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.

BAsado in the documentary Over the Wall / Sobre el muro (El Colef, 2019), this text discusses some social effects from the transformations of the barriers and divisions that have demarcated the border of the states of California, the United States and Baja California, Mexico, until the construction of fences and border walls promoted by the last four US federal administrations. Based on interviews with specialists in migration and borders, residents, and an investigation of archives and documents around the wall and its effects on the Tijuana-San Diego border, this documentary captures periods of change and border reinforcement by States. States, as well as the recent situation with the arrival of new migratory flows such as the caravans of Central American migrants to Tijuana and the challenges for this border.