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'Mexicali' is the capital of the State of Baja California, Mexico as well as the seat of the municipality of Mexicali. Situated along the state's northern border with the U.S. state of California, Mexicali is the northernmost city in Latin America, located at .
The city itself had a 2005 census population of 653,046, whereas the municipality's population was 895,962.It is the 13th largest municipality in México as of the Census 2005 with population estimates exceeded one million alone.
Some demographers claim Mexicali is the fastest growing major city in the western hemisphere. The population is constantly growing due to the number of Maquiladoras in the area and migrational aspects, like seasonal labor and the constant in-and-out flow of immigrants to the U.S. or into Mexico.
Founded on March 14 1903, Mexicali is adjacent to the city of Calexico, California, which lies directly across the US border. The link is emphasized by the way each city's name combines the words "California" and "México."
Mexicali is bordered to the north with the United States (Imperial County, California), to the east with the states of Arizona (US) and Sonora (México), to the west with the municipality of Tecate, and to the south with the municipality of Ensenada. Mexicali has grown to be an important city in México.
The residents of Mexicali (''Mexicalenses'') call themselves "Cachanillas" and are from culturally diverse backgrounds, and it is among the most racially diverse cities in Mexico, with people from various European, Middle Eastern and African origins. The majority of them are descendants of foreign railroad workers and migrant farm laborers in the 20th century.
For example, many of the residents of Mexicali are of Asian descent (i.e. Filipinos, South Asians and Japanese), especially Chinese. In fact, Mexicali is home to the largest number of overseas Chinese in Mexico. Consequently, Mexicali has a large Chinatown, called ''La Chinesca''.
The city is noted for having one of the finest Chinese food cuisines on the entire North American continent, rivaling cities such as San Francisco, California and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. These Restaurants can be found all over the city, not just in Chinatown, but also in the main boulevards, such as Justo Sierra/Benito Juarez, Lopez Mateos and Lázaro Cárdenas Blvds.
One can also explore the Chinese Pagoda in Plaza de la Amistad, along the border crossing, as well as the modern Civic Center, which is the administrative heart of the municipality. In recent years, Asian immigrants who originally wanted to live in the U.S. side made a preference for Mexicali
as an ideal place to settle down.
Although not as popular among tourists as Tijuana, located a couple hours to the west, Mexicali has many sites where people from all over the country visit, as well as visitors from United States and Canada, such as the bullfighting arena, Plaza Calafia, where many bullfights ("corridas") are organized along the year. Mexicali has also a professional 18 hole Golf Course "Club Campestre" where both national and international championships take place regularly.
Still Mexicali, the city, is mainly a business place, with big manufacturing and agricultural industries, and a busy rail line into California. The strong cultural ties with the United States is well visible, as Mexicali got its urban planning from the US other than traditional Mexican architecture and a high proportion of ''Mexicaliense'' are fluent in the English language.
The US-Mexicans majority of Imperial County, California make regular travels to the border town, sometimes to visit family and friends, and US citizens in general, and others of virtually all nationalities (esp. Central and South Americans) go to Mexicali to conduct business errands.
Mexicali is a border town, but US visitors are often surprised they are reminded of a Mexican city in terms of architecture and cultural outlook, just as much its' neighbor Calexico has a strong Mexican culture and shares the socioeconomic issues of most third world countries.
The citizens could say that one of main characteristics of this place, perhaps the most prominent, is its weather. Since the city was founded in the middle of the desert, mainly to avoid the dangers of the Colorado river spills, the area has very extreme weather, reaching very low temperatures in winter and extremely high temperatures in the summer.
Visitors to Mexicali could witness the thermometer easily reaching levels of 40 degrees Celsius (104 on the Fahrenheit scale) in the shade, and even hitting 50°C (122°F) on the hottest days. However, the citizens are used to this, and some people take a very special pride in enduring such weather conditions.
The Mexicali International Airport handles the air traffic of the region around the municipality of Mexicali.

