Media Mexican workers Liberal army Victoriano and Doña Guadalupe Wedding Robert and Albert Silvas Domingo and Clara Silvas Ricardo and Enrique Magon Magonista capture Battle of Tijuana

In 1911 an invasion of northern Mexico when partisans of the Partido Liberal Mexico, led by Ricardo Flores Magón, captured Mexicali and went on to take over Tecate and Tijuana. Magón's forces were mostly of Anglo-American radicals, Wobbilies, Socialists and anarchists, who supported the ideas of the PLM enough to risk their lives in the opening battles of the Mexican Revolution. Although there were some Mexicanos who were in the invading army in Baja California, the whole group were branded as being "filabusteros" of the same stripe as William Walker, despite the fact that their leader, Magón, was well known in Mexico as a revolutionary who was opposed to the dictator Porfirio Díaz.

Although only about 100 people lived in Tijuana at the time, and a good portion of them were American merchants, the PLM invasion was traumatic for the border residents. In the battle for control of the small settlement the Mexican army lost 32 dead and 24 wounded. In the meantime the entire civilian population fled across the line to take up temporary residence in the Little Lander's Colony (today San Ysidro).

Joe Montijo was a boy living in Old Town San Diego when the battle took place. He remembered his father taking him to Tijuana after the battle where he was told to select a warm jacket from among the dead. He wore his jacket with bullet holes to school the next day. Meanwhile the children and adults living in tents in San Ysidro wondered when they would be able to go home. The insurrectos control of the town was short lived, just long enough for them to allow San Diegans to loot the stores and for the rebels to collect border crossing fees from curious tourists. During this occupation Dick Ferris, a local promoter hired by the city of San Diego, sought to publicize the upcoming California-Panama Exposition (to be held in Balboa Park) by sending the president of Mexico a letter declaring Ferris the ruler of an independent Baja California. Meanwhile Mexicans complained that Ricardo Flores Magón had allowed himself to be allied with Americans who "call us greasers, "cholos," dirty Mexicans, etc. . . ." Finally in late June 1911 the Mexican troops recaptured the town. The ultimate casualties were Magón's revolutionary credentials and American good will along the border.