I’ll still come back to the Valley. My four months of wintering in San Benito have come to an end.
It’s time to go home. It was a challenging stay but I had a great time. The replies in the newspaper to my letter to the editor, “What has your city become” further challenge me.
Readers have made the assumption that I don’t like Mexicans.
That I don’t like Spanish.
That I don’t like diversity.
I’m a bigot.
To go put on by big boy pants and stay home.
Never!
It’s not from lack of effort that I have the opinion I have. I like being a Winter Texan as much as the rest of you. I get involved in community events and go to the town festivities. I’m not going to defend myself here, I didn’t, nor do I, do anything wrong.
I feel like a stranger in an American city. It’s not just San Benito I suppose, but this is the only border town I’ve ever been to.
Like it was said, go to any city on any border and you’ll experience the same thing. Likely so.
But somewhere, not far from that border city, another city kept their foot down and said the people from across the border will be the guest in our city, not us.
We’ll welcome them, treat them with respect knowing they’re from another country. We’ll have them as neighbors, make business deals with them, and even drink beer with them in town.
We’ll even learn their language if we feel we need to. But we’ll maintain our English language and let them be our guest. That town is not far away from any border.
As you rip on me for not accepting Spanish in your city, what do think this country would be like, if that city not far away from any border didn’t keep their foot on the ground?
Yes, we’d be a very well diverse country. You’d never know how to say hello to the stranger you just met.
With that diversity, you would go to the restaurant with many different language menus to pick from. Is that bad?
That’s my opinion, and you have yours.
We run our nation with a basic understandable language for all Americans across the country to understand. We have people interpret for those that don’t understand, even for those that can’t hear.
Knowing a foreign language is a luxury, not a necessity to live in any American city. I’ll come back to the Valley this fall and enjoy being a Winter “Texan.” (Note the sarcasm there).
I’ll go back to the farmer’s market, the city events on Jackson Street in Harlingen on Saturday’s, Ale’s & Tails, and the Re-enactment of The Alamo if they have them all again.
My little doggy and I have a wonderful time down here out of the cold north, speaking English.
Joe Schlechtinger Hamilton Ohio
