Word: calexico
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...broken-down fence between Mexicali, Mexico, and Calexico, California, stretches directly in front of David Gomez Rocha's plywood shack. Seven days a week the 28-year-old rises at 3 a.m. for a two-hour trip across the border to pick asparagus for $4.25 an hour. Granted amnesty in 1987, Gomez Rocha is now a legal alien. His mother has a permit to pick grapes further north in California, returning to Mexicali on weekends. ``Who would do this backbreaking work if they closed the border?'' says Gomez Rocha. ``The U.S. does not have enough farmworkers, so they hire illegals...
Cross-border strains are rare here. The Mexicali Cineplex offers a choice among Nell, Speechless, Junior and Disclosure. At the border checkpoint, housewives flood through turnstiles heading for Calexico's Wal-Mart. Calexico's mayor is Mexican American, as are most residents. Even on the university campus in Mexicali, says student-body president Pedro Ariel Mendivil, anti-American slogans are virtually unheard of. ``That's old-fashioned politics,'' he says, adding that he hopes to earn a master's degree in the U.S. to gain foreign experience. He will not emigrate, however: ``I love Mexico passionately. We have...
...fast-growing Phoenix and Tucson, leaving its larger neighbor to face the possibility of a short supply. Within California, farmers have become alarmed at the possibility that the water they need for irrigation may be diverted to the cities. Says John Pierre Menvielle, a third-generation farmer in Calexico, on the southern edge of the Imperial Valley: "People in Los Angeles and the coastal plain say, 'You guys are wasting water. We ought to get it from you.' They're overbuilding, they're out of control. They want us to put limits on what we're doing. Where's their...