Joe Martinez
Joe Martinez, Ed.D., is a Doctor of Curriculum & Technology, a U.S. Military Veteran, and a San Benito native.
When a doctor diagnoses a patient, he or she considers everything that might cause the patient’s illness or discomfort.
He or she looks at the data —such as lab values, signs, and symptoms the patient is experiencing —to arrive at a diagnosis that can help resolve the patient’s issue or issues.
This is what I did this past weekend. I drove around San Benito asking myself, “What can I do as a citizen to make this city more relevant for our students to succeed?”
While driving, I noticed a long line of cars waiting at a Harlingen ATM on Business 77, but no line at the credit union or other San Benito ATMs. This suggests that most people are directing their earnings to an outside bank that benefits Harlingen more than San Benito.
Why is this important? It’s because it takes money to make more money to make community investments, to make loans to businesses, to pay more taxes to the city, which in turn makes more money available for community projects or social programs that benefit the community.
Every citizen should support local banks, businesses, and merchants to generate more revenue and tax dollars for essential local programs that can address poverty, create more upward mobility opportunities, help our citizens earn a decent living, and enable our students to succeed.
We cannot let teachers shoulder the full burden of increasing student testing alone; we must also support them financially by keeping our money in San Benito.
I’m guilty of this myself. I used to bank in Brownsville because they had more ATMs than anyone else, but not anymore. Now, I bank in San Benito.
It’s the little things we often overlook, but they are essential. To make our city a better place for our students to grow and learn, we need to work together to keep our dollars here and make San Benito more prosperous.
What this does is that when we patronize our local businesses, they, in turn, hire more people or give more hours to their current employees to meet the demands of the public.
They also increase wages, which, in turn, raises the standard of living for some citizens. Now, with more money available, parents can afford decent housing, pay utilities, buy their children newer laptops and clothes, and put food on the table.
We can’t let our wealth be given to other cities like Harlingen or Brownsville; that is why they have achieved a higher standard of living than ours.
Our children deserve better because you are hurting them in the long run by offering fewer opportunities for upward mobility, fewer programs to help them succeed in their learning endeavors, such as a literacy center or a community liberal arts center, and by underpaying teachers who deserve better.
Our city needs help and more tax dollars to grow; this can be generated by our citizens shopping locally.
If there were more funds available, a literacy center could bolster student learning to new heights, increasing their reading and writing skills and translating into better opportunities for them to succeed and pass their academic testing.
Parents could also learn to read and write proficiently, which makes them more competitive for employment.
Two weeks ago, I read a commentary by Joe Rodriguez on immigration tests for 2025. A literacy center can also provide immigration classes that could help some residents attain US citizenship.
Another project that could benefit its citizens and students alike is a community liberal arts center offering opportunities for growth and knowledge in literature, history, philosophy, the social sciences, and other areas that foster personal development.
Harlingen has all of these programs because more money is available for them, and it’s no wonder why, if we as citizens keep sending our hard-earned dollars to businesses there instead of keeping them here in San Benito.
We must do better! We can all, as a community, come together to tackle the most challenging obstacles in our everyday lives.
If you drive downtown, you can see remnants of where businesses once stood because people shopped more locally. Today, these buildings are vacant and empty—a reminder of how important it is for all citizens to shop locally and keep wealth within our city.
Let’s all do our part to make San Benito the place where our people and their children can succeed in life by shopping locally and keeping our wealth in San Benito.