Exhibit #2.
Some of the Internet peanut gallery agreed and the painters were roundly condemned. “I totally understand (the local response),” said Warren. “The wave and the land around it are sacred.”
One source, who did not wish to be quoted on record maintained that it was all being blown out of proportion. To understand the fears and response of Aguillar Villa and other San Juanicans, it’s necesary to take yourself out of the surf/vagabond mindset and look through the eyes of the residents of towns the world over who depend upon a mercurial stream of tourist dollars to help alleviate difficult economic situations. The difference between an international reputation as a charming surf town and a degenerate surf ghetto translates directly into income and opportunities for the next generation of San Juanicans. In this sense, a piece of graffiti takes on a meaning much deeper than simple advertising or artistic expression. Regardless of its intent, it appears in the eyes of the community as a blight that threatens their very prospects of self-realization. Also, in the case of many Latin Americans, such behavior is a conspicuous sign of first world dominance. “the rocks are part of nature and part of our town — graffitying them is completely illogical. This is our community and our land, and (we responded because) it’s our responsibility to take care of it.” Says Aguillar Villa. “I’d like to know what people would say if I went to your town and defaced rocks, or something else that didn’t belong to me and was protected. I expect that people would be unhappy with me regardless of how much I insisted that it was art.”
That’s assuming he could get into the country at all, being a Mexican. Without input from Lomax and Lightner, it’s impossible to say what their thoughts and motivations were but here’s a dash of speculation. In a 2010 interview in Liquid Salt magazine, Lightner calls Baja “Desolate, beautiful, uncrowded perfection. Baja will forever be my haven of escape and the place on earth that I can always run to and find myself.” His view of the area, shared by many Californians, is that Baja is essentially a Terra Nullius, a great frontier belonging to no one. This concept has existed with regards to distant or sparsely populated lands since the ancient Romans and formed the undercurrent for much of European expansion across the globe during the enlightenment. Some interpretations of it were also used to rationalize the displacement of native peoples like Native Americans, and Aboriginal Australians to name a few.
Surfers, in general, due not travel with the same exploitative intents of their European forefather’s but it is one of our the bad habits to think and write about the places we go in search of waves as Terra Nullius. Morocco, Indonesia, and perhaps most famously, the Mentawais still exist in surfers’ eyes as our own personal playgrounds. The paradigm is simply false. Baja has never been a place where the actions of surfers, good, bad, or otherwise, went unheeded. People have been living in fishing villages on the desert peninsula for at least 11,000 years. The main change that has taken place recently with regards to their relationship with foreigners is that they can now email the United States if they feel aggrieved. Though their Internet connections are still touch and go.
The agency of local people is roundly ignored, not just in the surf world, but in a lot of travel writing because it destroys the myth of the intrepid explorer. That people should be living in the place you are “exploring” and then wish to influence, control, or even make money from you converts your voyage of exploration and self discovery into a rather quotidian, commodified excursion, much life surfing at your local break, but in a different language.
The central conflict here is not over respecting locals or scribbling on a few rocks. The central conflict is the American yearning to maintain a metaphysical frontier in a society of ever shrinking possibilities and the Mexican yearning to not be fucking broke. Frontier is a upperly-mobile, privileged dream; nutrition, education, sustainable local industries: these are the dreams of those with lesser means. A few rock drawings by itinerant surfers do not actually threaten these dreams, but they demonstrate a clash of cultures and priorities that will deepen as surfing changes from the global-trotting past-time of privileged first worlders, to a truly global past time.
