The latest (several years old) tagline from Visit El Paso/the Convention and Visitors Center/Destination El Paso appears to be “Where Texas Begins”.
Of course Texas only begins in El Paso if you’re coming from Phoenix or El Lay.
(Do you suppose they put that slogan up on billboards in Dallas, or Midland?)
I guess if you’re coming from Albuquerque you could say that El Paso is where Mexico begins.
Actually, defining El Paso as where Mexico begins might be a more accurate description, because El Paso is probably more like Mexico than it is like Texas.
Texas, in the popular imagination is cattle and oilfields. El Paso’s not like that.
And for people coming from west of here, saying that El Paso is where Texas begins is asking visitors to keep moving. “Now that you’re here, you might as well go see the rest of Texas.”
El Paso is not really Texas. El Paso is the border. El Paso is a unique cultural melange. The United States Census Bureau says that 65% of the households in El Paso speak a language other than English in the home. El Paso and Juarez comprise the largest border community in the United States, and maybe the world.
Marketers are always looking for a good or service’s Unique Selling Proposition. You’d think that the marketers marketing El Paso would have latched on to that.
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