The Cultural Landscape of El Paso Texas

The Cultural Landscape of El Paso Texas

Welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. I'm John Peña, a real estate agent here, and this episode is all about the cultural landscape of El Paso. This channel is all things El Paso: eat, sleep, work, play. If you need any kind of real estate services, please consider reaching out to me.

We're going to talk about the cultural makeup of El Paso, and we're also introducing a new face on the channel toward the end of this one. We've got some footage from a recent event that Miguel and Issa went to, called the Festival of Chariots, and we'll roll some of that so you don't have to look at me the whole time.

One of the things happening in El Paso is real cultural diversity, and people do reach out to me about it. Just today, a gentleman who doesn't speak Spanish reached out concerned about whether there's a part of town where everybody only speaks Spanish and he wouldn't be able to get by in English. It's hard to know the cultural landscape of a city if you're not from there, so we're going to dig into that in this episode.

El Paso's Population and Demographics

El Paso is a primarily Hispanic city, which shouldn't surprise anyone given where we are. I've talked about that on this channel before, and about why I think it's such a good thing for our community. People always want the facts and the data, so here's where things stood as of 2019: El Paso's population was about 682,000 people. I've seen other figures floating around closer to 700,000 or 800,000, but 682,000 was the most reliable data point I could find.

The median age in El Paso is 32.9, so about 33 years old. That number has held up well in my experience telling people about it. Thirty-three is still a pretty young, vibrant age. I just moved here from Florida, and trust me, the median age there is not 33. That creates a different dynamic. Thirty-three is typically when people are getting into their groove: they've got their job, their career, maybe they're married, maybe they've got kids, maybe they're moving into that first house or upsizing into a second one. It's a lively time in a person's life, the kind of years you look back on and can't believe went by so fast. I love that statistic because it says El Paso is a lively, family-oriented city, which it really is.

Household income in 2019 was about $48,500. What I found interesting is that it grew about 7.8% from 2018, when it was about $45,000. Climbing almost 8% in a year felt like a pretty good sign.

A Hispanic-Majority, Bicultural City

I'm not an expert on this topic. I pulled this from what I felt were the most reliable sources I could find, and while I know something being on the internet doesn't automatically make it true, I feel pretty confident in this data. About 82% of El Paso is Hispanic or White Hispanic, meaning people born in the United States who are of Hispanic heritage. That's why you see so many last names here like Lopez and Gonzalez. That 82% shouldn't shock anyone. This is a city on the border with Mexico, so a Hispanic majority makes sense. I think that's a beautiful thing, and I think it's part of why the culture and the vibe here is a little more laid back, and maybe part of why people are so consistently kind and welcoming.

Beyond that 82%, about 12% of El Paso is white, 3% is Black or African American, and 1.3% is Asian. Those last two are small percentages, but there's still real cultural diversity here, and the Festival of Chariots is a great example of that. As the city grows, it keeps diversifying. More white people are moving to El Paso, more African American people, more Asian people, more people from India, more people from all over, and I think that's a good thing.

One more stat, this one for the state of Texas as a whole: the most common birthplace for foreign-born Texas residents is Mexico, followed by India, and then El Salvador. When one group makes up 82% of a city's population, it's hard to call that city broadly diverse in the traditional sense. But I do think it comes with a lot of good qualities, and our world is diversifying. I'm helping relocating buyers move here from all over the country, and from different continents, and El Paso is a good example of that shift.

Do You Need to Speak Spanish?

Before introducing Alejandro and his segment, I wanted to address something: if you move to El Paso and you don't speak Spanish, is that going to be a problem? No, it's not. The majority of people in El Paso are bilingual, fluent in both English and Spanish. For those of us who only speak English, like me, that's not going to hold you back. Some people might see you and assume you speak Spanish and start talking to you in it, but once they realize you don't, they'll switch right over to English. Are there people here who only speak Spanish? Sure, but it's a small minority. If you don't speak Spanish, you're going to do just fine here. I think I'm a pretty good example of that. I know if I really put my mind to it, I could probably learn, and honestly, I have tried in the past. Here I am. If you're in the same boat as me, you're going to be just fine.

Introducing Alejandro Sosa

This channel exists because I'm a real estate agent and I want to generate business. If you're thinking about moving to El Paso and buying a home, I want to be the agent you reach out to. If you're selling your home and thinking, "hey, there's this guy with a YouTube channel," yes, please, I'd love to talk to you about that too. That's why this channel started, as a lead generation tool for real estate. But I also love El Paso, I believe in it, and I want to be an ambassador for the city, because it's an amazing place. I could go on for days about what I love about it.

In that spirit, we also want to provide as much value as we can and broaden out beyond just real estate. We're going to start covering some local news, start showcasing local businesses, and Leah and I have gotten into overlanding, which is traveling to different places by four-wheel drive vehicle. We're out here in the desert, so if you're into four-wheel drives, off-roading, dirt bikes, or quads, there's a lot of cool terrain around here to ride and discover.

Part of that diversifying is bringing on Alejandro to talk about some of what's happening with immigration, since people do reach out to us asking about the border. Alejandro is going to talk about the Haitian immigrants who have come to America. They're not necessarily in El Paso, but we're close enough that some may end up spread out through here. We also recently had a number of Afghan refugees taken to Fort Bliss. We have a very large Army base here, and it sometimes serves as a staging area for that kind of thing. And of course, being on the border with Juárez, we're a gateway to Mexico, and people hear a lot of media stories about this that are either exaggerated or just not correct. We're not approaching any of this from a political or religious angle. We just want to give you the unbiased facts about the reality here in El Paso.

With that, I'm happy to introduce a new team member at Peña El Paso: Alejandro Sosa. We're excited to have him.

The Situation at the Border: Haitian Migrants

Welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is Alejandro Sosa with Peña El Paso, and I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your continued support of our YouTube channel. We love this town, and our number one goal is to showcase every inch of the El Paso metro through our videos and provide as much value as possible.

I've noticed a lot of you have questions about the situation at the border right now, specifically involving Haitian migrants, so I gathered some information on the topic to share with you. On August 14 of this year, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, destroying thousands of homes and killing more than 2,000 people. Thousands of Haitian migrants fled and sought asylum at the Del Rio Bridge in Texas. A makeshift camp under the bridge held around 15,000 migrants at one point, mainly from Haiti. The pictures you're seeing were taken around September 21 of this year.

The Department of Homeland Security began flying Haitian migrants to other cities in Texas. Others were placed on deportation flights back to Haiti. This was an effort to reduce the size of the makeshift camp, and by September 26, when these next pictures were taken, it looks like authorities had cleared the camp. About 1,200 Haitian migrants were released from Customs and Border Protection custody in El Paso to local nonprofits. Refugees are staying at sites overseen by the Annunciation House, along with a few churches in Las Cruces and El Paso. These organizations provide short-term housing and social services to migrants, who typically leave as soon as they arrange transportation or find a sponsor in the U.S. The Annunciation House told reporters it received about 1,200 migrants, about 798 of them from Haiti. The Salvation Army provided meals for the refugees, with help from other groups including the City of El Paso and the Office of Emergency Management.

Panama's Foreign Minister was in Washington, D.C. around this time to discuss migration and security issues with U.S. federal officials. She told reporters that 85,000 migrants headed north had passed through Panama since January, with about 20,000 having already crossed into the U.S. at Del Rio, Texas, and other places. She said the rest are likely on their way. If you'd like to help with donations, the local nonprofit groups encourage you to contact the El Paso Baptist Association or the Catholic Diocese of El Paso.