A bit of history… where does the tradition of a picture next to a donkey-zebra come?

Have you ever wondered, you the reader, where the habit of taking pictures with a sarape on the shoulder, charro hat, on a top of a donkey painted like a zebra?

The image has been a characteristic image of Revolucion Avenue in Tijuana for more than 100 years 

Colors, landscapes, a cart with benches and an old camera are waiting for tourist who wants to take that as authentic memory from “the most visited city of the world”

“Rosa”, Pepe”, “Lupita” the names are spelled on the edges of the sombrero hats, the American, the Japanese, and the Mexican smile moments before receiving the picture.

A habit that turned tradition that comes from a glamorous Tijuana, those times when the casino, the hotel and the resort of Agua Caliente where born, they open for the first time on June 23 in 1928, the whole world turned its gaze to Tijuana and Agua Caliente with a short but eventful history.

By sea, air and land was people begin to arrive to the city of Tijuana, Hollywood artists made continuous visits, millioners, eccentrics, everyone wanted to be in Mexico, especially in Tijuana, Agua Caliente.

The infrastructure of the resort was sustained by the work of hundreds of employees from Tijuana, was in that season that the number of border dwellers multiplied, waiters, musicians, dancers, deck carvers, drivers, accountants, etc.

There was only one man who differed from others by the way he used to do  his work, it was Manuel “El muletero”,when he sees the buses full of tourists and fancy cars passing under  the old Agua Caliente Tower, Manolo learned that there was a gold mine there, it was forbidden take pictures inside of the casino and that forced the tourists to ask Manolo for a souvenir of the casino,sitting outside the hotel or the warehouse with new stuff visitors posed with the Mexican sombrero, while Manolo with a parrot on his shoulder do this graphic work.

There were times when a donkey was covered with a colorful blanket and festive ornaments, where a dancer sat and a show was performed that is called “fiesta Mexicana”, this artistic presentation was sometimes starred by Margarita Cancino, an American dancer who in her teens next to her father she worked at the Agua Caliente casino, she was discovered by a Hollywood producer that years later her career went up and up that make her become the famous Rita Hayworth.

After the suspension of activities of the casino Agua Caliente in the 30’s, the habit of taking a photo next or on top of the little donkeys moved to Revolution Avenue, which has always been one of the main and favorite street people of Tijuana use, it’s there on the Revolution street where the donkeys begin to be painted like zebras with a very weird reason, the explanation  is that the stripes help identify the contrast on the black and white pictures, one of the oldest donkey owners mention that he took the idea after visiting the San Diego Zoo and seeing the” zebras”(like the Americans call them)

However the donkeys- zebras are a very important part of Tijuana that has been for almost a century, no matter if there’s an economic crisis or violence, there’s hundreds of pictures around the world that makes a magical memory of a mythical Tijuana.