US-Mexico border cities coexist in a symbiotic relationship that benefits people on both sides. Mexicali, Mexico - Walking into this Mexican city from its American neighbour required no passport.
A clanking metal turnstile and luggage scan were the only initial signs of crossing an international border. Returning to the United States, of course, presents a stark contrast with heightened security, immigration and customs enforcement. These twin cities are - as their names suggest - in part amalgamations of each other, joined in a sprawling metropolitan area straddling the state of Baja California in northwest Mexico and Imperial Valley in southeast California.
Both cities, established at the turn of the 20th century, share history like siblings of estranged parents who never went their separate ways. Calexico began as a tent settlement of the Imperial Land Company, incorporated in to cultivate land west of the Colorado River. Initially water could only arrive via Mexicali, a fledgling irrigated colony to the south settled by, among others, cotton-growing Chinese migrants, explained Jason Oliver Chang, assistant professor of history and Asian American studies at the University of Connecticut.
The city still has as many as 10, Chinese residents, Chang noted, and a plethora of Chinese restaurants - locals swear they are the best this side of Shanghai. An agricultural legacy has also endured on both sides.
Labourers stream into Imperial Valley daily to work the land. The Mexican side produces asparagus and broccoli alongside mainstays such as cotton and wheat. Calexico, a mere 16 square kilometres, now serves mainly as a logistics and transportation hub. Visitors might think they are already in Mexico. Signs in Spanish, for abogados lawyers and farmacias pharmacies , predominate.