Contents

History

The building of an agricultural empire

Economy

Silicon Border

Natural resources

Tourism

Culture

Sports

Shopping

Weather

Notable residents

Sister cities

External links

Schools

Other

References

History

In pre-Columbian times, the Río Colorado (Colorado River) delta was inhabited by a centuries-long succession of Yumano tribes. When the Spanish first stumbled upon the delta after traversing, with great difficulty, the Sonoran Desert's Camino del Diablo ("Devil's Road"), a sophisticated Río Colorado culture was cultivating squash, melons, peas, and five colors of corn: yellow, blue, white, red, and blue-white. The Native Americans also possessed an impressive knowledge of medicinal herbs and employed desert plants like mesquite and agave in a wide variety of uses. Like their neighbors the Kiliwas, the Cucapás' numbers were greatly reduced by Spanish evangelization in northwest México.
Among the major Yumano groups in the region were the Cucapás, who navigated the difficult Río Colorado on reed rafts. Today Cucapá descendants inhabit a small government-protected corner of the delta near the junction of the Hardy and Colorado rivers. For the most part, the Indians work on agricultural ejidos or fish the rivers, although many have migrated to Mexicali. Few indigenous customs survived both the Spanish and Mexican eras; both the Kiliwas and the Cucapás continued to practice cremation rituals, for example, until they were banned by the Mexican government early this century.
Now Mexicali is progressing more than ever and is one of the fastest growing cities in the Mexican nation, especially an event to dedicate the population mark at one million on the city's 104th birthday (March 14, 2007).

The building of an agricultural empire

After the Jesuits left, the Spanish and later the Mexicans had little to do with the northeastern corner of the Baja California peninsula, perceiving it as an untamable, flood-prone desert delta. Around the time of the U.S. Civil War, a Yale geologist, while surveying a route for the Southern Pacific Railroad, wandered into the delta and discovered what the dwindling population of Yumanos had known for centuries: the 2.5 km thick sediment was prime farming soil. The sediments extended far to the west of the river itself, accumulating in a shallow basin below the Sierra de Cucapá. All it needed was the addition of water to become an agricultural miracle.
In 1900 the U.S.-based California Land Company received permission from the Porfirio Díaz government to cut a canal through the delta's Arroyo Alamo, thus linking the dry basin with the Colorado River. To attract farmers to the area, the developers named the basin the Imperial Valley. In March 1903, the first 500 farmers arrived; by late 1904, 100,000 acres (405 km²) of valley were irrigated, with 10,000 people settled on the land and harvesting cotton, fruits, and vegetables. A collection of huts and ramadas that straddled the border was named Calexico on the U.S. side, Mexicali on the Mexican side.
Seeing that the equally fertile Valle de Mexicali lay undeveloped, another U.S. land syndicate, the Colorado River Land Company, moved in. Led by Harry Chandler, then publisher of the ''Los Angeles Times,'' the syndicate controlled some 800,000 acres (3200 km²) of northern Baja and in 1905 began constructing a Valle de Mexicali irrigation system. Instead of using Mexican labor, as the Imperial Valley developers had, Chandler imported thousands of Chinese ''coolies'' or ditch diggers.
After a major 1905 rainfall, the channel dug from Arroyo Alamo (or Rio Hardy) ended up diverting the entire outflow of the Colorado River into the Imperial Valley, taking Mexicali with it — unknowingly, the syndicate had tapped into one of the river's original routes. The Salton Sink, a dried-up remainder of the Sea of Cortez, became the Salton Sea virtually overnight. By 1907, a hundred new ponds formed where the river briefly flowed and gave more irrigation abilities for the Imperial valley on both sides of the US-Mexican border.
Neither the U.S. nor Mexico wanted to take responsibility for the growing New River created by Chandler's mistake. As both valleys became increasingly inundated, the Southern Pacific Railroad stepped in and, to protect its tracks, dumped a sufficient amount of rock into the river to head the Colorado back into the Cortez, leaving a canal to the Valle de Mexicali. From then on, both valleys became highly productive agricultural centers.
Mexicali was born on 14 March 1903 with Manuel Vizcarra as the town's first authority and assistant judge (''juez auxiliar''). Mexicali is now the capital city of Baja California, the 29th state of Mexico. Shortly after the first irrigation canals were built, most of the land was bought by the Colorado River Land Company from the USA The company developed commercial crops and became almost a monopoly until it was decided to sell its land to Mexican farmers in 1936 and 1937. Previously, they gave land to European, East Indian, Arabian and Japanese farm hands instead of local Mexicans.
The Imperial Valley (in Mexico, ''El Valle del Mexicali'' or Mexicali Valley) is the agricultural heart of the state, with more than 2,000 square kilometres of irrigated land. This valley is responsible for some of the biggest crops in Mexico, including wheat and cotton. With an ensured supply of water, coming under the ground from a canal in the United States, Mexicali has become an important exporter of asparagus, broccoli, carrots, green onions, lettuce, peas, peppers, radishes and tomatoes for the whole world.
Cotton became the most important crop of the Valley and it helped to develop the dressing and textile industries. In the early 1950s, the Mexicali Valley became the biggest cotton producing zone in the whole country. Production increased even more in the mid-1960s, reaching more than half a million parcels harvested in just one year.

