YOU WENT TO JUAREZ?!

YOU WENT TO JUAREZ?!  

The Gist

"You are going to El Paso? How nice. DON'T GO TO JUÀREZ."  Without fail, that is the advice that is given to someone who is visiting the second largest bi-national metroplex in the world. No matter that hundreds of Americans travel to their management jobs there every day or that the vast majority of the 120 Americans killed there in the past decade were somehow connected to the cartels (and let's face it NOT WHITE)...obviously people who hadn't been there in years (if ever) know best. Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.5 million souls, was once a glamorous place that attracted the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Elizabeth Taylor and Steve McQueen. Residents like to boast that the burrito and margarita were invented there (the former at a place all too familiar to American high school students: the Kentucky Club). Its over 350 “maquilas” contribute approximately $23 billion in imports and $43 billion in exports to Mexico’s economy annually. American companies such as Ford and Delphi are investing heavily in Juárez and the city is on track to having its best fiscal year in decades. One need only travel down its cleaner-than-before main boulevards to see thing are getting better (I mean, no place can be THAT bad if there are Starbucks' every six blocks or so). The restaurants and nightclubs are once again filled to capacity. Some time soon, residents hope, American tourists will return as well...and now you know the gist.