Alberto Hernandez Hernandez D. in Sociology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Professor-Researcher attached to the Department of Public Administration Studies (deap) of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte and a member of the sni (level iii). He was coordinator of the project Multilevel policies for the return and reintegration of Mexican migrants and their families (2018-2019), carried out by El Colef under the auspices of the National Human Rights Commission (cndh). Among his publications are the books Puentes que unen y muros que separan. Fronterización, securitización y procesos de cambio en las fronteras de México y Brasil (coordinator; in press); Mudar de credo en contextos de movilidad: las interconexiones entre la migración y el cambio religioso, Alberto Hernández, Liliana Rivera Sánchez y Olga Odgers Ortiz (coord.) El Colef/Colmex (2017); Líneas, límites y colindancias. Mirada a las fronteras desde América Latina, Alberto Hernández and Amalia E. Campos (coord.), Colef/ciesas (2014); the authored book Frontera Norte: escenarios de la diversidad religiosa, El Colef/Colmich (2013).

Realidades socioculturales

Sex Work Dynamics in Tijuana: Ethnographic Narrations of the Zona Norte and Coahuila Street

  • Alberto Hernandez Hernandez

This article presents narrations and social dynamics of the red zone or the tolerance zone in Tijuana, Baja California, which has been, for seven decades, one of the most important enclaves for sex work in the Mexico-United States border. Coahuila Street, known locally as “la Coahuila”, located in the Zona Norte, has one of the world’s most dynamic sex markets. This work presents the findings obtained after almost five decades of visiting this peculiar space by the border, and specifically, from a three-year period (2015 to 2018) in which ethnographic visits were carried out gathering narrations by sex workers, employees in establishments, users and visitors, all of whom share experiences surrounding sex work in this area. The aim is to offer a retrospective and current look at the dynamics of sex work in the Zona Norte, the diversity of actors that interact in La Coahuila, as well as narrations and descriptions on this place which is unique for the country’s sex market.