Thread: Our trip to Mexico Yesterday (rant)

I think I am posting this in the right area, if not feel free to move it.

------Rambling Ranting ahead----

We went to the grocery store yesterday. On a lark we decided to go to the one right around the corner that we hadn't gone to because we didn't recognize the name.

Carnival.

O.M.G.

The one good thing I can say about it is that it was spotlessly clean, amzingly enough.

We walked in to mariachi music over the PA.

It went downhill from there.

I decided to wander it, not buying anything, just wandering, to see. Yup, it was that bad.
Children running around screaming and playing all over the place, isles away from an adult.
At least a third of the displayed product was plastered with Spanish only labeling.
All the signage was in Spanish with English translation in tiny lettering in the corner.

I was really feeling like I had traveled South of the border already, but when we made it back to the front of the store, with people looking at us like we had grown second heads (My son and I are pasty white and he has red hair), there was NOT ONE publication in the racks in English. I made the effort to look for one after realizing that I didn't see any.

Baby's wearing tons of gold jewelry. One little boy, couldn't have been two yet, had on three gold necklaces, one with a huge disk pendant, and heavy gold chain bracelets.... His mother was paying with WIC cards and the LoneStar card (Texas' food stamp program).
Two different money transfer businesses.
A Coin Star that could do phone cards, load gift cards, cash paychecks (or load them onto a prepaid Visa card if you want). CoinStar is a change counting machine that USUALLY either lets you donate to one of a list of charities or gives you a receipt that you can cash in, this was the first one I ever saw that took more than coins or gave more than a reciept.

I was flabbergasted.

My 10 year old even said he felt like we didn't belong and weren't welcome there.... a TEN year old could see and feel it.

*doing her best Reagan impersonation*
"Mr President. Put. Up. That. Wall."

My son should not know the feeling of being an unwelcome alien in the country that generations of his family was born in and helped settle.

I know the feeling, there are numerous business in my town where you can not do business in English. What gets me is Wells Fargo Bank down the street is advertising discount wiring to Mexico for checking account holders. I went in (with no intention of opening an account) and asked if they also offer discount transfers to Ireland. I explained my husband is Irish and if we needed or wanted to send money to his family, would we also get a discount. I was told they only give discounts to Hispanic nations uh, does any one else smell discrimination here? If you bank at wells fargo, please tell your banker that you do not approve of the discounts offered only to Hispanics.

Carnival is, I believe, owned and operated by Minyard Foods, which was begun in Texas, and of which Texans are quite proud. Minyards first began "Fiesta" stores catering specifically to Latin tastes, and then started "Carnival" stores as the lower-priced equivalent of Fiesta. Minyards also has converted some of its former Minyards Foods stores to Fiesta and Carnival brands when the population began to shift in any given area. The grocery industry has been one of the leaders in this national push to convert to "ethnically diverse" and internationally imported foods. Sometimes it's hard to tell "which came first", and, in the Southwest, where there is an historical tradition of Mexican culture, it's often hard to object to it because it offends local pride. I believe corporate Minyards is still operated by two sisters who are Minyard family members. It is amazing to see the speed with which this conversion of grocery stores has moved in the Dallas subjurbs - just within the last 10 years! So, to me, massive illegal immigration is really not about "social justice" or "civil liberties" at all; it's all about business interests.

I am not a native Texan, so I apologize if all this information is not correct in part or full.

I am totally against illegal immigration. But there is a large legal Hispanic population here in this country. So there are stores that cater mainly to them. The same is true of other cultures. Products like food or whatever thats pertinent to those cultures can be found in those stores. We can and do enjoy many different cultures as do the people who come from the different countries.
The employees of the Hispanic stores are very friendly and courteous. But it sometimes is like going into another country, especially if you're alone. The store would probably have anything you needed just like the other stores do.
We're not anti-Hispanic. We're anti-illegal immigration.

There's a store like that near me, and funny thing: the produce had the English name above the Spanish. Whereas the KMart across the street had the Spanish name above the English. They also had a mini fast food restaurant inside.

Originally Posted by USA_born

I am totally against illegal immigration. But there is a large legal Hispanic population here in this country. So there are stores that cater mainly to them. The same is true of other cultures. Products like food or whatever thats pertinent to those cultures can be found in those stores. We can and do enjoy many different cultures as do the people who come from the different countries.
The employees of the Hispanic stores are very friendly and courteous. But it sometimes is like going into another country, especially if you're alone. The store would probably have anything you needed just like the other stores do.
We're not anti-Hispanic. We're anti-illegal immigration.

Actually, they didn't have a lot of what I was going out to pick up.... the hubby likes Chinese food.

I'm in no way anti-Hispanic, my apologies if it read that way, it was the matter of the store being very unwelcoming to a non-Hispanic mother and child. I will say that it was more the shoppers than the staff members, they all greeted our smiles with return smiles.

I grew up with a grandfather that loved to make enchiladas, cabrita, tamales, tomatilla salsa, etc... for Sunday dinners, I was the grandkid that liked helping, so I'm not so much a stranger to Fiesta and other Hispanic-centric markets and stores. This was something else, though.

The spotless and clean comment, well, you'd have to have ended up in some of the stores that we've wandered into to understand that being comment worthy to us.

It was the first time in my entire life of living on the Texas Gulf Coast, sans the last two years up here in the DFW area, of actually feeling truly alien and unwelcome in a store, that was what it was about to me. The observations made along the way remindeing me so much of trips to border towns when I was young, just adding to the alienated feeling when combined with the ugly, hostile, and shocked stares we got, that we never got on our border crossings.

Even with the store being just around the corner, we will continue driving 5 or more miles to get groceries, I do not like my son feeling like a freakshow just to get groceries.

Went to our local HEB food store here Saturday and was inline behind a hispanic woman and her two kids. While she was paying for her full basket of food with WIC and the Lonestar card her kids were scratching lotto cards...