Fronterizos of the Golden Coast | La Frontera | Season 2

Lost highways, ghosts haunting desert trails, and ancient seeds. The borderlands consist of some of the most wild, untouched places in North America, steeped in legend and tradition, but none more so than the border between Arizona and Sonora.

The piercing beauty of the Sonoran Desert is matched only by the compassion of those who are called to help. This same landscape that makes your heart sing is also a place of suffering for many looking for a better life. Pati Jinich, chef and James Beard Award-winning host, joins the Tucson Samaritans, a group of volunteers, to learn about their mission to help save lives on the border. More than a political story, this is a story about a human need for clean water to drink. Some of their biggest challenges are that there are over 2,000 miles of trails and it is hard to know where the immigrants will cross, and also the several anti-immigrant groups that actively remove the water jugs that they leave for immigrants. Then Pati meets painter Luis Sotero, who always includes these water jogs in his paintings. Luis, a migrant who was detained and given shelter at KINO, learned to paint from Bob Ross and now is so good, his art is being displayed in shows in the US that he himself cannot attend.

But the harsh conditions here are also a place of hope for the future, a lab of sorts for researchers to study what makes food growing here so resilient in ever-climbing global temperatures. As the ancient seeds of the Tohono O’odham Nation grew for thousands of years, so has the mother of all chiles: the chiltepin. Recently growing in popularity amongst local chefs, the chiltepin chile is native to the Arizona-Sonora border. Pati hikes with local researchers who explain why the chiltepin economics are good for local farmers, what the nutritional value and medicinal properties are, and why it’s the crop of the future. Then she has dinner with the group, tasting recipes with chiltepin and learning about other native ingredients in the area. She also visits the San Xavier co-op farm, run by members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, to see how a new generation of farmers are taking back ancient traditions with heritage foods like 60-day corn.

But she starts where she left off at the very edge of Baja California in Los Algodones where perhaps we’ve found the most wild place of all: a town of dentists. What was once just a vacation in Cabo, is increasingly becoming more for Americans traveling to Mexico. Medical tourism has evolved into a 3 billion/year industry. Los Algodones in Baja California is where thousands of Americans go every year for their dental work and other services. It now has more dentists per capita than any other place in Mexico.

Watch More

Mural Art with Mr. B Baby Pati paints a mural in San Diego with artist Michelle Guerrero, a.k.a. Mr. B Baby.
Mexican Pizza with Chef Javier Plascencia Pati makes a Mexican pizza in Tijuana with chef Javier Plascencia.
Wine Tasting in Valle de Guadalupe Pati goes wine tasting at Casa de Piedra winery in Valle de Guadalupe.