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Vincent Blocker

Vincent Blocker is a civic writer and organizational consultant. International travel, careers, migration, education, marriages, and military and humanitarian missions. Movements without precedent have raised armies of “exotic eccentrics” like me across the world. Childhood and youth in several U.S. states, 16 years in , a Nordic spouse and a dual-national son married to a Turk. All four of us are or have been immigrants. A quarter century in philanthropy and institutional development. The landmarks of my present life are Our Lady of Guadalupe (Jesuit) Church in Barrio Logan, and San Diego and Tijuana civic life. Saint Ignatius’s “Ite, inflammate omnia” sings to my soul.

President Jimmy Carter sits in front of the fireplace in the White House Library to deliver his fireside chat to the nation in February 1977.

Opinion: I worked alongside Jimmy Carter. Here’s what I learned from him.

December 30, 2024 at 6:00 p.m.

Between 1993 and 1998, the Carter Center, led by Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, granted me one of the most formative experiences of my career. I worked at the Carter Center...

The writer’s grandfather, who died in December 1969, is the little boy sitting in front. VINCENT BLOCKER

Opinion: My Christmas memories are not always joyful. Especially this one.

December 25, 2024 at 11:37 a.m.

Not quite a comedy, not quite a tragedy. For me, Christmas, 1969, had the ironic tone of a Chekhov play, with a little Joan Rivers mixed in. My grandfather Earle...

Tijuana, Baja California - October 13: The United States will reopen its land borders with Mexico and Canada to fully vaccinated travelers starting in early November. Traffic at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021 in Tijuana, Baja California. (Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The San Diego-Tijuana border sees more than 200,000 crossings daily. We must make it faster.

August 17, 2023 at 6:53 p.m.

Blocker has been engaged with border issues since 2014 and visits Tijuana regularly for culture, entertainment and professional activities. He lives in San Diego.Editor's note: A previous headline for this...

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A Tijuana-San Diego binational roundtable could shape the future of our region

June 21, 2022 at 11:00 p.m.

Blocker is a civic writer and organizational consultant. He lives in La Jolla.A permanent, well-funded, professionally staffed and energetically led “Tijuana-San Diego Binational Roundtable,” based on the influential U.S. Business Roundtable...

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I found love in decades-long friendships. Here’s what it’s meant to me.

February 14, 2022 at 8:58 p.m.

Blocker is a civic writer and organizational consultant. He lives in La Jolla.Love is all. Winged Eros, also known as Cupid, now trivialized as a flying baby, was one of...

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The Christmas story is about brightening the light

December 9, 2021 at 1:14 a.m.

Blocker is a parishioner at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Logan Heights. He lives in La Jolla.Not having family connections in , I typically skipped the Christmas and...

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My first trip outside San Diego in two years taught, bewitched and entertained me

August 21, 2021 at 2:24 a.m.

Blocker is an adviser to the San Diego-Tijuana Smart Border Coalition and lives in La Jolla.As Thelma and Louise learned, travel can reveal and reshape. It can take you out of...

The young men in the picture are the author's father (right) and his brother in Indiana during World War II. The brother was in the Battle of the Bulge. The flag is the one mentioned in my piece on Rosecrans cemetery.<br/><br/>

Our national symbol is non-ideological when compared to other countries’ flags

August 11, 2021 at 7:34 p.m.

Blocker is an adviser to the San Diego-Tijuana Smart Border Coalition, and lives in La Jolla.The United States flag has both flown over our cruel slavery system and embodied victory...

Dr. Anita Figueredo on Sept. 5, 1997, standing in front of a portrait of Mother Teresa that was painted by her husband, pediatrician William Doyle. Dr. Figueredo is one of three mothers honored in this piece.

This saga of three mothers stretching over a century should inspire San Diegans

May 8, 2021 at 7:07 p.m.

Blocker is strategy and communication adviser for the San Diego-Tijuana Smart Border Coalition. He lives in La Jolla.“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small...

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2020 doesn’t rival the Great Depression or World War II, but it was its own horror show

December 31, 2020 at 7:33 p.m.

In 2020, my mind has queasily returned over and over to comparisons with other U.S. major mass calamities in my lifetime and the lifetimes of people I know. With some,...

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Jesuit parish lifted by amazing generosity

November 25, 2020 at 1:13 a.m.

Many of us have survived, prospered and kept moving forward only thanks to family and circles of friends and allies.At 29, while living in solitude in a foreign city,...

Aerial view of Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and Point Loma and Coronado Islands.

I visit Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery to reflect on life, death, respect and redemption

October 27, 2020 at 8:52 p.m.

Looking for peace and a safe place to be outdoors, I’ve made several visits since March to walk in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. I’ve been surprised to see so few...

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The border is a strange artifact that s and separates San Diego and Tijuana

July 9, 2020 at 2:27 a.m.

In my first Community Voices article, I promised to make the case here for all to look at San Diego and Tijuana in a close, fresh, educated and inquisitive way....

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How to discover San Diego the same way you can discover Paris

June 2, 2020 at 3:04 p.m.

It was an honor and a surprise to be described as an “opinion leader” in The San Diego Union-Tribune’s invitation to write as a community voice. True or not (surely...