Tijuana: An Immigrant Smuggler

From decades ending in the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of people crossed illegally from Mexico into the U.S. through Tijuana every year. One popular crossing was known as Las Canelas - the Cinnamons, for a cinnamon drink an old man sold there every night. In this video I interview Jose Vasquez, one of the hundreds of smugglers who worked in the industry back then and crossed people at Las Canelas, where a vast market formed every afternoon and shut down shortly before dawn catering to the soon departing and selling tacos, shoes, maps, tampons, coats, coffee, and much more.. The border wall in the mid-1990s shut down most of the immigrant-smuggling trade in Tijuana. When I met Mr. Vasquez, he was penniless packing groceries for tips in a local supermarket.

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