Meet the Kumeyaay, the indigenous peoples split by the US-Mexico border wall

“On one hand, we have the state, whose response to any threat that seeks to over­whelm it is to draw bor­ders, reg­u­late, and impose dis­ci­pline; and on the oth­er, there is the nomadic sub­ject, whose behav­iour is root­ed in uproot­ed­ness and mobil­i­ty,” writes the social anthro­pol­o­gist Vale­ria Mata in her book Todo lo que se mueve (Every­thing That Moves). ​“From this per­spec­tive, nomadism would be a polit­i­cal act of resis­tance and an impulse that oppos­es forced territorialisation.”

The Kumeyaay peo­ple once moved freely across the moun­tain­ous and coastal regions of what is now north­ern Baja Cal­i­for­nia (Baja Cal­i­for­nia Norte), in Mex­i­co, and parts of Cal­i­for­nia and Ari­zona, in the Unit­ed States. Long before any inter­na­tion­al bound­ary split these lands – as ear­ly as 2,500 BC – they fol­lowed the rhythms of the sea­sons: gath­er­ing, hunt­ing, and fish­ing across the Pacif­ic coast. But upon arrival, Euro­pean colonis­ers imposed seden­tarism, forc­ing them to aban­don their traditions.

Today, their ances­tral lands are divid­ed by the US-Mex­i­co bor­der wall. Though often asso­ci­at­ed with Don­ald Trump since his calls to build a ​“big, beau­ti­ful wall” between the two nations, bor­der fenc­ing has been expand­ing for decades, with the first bar­ri­ers raised in the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry. By the 1990s, scrap met­al fences exist­ed along sec­tions of the bor­der, before dou­ble-lay­ered steel bar­ri­ers were installed after ⁹⁄₁₁, and lat­er extend­ed under both the Trump and Biden admin­is­tra­tions – reach­ing up to near­ly 10 metres (30 ft) high in some areas. 

For the Kumeyaay, these walls have done more than divide land. ​“After ⁹⁄₁₁, they rein­forced the entry even more,” says Martha Rodríguez, Nation­al Coun­selor of the Kumeyaay in Baja Cal­i­for­nia and founder of Tipey Joa (“Native War­riors”, in Kumeyaay). ​“That pushed fam­i­lies and our cer­e­monies even far­ther apart.”

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It cuts across moun­tains, plains – and even sacred sites like Cuchu­ma Moun­tain, cen­tral to their spir­i­tu­al prac­tices. For the Kumeyaay, this is not just a phys­i­cal bar­ri­er – it is a frac­ture in their rela­tion­ship with the land, and a dis­rup­tion of com­mu­ni­ty ties and rit­u­al life.

“This wall is a lack of respect and a form of racism,” says Rodríguez. ​“Why isn’t there a wall with Cana­da? Why only with Mex­i­co? It’s demean­ing – not only for the peo­ple but also for the envi­ron­ment, for the ani­mals. What need is there to destroy so much, to cut Moth­er Earth?”

The increas­ing­ly rigid bor­der has also deep­ened inequal­i­ties with­in Kumeyaay com­mu­ni­ties. It’s led to vast­ly dif­fer­ent sets of eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tions for those liv­ing in the US and those in Mex­i­co, where gov­ern­ment sup­port is sparse and infra­struc­ture is some­times lacking.

But as the bor­der hard­ens, oppor­tu­ni­ties to sell their crafts and wares to those on the oth­er side of the wall have become more scarce. ​“I sold my first piece when I was five, to Amer­i­cans vis­it­ing the town,” she says. Today, thanks to social media, Oje­da reg­u­lar­ly sells her work to Kumeyaay in the US. ​“They don’t weave any­more. They help us by buy­ing from us.”

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In Mex­i­co, the 2015 cen­sus report­ed approx­i­mate­ly 1,200 Kumeyaay liv­ing in the state of Baja Cal­i­for­nia, in com­mu­ni­ties scat­tered across Tecate, Ense­na­da, Rosar­i­to, and Tijua­na. But offi­cial reports also acknowl­edge a stark real­i­ty: high unem­ploy­ment, lim­it­ed health­care access, and inad­e­quate hous­ing are com­mon. Basic ser­vices – clean water, elec­tric­i­ty, edu­ca­tion – are often unavailable.

