Dear Media and Friends,
As I reported in July, the Hispanic Access Foundation listed Duranguito as one of seven sites that deserve protection because of its cultural and historical significance to the Latino community of the United States.
The HAF study sparked national media reports from CNN, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, Yahoo, and others.
The report from Nicole Chavez of CNN, which begins with “A historic neighborhood threatened by plans for a sports arena….” was published on July 10 on CNN’s main webpage.
As of 2018, CNN reaches 90.1 million households in the United States and up to one million Americans per day.
Five days ago, on September 13, CNN published a second report, this time in Spanish. Titled “De Duranguito a Buford Highway y Pequeña Habana: algunas de las zonas con más presencia hispana en Estados Unidos,” it includes the following:
“Un barrio en donde la población hispana deja su marca e identidad es Duranguito. Enmarcado en un contexto realmente binacional, el vecindario está ubicado en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, en El Paso, Texas. Es el primer barrio histórico de la ciudad, caracterizado por sus edificios de ladrillo y estuco, sus casas victorianas y sus mercados abandonados. Por allí pasaron personajes históricos mexicanos como Pancho Villa y Francisco I. Madero, quienes fueron clave en la Revolución Mexicana de 1910. Al estar cerca de la frontera, muchos de sus habitantes viajan de un país a otro por trabajo todos los días. En los últimos años, los residentes han protestado, presentado demandas contra las intenciones de la ciudad de construir un estadio deportivo en el vecindario y han abogado por una designación histórica para el vecindario, informó KVIA, afiliada de CNN.”
There has been a lot of buzz about the national ABC report on El Paso that aired yesterday in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Now I can tell you that another major national television news network will be coming to El Paso, early next week, and their report will include discussion of the City’s effort to displace the residents of Duranguito (using eminent domain if necessary), demolish their barrio, and replace it with a multipurpose G-League basketball arena. More on this soon…
How much more embarrassment can the City of El Paso tolerate before they finally put their $500M+ “Arena” out of its misery and take action to spare the City’s first neighborhood?
This issue has been a major factor in terminating a half-dozen local political careers, and I suspect several more will go down in flames before the crisis is finally resolved.
Enjoy your Saturday.
Max