Tijuana’s Tourism Is Booming Even as the Homicide Rate Spikes
December 11, 2018A version of this article originally appeared on VICE en Español.
In Tijuana’s only morgue, 150 bodies fill 150 refrigerators, and on the blackboard where tomorrow’s autopsies are scheduled in tiny lettering, there is no room for another name. For a week now, Melina Moreno—the deputy director of the city's common grave for unclaimed bodies—has been anxiously waiting for authorization from the central morgue in Mexicali to bury all the unidentified bodies, which make up the majority of the corpses the Tijuana facility receives. In the lobby, a handful of family members are waiting to identity their deceased relative. Sometimes there are so many bodies that the facility’s courtyard serves as extra storage for the dead. On those days, the residents of the luxury building next door complain about the putrid smell of death.
Never in the history of Tijuana has there been so much murder: In 2018 alone, over 2,300 people have been killed, an increase from the 1,647 homicides in 2017. The city has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, at 125.7 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the National Public Safety System. But while residents of Tijuana have adapted to the violence that permeates the city, the crowds of tourists who visit—11.5 million in 2017 alone—hardly notice it. In fact, that number is projected to increase by 9 percent by the end of 2018, even with intensified militarization at the border in response to the thousands of migrants awaiting asylum in the US and the possibility of hours-long crossing waits.
“Everyone wants to live the ‘real Tijuana’ experience,” he said, echoing the company’s slogan, Experience Mexico Like a Local. But living the true experience of Tijuana isn’t exactly possible if you’re a tourist: Modern Tijuana and violent Tijuana coexist but rarely intersect. Many of Chinn’s tourists ask him to procure drugs for them or shuttle them to the Hong Kong, but he always refuses, he says, suggesting the company’s slogan has more to do with respect for the city than it does the services it offers.
Chinn is originally from Ohio. When he moved to San Diego in 2006, his friends told him terrible things about Tijuana: They’re going to kidnap you, they’re going to kill you, you’re going to get robbed. But it was hard for him to believe it. Tijuana’s brand was that of a prohibition-era city filled with violence and vice, but he wanted to discover it for himself. The first time he crossed the border into Mexico, he found something entirely different: a cosmopolitan city filled with electric energy and endless things to do. In 2010, when the first wave of drug-related violence ended, he moved to the city. Back then, his friends refused to visit him. But today—even as the homicide rate has more than doubled—the dynamic has reversed.
“It’s ironic that tourists aren’t afraid even though the violence is worse than ever. They aren’t aware of what’s happening,” Chinn said with an easy smile. “Those of us who live here are frustrated and hurting, but it’s like being sick with a chronic illness. We live with it constantly and it always comes back. So, you have to adapt.”
Moments before starting the tour of the day, he disclosed Tijuana’s homicide rate to the group. People seemed mildly shocked, but nobody was scared.
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