In the article “Some joy in Mudville,” in the “In Our Opinion” section, of the Iowa State Daily, it was stated: “… the men’s hoop squad suffered second defeat in the Sweet 16 to some school from the land of drive-bys.” First of all, how hard is it to state that it was UCLA that beat Iowa State? Secondly, saying remarks like “… some school from the land of drive-bys,” creates many bad stereotypes of California and its people. It just makes people here strengthen their stereotype of California as being a dangerous place.

Being a native from El Monte (20 miles from Los Angeles), California, and moving to Winterset, Iowa, made me realize how narrow minded people here in Iowa and the Midwest are! Midwesterners tend to judge others by what they see in the movies, see on the news, or read in the newspaper. And we know that the media is a master of portraying certain groups poorly and others well, as we saw in the LA Riots, where the media only showed minorities rioting, but it never showed that minorities were also helping in cleaning up the mess! When I came to Iowa, I had to deal with questions like: Do you carry a gun? Do you carry a knife? Were you in a gang? And the best one: Have you been in an earthquake?

The list went on. Well, I like to make it clear that California is not all about O.J. Simpson, gangs, drive-bys, earthquakes, smog or crazy people. California is a wonderful place to live. California is not only LA! You have the northern part of California, just to name one, the beautiful bay area, the central part, which produces lots of food that you eat! California is a world in itself! You can find people from all over the world there, plus food from all over the world. It is one of the most diversified places on this earth! I have heard time and time again from people here that they do not want to go to California because of the crime. There is crime everywhere. WAKE UP PEOPLE! The only reason there is more crime in bigger cities is because there are more people and more cops to catch the criminals! When I lived in California, we (my family) never had anything stolen from us. Since, we have lived here in Iowa, my mom’s house (Winterset, Iowa) has been broken into twice, I had my car stereo stolen from my car (Ames, Iowa), and I have seen other crimes that do not often get reported. Now, if you ask me, I have seen more crime here then I have in California, now is Iowa really as safe as people think it is? Or is it that people do not live in reality?

The Iowa State Daily has to stop making remarks like they did in article mentioned above because it only causes stereotypes to be created. Bad reporting, editing and narrow-minded opinions only make me form a stereotype of the Iowa State Daily as being a poor and narrow-minded newspaper that only produces a newspaper only good for recycling.

Roy Salcedo

Senior

Spanish