Thread: Hispandering costs Home Depot

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

Originally Posted by swatchick

I am multi lingual and am fluent in 3 languages for translate at the federal level. As most children who grew up in ethnic homes we were taught it was rude not to speak English in public. Since the invasion when I am around Spanish speakers I speak one of mine with my daughter. This angers them and they give us dirty looks. They often do the same to French Canadians and other non English speaking tourists. That just shows how they think they are entitled to not learn English and how we must speak Spanish. I have a friend who is married to a legal Hispanic and she is non Hispanic and one day her husband had a job at a Haitian business. The Haitians all spoke Kreyol to each other and he complained to his wife about it and she told him I feel the same way all the time when your friends come over and all of you only speak Spanish in front of me.

This language thing IS a touchy subject. Last weekend I was at a friends house who has a hispanic woman living there to help around the house and look after things since he works out of town. She is "in the system" to become legal. I met her for the first time then and it ticked me off that the two of them started speaking spanish in front of me. I wanted to tell him how rude I thought it was and that he needs to do her a favor and start speaking English to her as much as possible. He is not encouraging assimilation by only speaking to her in her langauge.

Oh my, I would have told my friend that I did not appreciate the speaking of Spanish. I have a friend that works with Hispanics, and he did that, and I immediately told him to stop, at first he did not like me telling me that, but I explained my position, and that these employees, who are all newly legal citizens need to assimilate, or go back. Now he has a English only policy for safety reasons, and respect.

While I am not for violence, this is very funny. I have used the self check out near our house, and I hear it spewing out Spanish all the time, and people getting frustrated, and the Hispanic employees laughing.

It is hard to change the machine back to English when you don't speak Spanish. The smarter Home Depot in Hollywood where there are no day laboreres hanging around has one self check out machine in Spanish only and the other 3 are in English only. It is so much easier when some people can use common sense.
As for speaking English I have a friend who works at Starbuck's in Hollywood and she has noticed alot of people expecting her to serve them in Spanish. She knows basic Spanish but refuses to learn more as her relatives were immigrants and learned to speak English.

Originally Posted by swatchick

It is hard to change the machine back to English when you don't speak Spanish. The smarter Home Depot in Hollywood where there are no day laboreres hanging around has one self check out machine in Spanish only and the other 3 are in English only. It is so much easier when some people can use common sense.
As for speaking English I have a friend who works at Starbuck's in Hollywood and she has noticed alot of people expecting her to serve them in Spanish. She knows basic Spanish but refuses to learn more as her relatives were immigrants and learned to speak English.

I learned Spanish for ONE reason, and that is to be able to understand what is being said when they think they are free to speak their true mind, it was quite the eye opener. Customers that would talk trash about us. Customers that would call us all kinds of ugly things because no one in the shop would speak Spanish. The names we would get called as they spoke to their child interpreters when we would flat refuse to haggle prices. The venom that they would spew when we demanded that they keep their children RIGHT BY THEM (we sold fragile items, they wanted to cut the kids loose like in Wal Mart).

Like I said, learning Spanish gave me A LOT of new insight into the "plight of the illegal alien," and it wasn't the insight they wanted me to have. I wish that I knew a dozen more languages, just so I could hear first hand what is said by those that think their conversation is private no matter the volume in those languages. Hmm... maybe I can convince my child they want to learn a few languages and I can learn as I help them learn.

I am multi lingual as I mentioned before and when they speak Spanish and I am with someone who speaks one of the languages I do we immediately stop speaking English. It makes them angry. I guess there is truth to the saying: "a guilty conscious needs no accusor." The dirty looks we get from them is unbelievable but yet we do not talk about them at all. I was at a Ross store and there were 2 women screaming in Spanish and 2 French Canadian couples speaking French nearby. The women gave the french speakers dirty looks and finally the one man made a funny comment about one of the women. I broke out laughing and spoke with the 2 couples in french for a few minutes. The one man asked me how can you stand all those rude people? He also explained that he does not mind when people speak foreign languages among each other but they should have respect for others who do the same.

Originally Posted by SicNTiredInSoCal

This language thing IS a touchy subject. Last weekend I was at a friends house who has a hispanic woman living there to help around the house and look after things since he works out of town. She is "in the system" to become legal. I met her for the first time then and it ticked me off that the two of them started speaking spanish in front of me. I wanted to tell him how rude I thought it was and that he needs to do her a favor and start speaking English to her as much as possible. He is not encouraging assimilation by only speaking to her in her langauge.

Hope you told your friend that she really should only hire legal workers.

If a person is in the process of becoming legal then they need a work permit in order to work here legally. I have been through the immigration process and have relatives doing the same. If she is in the process then to me it means she cannot work legally as she would not even be able to get a SSN without a work permit or work visa.

Hope you told your friend that she really should only hire legal workers

Actually my friend does not pay her. She gets room and board and food. I return she helps around the house.

He told me she cleans other houses and also goes to school. I'm not sure at what point she is at in the citizenship process, but I know she can't be deported. An ex girlfriend of his tried it and it didn't work.