Lessons from the Borderlands: Innovation & Good Things Happen at the Edges

“La Frontera” is a new show by James Beard Award winning chef and tv show host Pati Jinich where she covers the very US Mexico Border. It’s a fascinating show about the culture & community of the border and the free flow of ideas there. 

She states: “Borderland communities exist and live and thrive and get challenged in all sorts of ways, under unique circumstances, so there are these creative possibilities for art and music and religion and food that just couldn’t happen in other places.”

This is an amazing description of frontiers and port towns in general, places where there is a mixing and intermixing of different people and cultures that lead to so many new things. 

This is why I think the existence of pluralistic cultures like the USA, Canada, UK, Brazil, Australia/New Zealand are so important. For city states, port towns or places that fit this criteria, I’d include Hawaii, Dubai, Singapore, Panama and Hong Kong (before it was taken over by China) here. Multicultural, tolerant places that allow different cultures to rub against each other. That friction leads to sparks of new thinking, cross pollination. And lots of beautiful people. This is the ultimate in innovation. 

Pati goes on to say “we’re made to feel like if you’re a combination of things, you’re a lesser person, but it actually means that you have more.  You’re richer.”

I couldn't agree more.