First Binational Press Is Set to Roll : San Diego State, Baja University to Focus on Border Issues

San Diego State University and the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California will formalize an agreement today at the Mexicali school to establish the region’s first binational press.

SDSU President Thomas Day and UABC Rector Hector Gallego Garcia will sign an accord for the bicultural publishing enterprise, which hopes to publish its first book this summer.

The agreement “is one that we already had in place with SDSU and UABC,” Day said. “It essentially carries it on. It makes it a little more specific that we’re sharing the printing expenses and putting together an agreement for a year. Beyond that, it’s building on a convenio that we’ve had with UABC for a couple of years now.”

Unique Collaboration

This unique collaboration sprouted from the mutual interests of Harry Polkinhorn, an English professor at SDSU’s Imperial Valley campus, and Gabriel Trujillo Munoz, a professor at UABC. Their interest in the border and the mutual problems on both sides brought the two professors together to create the literary forum that will publish works by emerging and established Mexican and American writers who deal with the border experience.

“The binational press will start with subjects that interested us the most, which is the literature part,” Trujillo Munoz said through his translator, Maricarmen Camacho, in a telephone conversation from the Mexicali university. “But after that, it’s going to have broader subjects that are related to the border. It’s not going to be all literature, but it’s going to be related one way or another to the border.”

Different Operation

What will make this press different from other journalistic activities in the region is the split-down-the-middle attitude that will affect every aspect of the books’ publication. Not only will the first volume feature work from three American writers and three Mexican writers, but each essay also will be translated into both languages.

“Production of the volumes is shared,” Polkinhorn said. “They have a full-blown press in Mexicali. We don’t have that in Calexico. We contribute with our strengths, and they contribute with theirs.”

Polkinhorn and Trujillo Munoz began the editorial process informally two months ago, receiving literary contributions from writers on both sides of the border.

“Rosaura Sanchez from the literature department at UC San Diego is writing an essay on Chicano author Gina Valdes,” Polkinhorn said. “Francisco Loneli will write on Chicano literature from the perspective of New Mexico.”

South of the border, Trujillo Munoz has written a piece based on the reflections of people traveling through the border. Sergio Gomez Montero of Mexicali will write about border literature from a historical point of view.

The first paperback volume of the binational press, which is as yet untitled and without a cover design, is scheduled for publication in August and will sell for a nominal fee to help defray publishing costs. Polkinhorn hopes to publish a couple of volumes a year.

Profit Isn’t Goal

“We’re not out to make a profit, but to further the press,” he said.

Funding, however, has been one of the problems of the project. Before David Ballesteros, dean of SDSU’s Imperial Valley campus, donated $1,000 to the press, Polkinhorn and Trujillo Munoz got plenty of support for the concept of the press, but no significant money.

“Getting support was unsuccessful,” Polkinhorn said. “We tried to approach the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council, but they won’t support new projects. But there was strong philosophical support for the idea. They may give us a grant later.”

Despite the financial pinch, both men agree the project has been good for themselves as well as for the two universities.

“It’s been very good because we have the same interests in the border,” Trujillo Munoz said. “We are both very interested in the border and the problems because we live here and we keep that direct contact with both cultures. The interaction is constant between both cultures.

“It’s a common enthusiasm. Working on this project has given us a better knowledge of the border, of our own reality.”