Economy

In its beginnings Mexicali was an important center for cotton production for export until synthetic fabrics reduced the worldwide demand for the fiber.
Currently horticulture is the most successful agricultural activity with scallion, green onion and asparagus being among the most important crops. Cotton and wheat are still cultivated but with government price guarantees and subsidies making wheat farmer protests an annual event. There is an annual agribusiness fair in March drawing interested people from all over Mexico and the United States called Agrobaja.
The current prospects for economic growth in Mexicali rely on in-bond and assembly plants, mainly for export, including companies like Sony, Daewoo, Mitsubishi, Honeywell, Paccar, Vitro, Skyworks Solutions, Cardinal Health, Bosch, Price Pfister and Kwikset. Mexicali is also home to many food processing plants such as Nestle, Jumex and Sabritas.
There are joint efforts on behalf of the Baja California government and the private sector to attract more companies to Mexicali based on a cluster strategy focusing on the regions' strengths of qualified labor, abundant energy and water supplies, a pro-business environment and its location on the California border.
Mexicali is considered among the most prosperous cities in Mexico, although US tourists can observe the level of poverty in rural villages surrounding the modern, upper-middle class enclave of Mexicali proper. The North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 that eliminated most trade restrictions between the two nations offers Mexicali an economic boom in the next decade.

Silicon Border

Silicon Border is a high-tech manufacturing park currently under construction near the border with California. The aim of the manufacturing park is to capitalize on Mexicali's proximity to Silicon Valley to lure some of the lucrative semiconductor manufacturing market to Mexico. The Mexican Federal and Baja California governments have committed over $2 million to the project. Additionally, former President Vicente Fox offered 10 years of tax-free status to any firms that locate in the park and invest $1 billion or more. The cost of a single semiconductor manufacturing plant can top $1.5 billion. [1]
California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has repeatedly promoted cooperation with the project in his radio addresses. [2]
The proximity of two new power plants is a major aide to this project, as manufacturing semiconductors requires a high-quality electricity supply. As the project grows, it is slated to receive a dedicated power plant. Further infrastructure improvements associated with Silicon Border include a new highway (under construction) and an additional border crossing. [3]

Natural resources

In spite of its arid desert location, Mexicali is a municipality privileged with a large quantity of natural resources, notably the existence of large aquifers in his vale, consequence of the filtration of the waters of the River Colorado and his tributaries. Also to the skirts of the Volcano Blackish Hill one of the plants finds the biggest Geotérmicas of Latin America, from which large quantities of natural gas and electrical energy are extracted.

