The Latino Village?
Here's the deal. It's one thing for reporters to misspel my name. Rodrigues, Rodriquez…whatever. But recently, KCCI News Channel 8 ran a short news segment as a human-interest story with a lead-in that just floored me. Kevin Cooney starts up the newscast by saying "Des Moines' Latino community is getting a new view and a new heritage." The lead-in was introducing the progress being made around the area just east of Grand Avenue downtown – an area that is becoming known as the Latino Corridor. But wait, it gets better.
The news story went on to call the area the "Latino Village." I guess I should stop to say I'm all for media coverage of this district, but for heaven's sake…don't make stuff up. Just because the area is getting a "new view," doesn't mean Latinos in Des Moines are getting a "new heritage." Will we all turn Asian once the project is complete? That's just silly.
This piece was basically a mishmash of statistics on the growth of the population interlaced with a couple of Latino business owners, whom I'm sure had much better things to say than "yeah, this is gonna be great when it's done" to the camera. Sadly, that's all that made it to the final cut.
Here's what the story failed to report. The Latino Corridor, no relation or subset of the "East Village," is the section of East Grand Avenue just past the capitol building in downtown Des Moines. The corridor is a project that has been spearheaded by the Neighborhood Development Corporation, a non-profit entity who has brought contractors into the area respecting the historical nature of some of these buildings (some buildings are on the state's registry of historical places). This area will be transformed into a vibrant Latino business community.
