Chinese-Mexicans Ease Immigrants’ Plight : Smuggling: Community aids group of 306 stowaways facing deportation.

Ninety years ago, Chinese pioneers braved the blast-furnace heat of the desert to help found this border city, building an enduring dynasty of merchants and professionals.

Prominent Chinese family names, architectural motifs and businesses, including about 80 restaurants, still exert their presence in Baja California’s state capitol.

So it was no surprise last week that the plight of a newly arrived group of Chinese immigrants touched Mexicali’s residents of Chinese descent, stirring memories of the pioneers’ early tribulations. The Chinese-Mexican community, estimated at up to 10,000 people, rallied to the aid of the 306 illegal immigrants being held by Mexican authorities.

“We feel a great deal of solidarity for our paisanos,” said Carlos Tomas Auyon Gerardo, president of Mexicali’s Chinese Assn. “We hope that at least they can spend a few pleasant days here.”

Authorities transferred the immigrants from crowded Ensenada jails to the larger Mexicali sports auditorium a week ago, and they plan to repatriate the group soon--although it remained unclear late last week whether applicants will be granted political asylum.

After reaching Ensenada as stowaways on a Taiwanese ship, the Chinese group was discovered crowded into a safehouse operated by Mexican smugglers who had spirited them ashore, planning to sneak them through Tijuana into the United States. But before the group could leave Ensenada, Mexican police arrested them April 26.

For the immigrants, the auditorium has become the latest outpost on a voyage into limbo. Their plight has captivated public attention, sparking emotional and contradictory reactions in a nation that tolerates its own citizens’ illegal immigration into the United States but takes a hard line against undocumented immigrants such as Asians and Central Americans.

As diplomats and bureaucrats consulted and negotiated last week, community leaders organized Chinese restaurateurs in a relief effort to provide meals, three times a day, for the 306 immigrants and their guards.

“We are working hard,” said Auyon, who was overseeing a stream of cars and trucks that entered the auditorium parking lot to unload supplies.

“I feel great pity,” said gift shop owner Anthony Lau, who arrived with the pastor of Iglesia Bautista Villaflor, a Mexicali church, carrying a box of Mandarin-language Bibles he hoped to offer those inside.

The auditorium, where access is tightly controlled by a platoon of city and federal police officers, resembles a combined refugee shelter, recreation center and jail. Mexicali volunteers are helping the illegal immigrants kill time by playing volleyball and board games, watching Chinese movies, and listening to Chinese and Mexican pop music.

Under the gaze of armed officers posted in the bleachers, a micro-society with defined leaders, spokesmen and factions has evolved amid the auditorium’s expanse of cots, sleeping bags and clotheslines.

Auyon and other Mandarin-speakers serve as interpreters and mediators for this captive community and a never-ending succession of visitors--doctors, immigration officers, politicians, human rights activists, journalists, even a delegation of cheerful young beauticians who offered to cut hair and do nails. As the Chinese-Mexicans gained the trust of their weary paisanos, new details of the harsh overseas journey emerged.

“Some of them said they paid $15,000 up front and pledged to pay another $15,000 after their arrival,” said Auyon, who added that many were bound for San Francisco, New York and New Jersey. “And the smugglers on the ship took advantage of them. A pack of cigarettes cost $20. They charged $10 for a glass of water.”

The saga recalls Mexicali’s early days, when various forces drew Chinese laborers to the blistering climate of the Imperial Valley.

Chinese workers “were the pioneers,” said Auyon, son of a Chinese father and Mexican mother and co-author of a history of the settlers titled “Dragon in the Desert.” “They came to pick cotton. They were badly paid. There were no houses at first. They lived in holes in the ground.”

In the early decades, Chinese outnumbered the Mexican population in Mexicali by more than 2 to 1. Newcomers established cafes, stores and banks, their ranks swelling as other Chinese sought refuge from a campaign of anti-Asian sentiment that flared in the northern Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa.

Although the Mexican-born population soon attained numerical dominance, the economic power of the Chinese persisted, centered in a gritty business strip known as La Chinesca--a kind of Chinatown.

Today, Mexicali’s population exceeds 750,000 and La Chinesca is just one of the many neighborhoods dotted with prosperous Chinese-run restaurants, doctors’ offices and other businesses. The younger generations in many cases have married Mexicans, their ties with the ancestral homeland and languages fading in the process.

But last week’s outpouring of support overcame barriers of time and culture, according to volunteer Arturo Lee, a Calexico-based security consultant. He worries about the safety of the illegal immigrants if they are sent back to China.

Up to seven immigrants may have strong grounds for political asylum, according to human rights activists monitoring the case. In a letter slipped to visitors, two men who identified themselves as teachers and political activists said they fear their government will kill them if they are returned.

Written in uncertain English, the letter reads in part: “Because our government rules our people with a firm hand, there is no freedom in our country. But we need freedom.”

The letter, signed by Hong Jun-Chen and Charlie Chen, concludes by stating that if the Mexican or U.S. governments do not grant protection, the authors are willing to commit suicide.

Criticizing federal immigration officials for what he called their secretive, slow-moving approach to the case, Jose Luis Perez Canchola, the state human rights prosecutor of Baja California, has demanded humanitarian treatment and intervention by the United Nations. The U.N.’s refugee commission sent a representative to Mexicali last week to review the petitions for refugee status.

Although Mexican city, state and federal officials have clearly taken great pains to provide everything from medical care to recreational activity, the length of the immigrants’ custody in makeshift quarters has troubled some observers.

For example, one doctor said the detainees have not been allowed outdoors since being transported to the auditorium last Sunday.

Some residents and politicians, including Baja Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel, have proposed releasing the immigrants from custody and providing temporary residence, perhaps with Chinese-Mexican families, while their fate is resolved.

Moreover, human rights prosecutor Perez said the group should remain in Mexico to ensure the successful prosecution of the four alleged smugglers charged with arranging their passage. And he suspects that the sophisticated, lucrative smuggling network has links to corrupt Mexican law enforcement officials.

“It is not possible to accept the idea that hundreds of Chinese can enter the state without the authorities knowing it,” he said. “There must be a connection between the smuggling network and the authorities. . . . We have publicly asked for an investigation.”