This section of our site hosts various projects, reports, links to recent publications (and see News and Updates), and other materials that may not be publicly accessible elsewhere.
Welcome To Otay Mountain: An Alternative Field Guide
Welcome to Otay Mountain is an Alternative Field Guide to the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area in San Diego County, California near the US-Mexico border. It was created by Jared Margulies after visiting Otay in February 2019 shortly after the Trump administration declared a National Emergency at the border. Welcome to Otay Mountain offers a political ecology reading of the US-Mexico border through the lens of rare and endemic plant species conservation. It asks readers to consider our current political moment in which plants may be afforded more legal protections than asylum seekers attempting to cross the US-Mexico border. Risograph printed on French Paper company Kraftone at Baltimore Print Studios in Baltimore, MD in April 2019, Eurostile font. 5×3.5".
In 2023, a related text which discusses this was published in the journal Geopolitics:
Margulies, J. (2023). Sounding Out Borderscapes: A Sonic Geography of the US–Mexico Border at Otay Mountain, California. Geopolitics, 1-32.
Feel free to contact Jared for a copy of the article. The zine was originally published and made accessible via the website Issuu, but they no longer support free publication and access.
In 2023, a related text which discusses this was published in the journal Geopolitics:
Margulies, J. (2023). Sounding Out Borderscapes: A Sonic Geography of the US–Mexico Border at Otay Mountain, California. Geopolitics, 1-32.
Feel free to contact Jared for a copy of the article. The zine was originally published and made accessible via the website Issuu, but they no longer support free publication and access.