Slanderous Reporting

I'm beginning to feel that reporters from the New York Post and The Washington Post really have something against McAllen. After reading a few more articles about other places they've written about, I get the impression they're really trying to make their mark as "investigative" reporters. Enter a city, dig up whatever dirt they can find and make it appear as an investigation, publish it, and BAM, they've made a name for themselves. The key point in this formula is to avoid investigating the other side of the topic and leave the area before anyone asks them any questions.

Another article written about McAllen by the Washington Post was titled "An All American City that Speaks Spanish". LOL! Sure there is alot of Spanish spoken in McAllen but considering 70% of native McAllenites are bilingual, one is bound to hear Spanish spoken considering where there are in the city.

If your're in old downtown McAllen, sure, Spanish is the predominant language spoken in that area but one certainly can't say that makes the entire city Spanish speaking. If the reporter had even bothered to visit the rest of McAllen, they would have observed that the majority of McAllenites and Valleyites for that matter speak predominantly English. This to, me is proof that outsiders like going to places in the headlines like McAllen with preconceived ideas of a dusty border town with loud Mexican music blaring out of shops and colorful overloaded buses carrying people with chickens and an occasional pig onboard.

A few years ago, I discovered that when a survey of spoken languages spoken in in San Antonio, TX was taken, locals were questioned were asked if they were bilingual. If they said yes, they were then asked which language they spoke most often. If they answered Spanish, they were counted as Spanish speakers and English was not counted. I speak primarily English but I also speak Spanish and a little German. If was asked those same questions and I selected German, how would that skew the overall numbers at the end? 

Once here and find that McAllen is a modern American city, they find that it's easier to keep the preconception going than to admit that they were wrong about a modern border city like McAllen. It's also easier to exaggerate the dangers of living in McAllen because of the cartel activity in nearby Mexico to produce more shock value for the reader. I can see how reading about a community living in constant fear of random shootings and kidnappings by uncontrolled thugs rather that a clean well organized peaceful community where crime is not seen by the general public. 

Interesting fact about McAllen: The third most spoken language in McAllen is Tagalog.
Interesting fact about Texas: The third most spoken language in Texas is Vietnamese.

There are also 10 other languages than can be heard in McAllen.
Languages of India -  0.3%
Vietnamese -              0.2%
Korean -                     0.2%
Pacific Island Lang-   0.1%
Russian-                     0.1%
Chinese -                    0.1%
Hungarian -                0.1%
German -                    0.1%
Japanese -                   0.1%
Romanian -                 0.1%

Speak up!

eModicus