“This com­mu­ni­ty was left des­o­late because there’s no work,” says Diana Lizeth Con­tr­eras, pres­i­dent of the San José de Tecate Kumeyaay com­mu­ni­ty, where about 15 fam­i­lies live in homes main­ly built from card­board, wood, and sheet met­al. Although they are sur­round­ed by two roads, pub­lic trans­porta­tion doesn’t stop at their com­mu­ni­ty. ​“If you don’t have a car, you can’t get to your job. Not even to school,” she says. Ride-share apps some­times even fail to recog­nise their loca­tion due to inac­cu­rate maps.

The com­mu­ni­ty is also fight­ing for land that it claims was stolen. Accord­ing to Con­tr­eras and Thel­ma Pamela Pérez – the cur­rent tra­di­tion­al leader – his­tor­i­cal cor­rup­tion among local offi­cials enabled out­siders to claim their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry using fal­si­fied doc­u­ments. ​“They would bribe the local gov­ern­ment, and that was enough to be grant­ed every­thing – even if they had no legal right to it,” alleges Pérez. What once spanned over 200 hectares has now shrunk to just three.

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Pérez is one of only a hand­ful who nev­er left San José de Tecate, liv­ing in the area for years along­side her late moth­er. Now, rel­a­tives like her niece Con­tr­eras are return­ing to rebuild, reclaim, and resist.

About 100 kilo­me­tres (62 miles) south of the bor­der, at the end of a road that turns to dirt and floods dur­ing the rainy sea­son – often mak­ing trav­el near­ly impos­si­ble – lies the com­mu­ni­ty of San José de la Zor­ra. Here, two women – both over 70 – spend their days record­ing the ancient Kumeyaay language.

“We’re already old, if we dis­ap­pear, it will be gone. That’s what I don’t want – to lose the lan­guage,” says Doña Beat­riz Car­ril­lo, seat­ed beneath oak trees after a morn­ing of work. Along­side Rosa María Sil­va, known as Doña Nati, she has col­lab­o­rat­ed for near­ly three years with Car­los Ivan­hoe Gil, a lin­guist from the Autonomous Uni­ver­si­ty of Baja Cal­i­for­nia. Their voic­es, record­ed and tran­scribed, are form­ing the foun­da­tion of a Kumeyaay dictionary.

Accord­ing to gov­ern­ment data, of the rough­ly 1,200 Kumeyaay in Baja Cal­i­for­nia, only 381 report speak­ing the lan­guage. But researchers, includ­ing Gil, sus­pect the num­ber is much low­er – pos­si­bly few­er than 100 flu­ent speakers.

The loss of lan­guage is more than sym­bol­ic. It’s a rup­ture in the inter­gen­er­a­tional trans­mis­sion of knowl­edge and con­nec­tion. ​“We elders speak it more, but the chil­dren don’t. They under­stand, but they don’t speak it – they don’t like it,” says Doña Beat­riz. Doña Nati’s chil­dren under­stand a few words: ​“I try to speak to them, but they for­get quick­ly. I used to speak to my hus­band in Kumeyaay, but he replied in Span­ish, that’s why they nev­er learned.”

Despite these chal­lenges, the Kumeyaay con­tin­ue to fight to pre­serve what coloni­sa­tion, bor­ders, and neglect have tried to erase. Whether through crafts, ances­tral land, or lan­guage, their strug­gle is also about sov­er­eign­ty – and the right to move freely across ter­ri­to­ries that long pre­date the border.

Rodríguez, the Nation­al Coun­selor of the Kumeyaay in Baja Cal­i­for­nia, explains that recog­ni­tion must go beyond tem­po­rary per­mits and state sanc­tioned doc­u­ments. ​“I’d like our peo­ple to have more than just a visa,” she says. ​“Part of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia is our ter­ri­to­ry – and part of North­ern Baja too. The US and Mex­i­co owe us that his­tor­i­cal debt.”

Ali­cia Fàbre­gas is a mul­ti­me­dia jour­nal­ist. Fol­low her on Insta­gram.

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