Tijuana People fee to San Diego

Tijuana's elite flee to San Diego County to escape kidnappings and violence in Mexico --

Crime wave leads to an exodus of upper-class residents.

By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 7, 2008

The Plascencia family boasts the brand name for fine dining in Tijuana. Their showcase restaurant -- Villa Saverios -- is a foodie destination, its elegant dining room a gathering spot for the city's political and social elite.

But the family's success has also drawn other attention.

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  Graphic: Suburban refugees
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  Photos: Leaving Tijuana

• LA PLAZA: News and observations on Latin America

Three years ago, gunmen tried to kidnap chef Javier Plascencia's younger brother. A year later they tried again but, in a case of mistaken identity, snatched the wrong man.

Enough close calls, the family decided.

Nearly 40 years after they opened their first Tijuana restaurant, the entire extended family -- 18 people, including Javier Plascencia's wife and four children -- moved across the border to a suburb southeast of San Diego.

Such migrations have become increasingly common in metropolitan areas along the U.S.-Mexico border, as the ongoing violence of a brutal drug war has disrupted lives from Tijuana to Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Texas. The Mexican government has sent more than 3,000 troops into Tijuana in the last 1 1/2 years, and on several occasions soldiers have shot it out with drug cartel gunmen on residential streets.

"San Diego is the only place you can forget the sense of insecurity and fear. There, you can breathe. Psychologically, crossing the border relieves the stress," said Guillermo Alonso Meneses, a professor of cultural studies at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana. READ MORE and please, "pray the news"