Mexicali

In 1920, Mexicali's Chinese residents outnumbered Mexicans 10,000 to 700. When the United States passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, immigrants redirected to this border settlement where Mexico granted them rights equivalent to citizens. By 1919, Chinese farmers occupied 75,000 acres and produced 80% of the Mexicali Valley's cotton. To survive summer temperatures exceeding 48°C, they built La Chinesca—an underground city of tunnels containing hospitals, dormitories, Buddhist temples, casinos, and opium dens. Wikipedia describes modern Mexicali as a maquiladora manufacturing hub of 1 million people; what it undersells is that the city's infrastructure was largely built by a community the US refused to accept. Today La Chinesca survives as Mexico's oldest and largest Chinatown, with more Chinese restaurants per capita—over 1,000—than any other Mexican city. The maquiladora economy that followed echoes the original pattern: aerospace giants like Gulfstream (assembling 70% of their jets here), Collins Aerospace (since 1969), and Honeywell operate precisely because this border zone specializes in processing what wealthier neighbors prefer to outsource. Mexicali is ecological succession made visible: Chinese pioneers created the agricultural and commercial foundation, then 1930s deportations expelled 70% of that community, and post-NAFTA manufacturing filled the space with new industries. The twin city of Calexico, California—the names are mirror-image portmanteaus—illustrates how the border creates complementary niches: American consumers, Mexican labor, and historically Chinese capital, each flowing to where regulations and prices favor them.