A dark basement in La Chinesca, a neighbourhood in Mexicali, is one of the remnants of the underground world where the largest community of Chinese emigrants in Mexico lived almost a century ago. Since 1904, thousands of Asian migrants arrived in the city as cheap labour to boost the then nascent agricultural business, and to invest. For the Chinese, many of whom were undocumented, the underground accommodation became a place to seek shelter from the summer heat and persecution. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES