The population is an amalgam while official surveys count around 1.6 million residents, the many binationals who travel back and forth daily spike the number closer to 2 million.
They have an easy way about them, their shoulders relaxed, their face muscles smooth.īeing so close to the border, Tijuana is a swirling site of transience and transformation. Behind buckets of Tecate, they sing and sway along with Mexican love ballads from the 1980s. At the bars that line the plaza, under black lights and in the dark, men perform in drag and hold each other tenderly in narrow smoke-filled halls.
In the shadow of Tijuana’s iconic arch, which marks the northern edge of downtown and the southern edge of the red-light district, a technicolored banner announces La Marcha del Orgullo, the Pride March. On Plaza Santa Cecilia in late May, rainbows reign supreme.
