City holds sober anniversary.

City, state and federal officials took part Tuesday in a sober ceremony to commemorate Mexicali’s 114th anniversary.

“Mexicali is a city that perfectly knows the value of work, willingness, effort, solidarity and honesty, and is a community that knows its destination and path,” said Mayor Gustavo Sánchez.

The event was somehow eclipsed by the death Monday of two police officers and two rescue group members during a helicopter crash while recovering the body of an excursionist who got lost Sunday.

Participants held a moment of silence in memory of the five deceased.

Municipal Institute of Arts and Culture Director Carmen Espinoza stated the Cocopah tribe has lived in the area for over 800 years and their persevereance is a testimony of their hard work.

After several centuries, other immigrants from Japan, India and especially China arrived to the Mexicali Valley to work by creating irrigation canals, promoting trade and livestock through discipline and solidarity, union, responsibility, work, effort and savings, setting a legacy that prevails until today, Espinoza said.

According to the director of the city, where our grandparents and parents were born, has been sustained by love in a soil of men of good will who have created their vision of a paradise.

“This is a land we inherited from our parents and that will be inherited to our children,” Gov. Francisco Vega said in his speech. “This is a land that was originally a small town isolated by the desert that turned into a prosperous metropolitan city.”

Gov. Vega remembered California and Mexico got together to produce the names of the cities of Mexicali and Calexico through their binational relationship.

“This relationship needs bridges, not walls,” Vega said. “The fifth most visited border in the world is without a doubt one of the more genuine binational and exemplary communities all over the world.”