Tourism

Mexicali also relies on tourism as a medium revenue, and visitors cross by foot or car from Calexico in the United States every day. Restaurants and taco stands, pharmacies, bars and dance clubs are part of the draw for the city's tourists. Many shops and stalls selling Mexican crafts and souvenirs are also located in walking distance from the border.
Mexico's drinking age of 18 (vs. 21 in the United States) makes it a common weekend destination for many high school and college aged Southern Californians who tend to stay within the Avenida Justo Sierra and Francisco L. Montejano. Some locals call the section "La Colonia Estadounidense" for the US citizens who live there, not just to purchase alcohol at a young age, but to retire at an old age.
Mexicali is also home to several pharmacies marketed toward visitors from the United States. These pharmacies sell some pharmaceutical drugs without prescriptions and at much lower costs than pharmacies in the US. Many medications still require a Mexican doctor's prescription, although several accessible doctor offices are located near the border as well.
In addition, Mexicali has a legal "red-light" district, known as the El centro or Tango, which also adds significant revenue to its economy. Mexicali is also home to many businesses selling products and services at a much cheaper rate than in the United States. Such businesses as auto detailing, medical services, dentistry and plastic surgery are heavily marketed and located near the city's border a few blocks from the US.

Culture

In 2004, there were 7 theaters ^[1] in the city:
#Teatro del Estado.
#Teatro al Aire Libre del Centro Comunitario Estudiantil.
#Teatro de Casa de Cultura de Mexicali. Idem.
#Teatro del CREA
#Teatro Universitario de Mexicali, it is mainly used for UABC ceremonies and occasionally for plays.
#Teatro al Aire Libre de Rectoría
#Teatro del Seguro Social that was inaugurated in the 70's.
#Teatro al aire libre del Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior CETYS unveiled on September 2006.
#Teatro del Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior CETYS.
#IMAX Teatro in The Sol del Niño Museum
Mexicali also has the Baja Prog festival, a series of progressive rock concerts that take place during four consecutive days in springtime. It is hosted by CAST, a progressive rock band from Mexicali.

Sports

The City of Mexicali's basketball team is Liga Nacional de Baloncesto Profesional (LNBP) of Mexico, the so-called Soles de Mexicali. Their stadium is the "Auditorio del Estado" located in the "Ciudad Deportiva de Mexicali", a place which also houses a Football stadium where the Cachanillas de Mexicali, a third division football team, play. In addition, "Ciudad Deportiva" harbors the "CasasGeo" stadium where the professional baseball team "Águilas de Mexicali" plays every season.
Mexicali is also home to a 2006 American Basketball Association franchise, the Centinelas de Mexicali (The Sentinels). The team plays in the newly-build convention center, while local businessmen negotiate a deal for a American Football team with the af2 under ownership of the Arena Football League in 2008.

Shopping

Mexicali possesses a diversity of shopping malls, the most visited being Plaza La Cachanilla, located just a few minutes away from the US border. The mall hosts a variety of shops, which sell a wide array of things, ranging from cheap Mexican curiosities to expensive imports. The Plaza La cachanilla also represents a common place for people to socialize. Especially in summer when the weather is hot, a lot of families come and spend all the day inside the mall.
Just about everything one could find in the US can be found in Mexicali, including pool halls, bowling alleys, traditional cantinas, car clubs, movie theaters, museums, a zoo, a state college, a convention center, supermarkets, and fast food restaurants.

Weather

Mexicali is well known for its extreme weather. In order to avoid floods from the Colorado River, the city was built in the middle of the desert. The highest temperature recorded in Mexicali was 52°C (about 125°F) in July 1995. Average July highs hover around 42°C (107°F). On the other hand, winter normals are quite low, with average January lows of 5°C (41°F) and a record low of -8°C (18°F) recorded in January 1949^[2]. The city was covered in snow only once, on December 1932. Being used to this weather is a source of pride for some Mexicali residents.

