-national community which sounds like a site of resistance to the conceit of opposites but in fact is the rubric under which multi-national economic planning finds cover. Nevertheless, el Segundo Barrio is a testament to the absurdity of the border here. And it is threatened with extinction. It doesn't live up to El Paso's idea of itself as a cosmopolitan destination. A symphony. A stadium. Here, the approach to gentrification is a gringo's mantel of cultural hegemony and aesthetic hierarchy. Give me the adobe because to eliminate these structures, to plow them down as city leaders are currently attempting to do in Barrio Duranguito, is to erase a living history. To run a fence through a neighborhood or a freeway is urban planning with an erroneous view of future. What if every city modeled itself after Walter Benjamin's Angel of History? (December 4, 2017)