Our Border: A place to live, work, learn & play

It's difficult to ignore the headlines about the violence in Reynosa and along the U.S.-Mexico border. It's everywhere right now and it is disturbing. Sometimes there is too much information; other times not enough. Given the stories circulating in the media, on the web and on social networking sites like twitter and Facebook, it has proven difficult to distinguish what is true and what is not. However, the team at the McAllen Economic Development Corporation knows one thing for certain and that is that safety is crucial to everyone who lives and works within our McAllen/Reynosa bi-national community.

McAllen EDC staff continues to work in Mexico. Reynosa, Mexico remains important to our strategy of economic growth, investment and increasing our manufacturing capacity on both sides of the border. We do exercise care when we travel to Reynosa just as we would in other foreign countries or even some cities in the United States. As residents of this region, we often forget that Reynosa is a large city of about 1 million people similar to Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Detroit. However, all of us should error on the side of caution. Again, it is difficult to decipher what is actually happening in Reynosa and in other border cities. One of our staff members recently traveled to Ciudad Juarez, which has been coined as one of the most dangerous city in the world without incident.

Also, McAllen EDC staff members communicate with Reynosa, Mexico managers every day to gather as accurate of information from reliable sources every day. We also have started an open forum for information sharing and communication related to rapidly changing situations. But the bottom line- Mexico is an important element of our rich culture in McAllen, Texas as well as our economy. This situation is having detrimental impacts on the many businesses that call Mexico home.

We are optimistic the situation and violence will pass. As a recent columnist wrote in the San Antonio Express News: "Border residents, meanwhile, dig into deep pockets of resilience, much as they've always done as long as their lives have straddled two nations." Also in the article, Tony Zavaleta of Brownsville and special assistant to the provost of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College said. "We've always been here. We believe it will pass, sooner or later. We can't live our lives held hostage."

After all, we are residents of this bi-national community and we continue to go to work, drink coffee and take our children to the park.

This is our border and we know how special it is to live here.