Enrique Aguilar Canchola was 42 years old when he decided that the best way to cross the border was to stop looking like a person.
In the summer of 2001, at the San Ysidro border crossing in California, customs agents were inspecting an ordinary car. Until they noticed something strange in the back seat: a texture that didn’t add up, a lump that was breathing. There was Enrique, covered and positioned to pass for upholstery, motionless and waiting for no one to look twice.
It didn’t work. But the photo from that moment became so strange that it is still circulating more than two decades later, as one of the most creative —and least successful— attempts to cross a border without being seen. 🙈
