Living On the Border

this past november, the American Academy of religion/Society of Biblical Literature (AAr/SBL) annual meeting took place in San diego. in the wake of that event, i want to reflect with readers of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (JFSR) on the political-religious situation of the borderlands.1 the term borderlands not only refers to the liminal areas that mark a divide between nations but has also become a widespread metaphor for doing feminist work. Such symbolic use often overlooks the harsh realities of the former use of the term. tijuana, Mexico, is across the U.S.–Mexico border just a few miles south of San diego, where i live and work. Comparing San diego to tijuana exposes the many hardships people endure along the border due to poverty and marginalization, not to mention desert conditions and often blazing heat. At the same time the AAr was happening, wildfires had surrounded the San diego–tijuana region, leading to the evacuation of over a half-million people, including members of my own family and friends. the firestorms left in their wake vast amounts of property destruction, damaged lands and resources, a toxic breathing environment, hundreds of injured and some dead, and thousands of homeless families. this situation was so alarming that i had wondered if the AAr could even happen in San diego. taking a closer look at the context for this meeting, the San diego–tijuana border has developed into a unique, dynamic, and luring geopolitical location in which, literally, one can touch, sense, and experience the deep inequalities between the dominant first world/north and the subordinate two-thirds world/ South. As a distinctive feature of this border region, migration has fashioned bi-national communities that must learn to recognize and integrate the complex dynamics of sociocultural interactions as a means to bettering our shared living conditions. diverse peoples, cultures, and languages gather together in this