What Does “El Paso Strong” Mean To You?
“El Paso Strong,” a term borrowed from the “Boston Strong” campaign has various meanings and interpretations. The term has become a mantra for the city and its people. Several people were asked to tell us what “El Paso Strong” meant to them and this is what they said:
According to Heide Solbrig, a cartoonist & media scholar working on a comics project about immigration and El Paso’s Lower Valley:
Boston was one of the first places which widely publicized the brand “Boston Strong” as a popular catch-phrase, though it was originally inspired by the recruiting slogan “Army Strong” — which is pretty ironic considering folks are being murdered by military assault rifles. Nowadays, every city that suffers a massacre, also gets to be part of the “(Your City Here) Strong” brand-family, like it or not. This saddens me some because I think that it ultimately numbs us to the monstrosity of these events. Additionally, rather than a show of strength (which won’t stop or heal a bullet hole) I’d rather we respond with kindness. In truth, I think El Paso has been a model to the world for kindness when you look at that gentleman who lost his wife in the shooting and for whom all of El Paso turned out — I just want solutions more than slogans.
Incidentally, Solbrig said she was teaching at Emerson when the Boston Marathon happened. She said…
