Prospecting for gold involves carefully combing a harsh terrain where, from time to time, an opaque nugget appears, encrusted with stones, quartz, or sand. Not All Gold Glitters is an allegorical essay that dusts off stories from northwest Mexico that remain hidden due to their ordinary nature, yet profound and necessary to present a larger context, congruent with the reality of a territory that has been historically misinterpreted and that deserves a better standing.
The dominant image of Baja California, the westernmost region in Mexico, and the land where I grew up, is one of an endless desert of narcos, migrants, and violence. An obliterated territory where, seemingly, the desert has been preserved as it is but its richness has been kept hushed by a privileged and exploitative few. Through my travels and research on these grounds, I have found a laboratory in which it is possible to navigate a vast terrain of themes and observe the subtleties of conflicts in a place where civilization and nature exist in their widest varieties.
These explorations, which follow the pace demanded by the territory, are intended to detonate a question: how might we encourage long-term thinking and grow awareness that the present is already part of the future?
By focusing on the contemporary history of the peninsula, this long-term project challenges the current narratives that portray its apparent barbarism and strengthen the perspective of the alarmist press and the interventionist practices of its northern neighbor. In contrast, this research offers a framework that understands this land as a vital organ of the planet, filled with sublime flora and fauna, dinosaurs, indigenous history, and other worthwhile stories that we can still connect to.
