For decades, Lajitas,TX and Paso Lajitas, MX operated as a single community with families spanning both sides of the border, sharing a high school and retail shopping. However in 2002, the US closed the border passage between the two towns, splitting what had been a “neighborhood with a river in the middle of it.” Since 2013, the annual Voices From Both Sides festival, also known as “Fiesta Protesta,” commemorates the closure with a giant river party, with people leisurely—and illegally—crossing between the two banks. It serves both as a “binational family reunion” and as an act of protest against the closure, which has caused economic problems in the community. Not many people knew about this event until Samantha Bee’s show Full Frontal covered it this year, showing America that the interdependent communities along the border are a far cry from the “war zone” portrayed on cable news.
