Asociación Chung Shan de Baja California, Mexicali墨西卡利中山会馆

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Mexico · Baja California · Mexicali · In the La Chinesca district

First built

1915 · Today also serves as an education center, arts center and Buddhist shrine hall

Overview

The Asociación Chung Shan de Baja California, Mexicali, was founded in 1915 as a native-place organization for immigrants from Xiangshan (Zhongshan), Guangdong — four years before the Asociación China de Mexicali — making it one of the oldest Chinese community organizations in the area. Immigrants from Zhongshan were widely dispersed along the Pacific coast of the Americas, with communities in Hawaii, San Francisco, Peru and Mexico, most of whom got their start as peddlers or in agriculture. Today the association also serves as a Chinese-language education center, an arts and culture center, and a Buddhist shrine hall. It must be noted honestly that its religious function belongs to a Buddhist shrine hall rather than a Daoist temple, and this coexists at the same site as the association's secular functions. It is included here to show the overall pattern of the Chinese community in Mexico being organized by native place, with religious sites attached to community associations — language instruction, cultural activities and the veneration of deities running in parallel within the same building being the norm for Chinese religious space in Latin America.

Highlights

• Founded in 1915, earlier than the Asociación China de Mexicali
• Native-place organization for immigrants from Xiangshan (Zhongshan)
• Also serves as an education center, arts center and Buddhist shrine hall
• Religious function is a Buddhist shrine hall, not a Daoist temple