I was in Abilene, Texas last week with a client and, over lunch, heard some very troubling news.
I was in Abilene, Texas last week with a client and, over lunch, heard some very troubling news.
Apparently, it’s not uncommon for Hispanic families in Texas to refuse to speak spanish to their children in an effort to better their career opportunities.
Listen to that same statement another way:
WTF?!?
Unless you speak Cherokee or Crow or Iroquois or Apache, aren’t we ALL speaking a foreign language? Something not native to our great country?!?!
In a global economy, only about 1 in 5 Americans can fluently speak more than one language (I’m definitely not one of them). To me, this is a huge disadvantage.
Add to that, the Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2012 was 53 million, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority. Hispanics constituted 17% of the nation’s total population. To me, hiring a Spanish speaking employee would be a huge advantage.
But, I might have let all that slide without this rant until, while drinking my morning cup of joe (Jose) this morning, I read a story about a man who had to change his name to get job offers.
Check out the YouTube link above. It’s about a cat named Jose Zamora who applied for the same jobs both as Jose and Joe. Jose had no luck … Joe received calls back.
Certainly, I hope neither Jose or Joe wore that darn sideways San Jose (or San Joe) Shark’s hat to the interviews, but we’re talking about “at bats” here … chances to impress. He’s on his own face-to-face.
Help me out here … is this where our great country is? Please, tell me differently! Tell me that parents don’t have to neglect their family heritage – and make their children LESS educated by encouraging them to be unilingual. Tell me that people don’t need to change their birth names to be seen as more American to get a job.