Notable residents

★ Celso Aguirre Bernal, historian

★ Elizabeth Algrávez, poet

★ Salvador Vizcarra Schumm, writer

★ Eduardo Auyón, painter

★ Norma Enriqueta "Queta" Basilio de Sotelo, famous Mexican track and field short-distance runner (100 meter hurdling sprinter). She was the final torch bearer during the Opening Ceremony of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, and became the first woman in history to light the Olympic cauldron. [5]

★ Sergio Fong, Businessman

★ Juan R. Peña, Businessman

★ Milton Castellanos Everardo, governor of Baja California 1971-1977, born in Chiapas

★ David Cortés, MLB player for the Colorado Rockies

★ Eugenio Elorduy Walther, current governor of Baja California, businessman; born in Calexico, California

★ Lupita Jones, Señorita Mexico (Miss Mexico) 1990, Miss Universe 1991

★ Gus Vildosola, Professional Baja Racer in Trophy Truck Class, Multiple Score Desert Series Champion

★ Irak Nava, Great artist in Graphic Arts.

★ Adolfo Wilhelmy, first playwritter in Baja California, writer and cultural promoter

★ Juana Rios Aizú, Poet and writter, very popular in Baja California for its sonnets and tales for children.

★ José Alfredo Morón, Famous Road racing star, was a multiple runner of the year for Baja. Top runner in the mid 80's for baja, in distances ranging from 1500 to 10,000 meters and marathon. Has recorded a best 10K time of 28:46 at the prestigious Mt.Sac Relays in 1984. Is still remembered by some of the best road running coaches in Mexicali.

★ Arturo Fuentes, Animator

Sister cities

★ Calexico, California, U.S.

★ El Centro, California, U.S.

★ San Bernardino, California, U.S.

★ Indio, California, U.S.

★ Yuma, Arizona, U.S.

★ Gumi, South Korea

★ Nanjing, People's Republic of China

External links

Schools

★ Instituto Tecnológico de Mexicali

★ Universidad Autónoma de Baja California

★ CETYS Universidad

★ UNIVER Mexicali

★ Universidad Xochicalco Campus Mexicali

★ Universidad del Valle de México Campus Mexicali

★ Tecnológico de Baja California

★ Benemérita Escuela Normal Urbana Federal Fronteriza

★ Instituto Salvatierra

★ CECyTE

★ CUT

Other

★ Manuel Vizcarra, Mexican judge, founded the city of Mexicali, Baja California on March 14, 1903

★ Rudolph Valentino, Italian silent era motion picture Hollywood actor, married Natacha Rambova in Mexicali, Mexico on May 13, 1922, his second marriage

★ Barbara Stanwyck, US film and television actress, lead role in "Mexicali Rose" film during 1929

★ Gene Autry, US performer, "Mexicali Rose" one of his popular songs

★ Dolores del Rio, Mexican film actress, one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, a sex siren, but struggled against the "Mexicali Rose" image

★ Mexicali Shmoes, 1959 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Friz Freleng, produced by John W. Barton of Warner Bros., has Jose and Manuel chasing Speedy Gonzales, and introduces Slowpoke Rodriguez, Speedy's cousin.

★ The Coasters, US doo wop and early rock and roll group, evolving from The Robins, song "Down in Mexico (in a little town called Mexicali)" in The Very Best of the Coasters

★ Grateful Dead, US psychedelia-influenced rock band, song "Mexicali Blues" in Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead

★ Mexicali Musk, men's fragance by Coty, cologne spray and after shave splash, with plastic worm at the bottom of the bottle

★ Mexicali Brass, US popular music group, with hits like "Mexicali Jumping Bean", "Calexico Cocktail", " and "Spanish Flea"

★ Aztec Brewing Company started in Mexicali before moving to San Diego, California.

References

★ Link to tables of population data from Census of 2005 INEGI: Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática
1. http://sic.conaculta.gob.mx/infraestructura/teatros/todo.php3?J=10
2. MSN Weather Mexicali http://weather.msn.com/local.aspx?wealocations=wc:MXBC0004