Category: The People

Behind the Scenes: Strengthening Friends of International Friendship Park

A group of people, some wearing hats and sunglasses, pose together outdoors in front of a building with a colorful mural. It's a sunny day, and everyone is smiling at the camera.

Every community event, volunteer day, art installation, and educational program begins long before the public sees the finished result. Behind the scenes, countless hours are spent building partnerships, strengthening communications, developing programs, and creating the infrastructure needed to support a growing organization. For Friends of International Friendship Park, 2025 was not only a year of […]

Friends Across Borders: Building a Continental Movement of Friendship

Friendship Park has always represented something much larger than a single location. For more than 50 years, it has stood as a symbol of connection, reminding visitors that friendship, understanding, and community can transcend borders. In 2025, Friends of International Friendship Park expanded that vision beyond San Diego and Tijuana with the launch of Friends […]

The Table of Amistad: Turning History into a Place of Gathering

What if a piece of the border wall could become a place where people gather instead of a barrier that keeps them apart? That question inspired one of the most meaningful projects to emerge from the Border Wall Transformation Project: the Table of Amistad. Created from one of the original sections of the U.S.–Mexico border […]

The Park on the Dragon’s Tail

A large blue cartoon dinosaur with sharp teeth and a sinister expression towers over a cityscape, with fields and greenery in the foreground.

This documentary tells the history of Friendship Park, a once flourishing bi-national park on the border of San Diego and Tijuana. We uncover the devastating history of the 30 foot walls that have been put up and all the families who have been deeply affected. Special thank you to Maria Teresa for providing the majority […]

Christian Science Monitor: US-Mexico border park – a long way from the ‘pinky kiss’

A person with long gray hair, wearing a yellow shirt and blue vest, stands with raised hands touching a tall, rusted metal fence. Another hand, wearing a gray sleeve, also reaches toward the fence.

Locals on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have long known Friendship Park as an unofficial international meeting space. Family members without permission to cross once touched fingertips – to “pinky kiss” – through mesh. But the park isofficially closed on the U.S. side. Local activists are protesting construction of two new replacement fences, and […]

A Prayer Beyond Borders

Several raised hands reach through or toward a tall fence painted with vertical blue and orange stripes. The hands appear to be greeting or connecting across the barrier.

The Border Church / La Iglesia Fronteriza convenes a celebration of binational communion at Friendship Park each Sunday. Beginning in 2018, the Muslim community of San Diego and Tijuana, similarly inspired to stand for justice in the borderlands, joined the Border Church to pray at the most militarized border in the world and to create […]

U.S. arrests religious leaders, activists at border protest

A line of police officers in riot gear blocks a crowd of protesters on a beach. Some protesters have their hands raised, while others hold signs. Media personnel film the scene. The ocean is visible in the background.

Kneeling in front of riot police, 32 religious leaders and activists were arrested at the U.S. border fence in San Diego on Monday during a protest to support the Central American migrant caravan. More than 400 demonstrators, many leaders of churches, mosques, synagogues and indigenous communities, sought a halt to detention and deportation of migrants […]

US arrests 32 at San Diego border demonstration

Two women are being escorted by police officers in tactical gear near a border fence. One woman has long white hair and wears a red jacket, while another wears glasses and a yellow scarf. The background is a sandy outdoor area.

U.S. authorities arrested 32 people at a demonstration Monday that was organized by a Quaker group on the border with Mexico, authorities said. Demonstrators were calling for an end to detaining and deporting immigrants and showing support for migrants in a caravan of Central American asylum seekers. A photographer for The Associated Press saw about […]

Stunning Live Performance at the U.S.-Mexico Border

A woman wearing sunglasses and a plaid shirt plays cymbals in front of a rusted border fence painted with names and colorful artwork under a blue sky.

On Saturday, the percussionist and conductor Steven Schick looked through the wire-mesh fence that separates San Diego, California, from Tijuana, Mexico, and said, “Con la música nunca se puede dividirnos”: “With music, we cannot be divided.” He was addressing a group of Mexican percussion players, who were about to participate in a singular cross-border performance […]

At one border park, separated immigrant families hug across a steel divide

A group of people gathers at a large metal border gate, flanked by uniformed officers and security, while media and photographers document the scene. One person in a purple shirt stands apart from the group, facing forward.

Gabriela Esparza has a standing date on most Saturdays to talk to her mother, on a schedule that never changes. She drives down Interstate 5 and turns off into a sprawling wildlife habitat bounded by the beach and Pacific Ocean and an 18-foot galvanized metal fence that stretches as far as she can see. Read […]