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Chinatown, Mexicali is claimed to have the largest per capita concentration of residents of Chinese origin in Mexico, around 5,000, by Mexicali. While this does not compare to U.S. cities like San Francisco or New York, early in the 20th century Mexicali was numerically and culturally more Chinese than Mexican. The Chinese arrived to the area as laborers for the Colorado River Land Company, an American enterprise which designed and built an extensive irrigation system in the Valley of Mexicali. Some immigrants came from the United States, often fleeing anti-Chinese policies there, while others sailed directly from China. Thousands of Chinese were lured to the area by the promise of high wages, but for most that never materialised. ==History== Many of the Chinese labourers who came to the irrigation system stayed on after its completion, congregating in an area of Mexicali today known as Chinesca ('Chinatown'). During Prohibition in the U.S., many Chinese laborers and farmers came to the town to open bars, restaurants and hotels to cater their American clients, Chinesca eventually housed just about all of the city's casinos and bars, and an underground tunnel system to connect bordellos and opium dens to Calexico on the U.S. side. Bootleggers also used this route to supply the U.S. with alcohol purchased in Mexico.〔 By 1920, Mexicali's Chinese population outnumbered the Mexican 10,000 to 700.〔Stacy, Lee. 2003. Mexico and the United States p. 183〕 A group of 5,000 single Chinese males started the Asociación China, a Mexicali's social organization at least partly devoted to finding Chinese wives from overseas, which remains active today. In 1927, a series of Tong wars here and other parts of Northern Mexico erupted over control of gambling and prostitution rings. Mexican alarm over the Chinese organized crime led to the government-encouraged Movimiento Anti-Chino. In the late 1920s, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that swept the country and led to the torture and murder of hundreds of Chinese in northern Mexico. However, the Chinese in this city were numerous enough and politically strong enough to protect themselves. The percentage of Chinese was so high here that in the 1940s the town had only two cinemas, both of which played Chinese movies almost exclusively. However, in the later half of the 20th century, steady influx of Mexican migrants here diluted the Chinese population, until once again they became a minority.〔 After anti-Chinese sentiment faded, more Chinese arrived here, and it became the Mexican headquarters for the Kuomintang, or the Nationalist Chinese Party and the Anti-Communist League. After events during World War II and the communist revolution in China, a large number of Chinese refugees came to Mexico in the mid-century. Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese diplomat known as "China's Schindler" is known to have visited Mexicali. The town was the site of the Taiwan based Republic of China consulate in the 1960s until Mexico withdrew its recognition of the island nation, ending immigration of ethnic Chinese to this area.〔 For a while after 1960, Chinese Mexican community organizations continued to stay strong: at the beginning of the 1960s new Chinese Mexican seminaries continued to open, and in the 1970s a school opened to teach art, Chinese culture, and sports to Chinese Mexicans living in downtown Mexicali.〔Auyón Gerardo, Eduardo. 2003. El dragón en el desierto: los pioneros chinos en Mexicali. p. 103-104〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chinatown, Mexicali」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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