Dentimundo was created as part of inSite05, an exhibition investigating border culture between Tijuana and San Diego.
View documentation from opening weekend of the inSite exhibition >>

Dentimundo featured on DailySonic: Interview by Adam Varga

The best online resource to learn about Mexican border dentistry practice. Get a directory of dentists on the border, listen and download the hot new corrido - 'Corrido al Dentista' and most importantly gather tips on how to be a savvy medical tourist in Mexico.

DENTIMUNDO seeks to help make your next Mexican vacation fruitful, leasurely and enlightening!

Learn more about Dentimundo

El Progresso, Ojinaga, Juarez, Nogales, Mexicali, Tijuana, are all Mexican towns or cities that sit on the edge of the United States. These are border sites that have established a direct simbiotic relationship with the U.S. economy by providing a variety of services to U.S. citizenry and attracting U.S. dollars. One may easily imagine the multitude of bars, food establishments and the sale of cheap goods that can be found along many borders, but firmly embedded within the entertainment and consumer economy is a hi-tech, knowledge intensive medical service that subsidizes the United State's health care system. Dentist clinics are as prominent as three for a dollar tacos, margarita specials and Mexican panchos.

According to a dentist in Ojinaga (40 miles south of Marfa, Texas), 90 percent of his clients are U.S. citizens. Dr. Ubaldo Eliaz Paez moved from Chihuahua, a metropolitan city in Mexico to establish a clinic in a tiny border town. This clinic prospers due to U.S. mouths and dollars. Tijuana alone houses approximately 3500 dentists and is popularly considered a dentist capital of the world. Dr. Felipe Alvarez Olloqui is from Mexicali, studied in Mexico City to then set up his practice in Tijuana where he and his wife treat patients from as far as Texas, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, 70-80% of his patients are U.S. citizens. Throughout the border there is a parallel flow of migrants seeking prosperty, some economic and life long in the United States, others for dental hygiene in Mexico.

What deficits in the U.S. health system is causing this outflow to Mexico? How do the dentists on each side of the border view one another? Where do U.S. citizens prefer to have their teeth cleaned and why? These are just a few of the questions that come to mind when considering the immense quantity of Mexican dentists along the Mexico/United States border.

Dentimundo.com is a multimedia documentary of this micro-economy between the U.S. and Mexico that investigates border dentistry while also presenting users with a directory of dentist clinics along the border.
Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga