Hotel owner tells Hispanic workers to change names

[marmar]

Hotel owner tells Hispanic workers to change names
By MELANIE DABOVICH, AP
3 hours ago


TAOS, N.M. — Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.

Whitten's management style had worked for him as he's turned around other distressed hotels he bought in recent years across the country.

The 63-year-old Texan, however, wasn't prepared for what followed.

His rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20091026/US.Trouble.in.Taos/

[annabanana]

1. Glad to see this outlander getting smacked upside the head...

Lotta damn nerve.

[hobbit709]

2. Don't like links that want to do a browser upgrade.

Evidently comcast doesn't like my browser and wants to automatically do something to it. No go as afar as I'm concerned. I don't like things that don't as and just want to install crap.

[marmar]

4. Try this link:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iTg48jHVK4WilpXtidPMTChzpByAD9BIKP282

[hobbit709]

7. That's better, thanx

[tekisui]

3. Idiot.

[Loki]

5. Hey Larry

I don't like your fucking first name you ignorant piece of Texas trash, think I'll rename you Laura. Deal with it.

[Jokerman]

6. "he thought they'd be talking about him"

WTF is up with that?

Several years ago a co-worker at a company where several employees spoke Chinese told me it made him uncomfortable because he thought they were talking about him. I dismissed this as the paranoid rant of someone I knew to be a small minded idiot.

In the couple of months I've heard they same idea repeated by three other people whom I thought were smarter than that.

Is this a common paranoid fantasy that every time someone speaks in a language you don't understand then they MUST be saying something bad about you? (the generic "you" not the OP or anyone else on DU)

I just don't understand the mind set that can come up with shit like that.

[sammytko]

8. I know my sisters and nieces discuss the grandkids in Spanish

i think its wrong. If they got something to say,say it to their face or just have the conversation later.

I don't care if anyone talks about me. makes me feel more popular - haha!!!!

[Mojorabbit]

12. I have some Portuguese relatives

who do talk about others in Portuguese. I can follow along just barely in the language and I think it is wrong but it is what they do.

[raccoon]

13. To answer your question,

"Is this a common paranoid fantasy that every time someone speaks in a language you don't understand then they MUST be saying something bad about you? (the generic "you" not the OP or anyone else on DU)"

Apparently it is. I think all people who think like that are either paranoid or dumbasses.


"I just don't understand the mind set that can come up with shit like that."

Me either.

[cbdo2007]

16. I wouldn't call that a "common paranoid fantasy" as it happens all the time.

I know quite a bit of spanish and have been around plenty of extended family and work associates who've said negative things about me, not knowing I could understand them.

Rather than this guy get mad, he should learn spanish. Then when they call him names and talk about him in front of him, he'll actually have the upper hand.

[WolverineDG]

25. Well sometimes they ARE talking about you

Can't tell you the number of times I've busted people for ragging me in Spanish when I'm in earshot, then speaking sweetly to me in English. It warms my heart watching their jaws drop when I respond in Spanish. Doesn't happen all the time & it's a stupid reason for banning people from speaking it, though.

dg

[HopeHoops]

28. I answer the phone in Russian when I know it is a telemarketing call

I usually answer with "What the fuck, over?"

They babble something and I reply, "I don't speak English."

After repeating that several times, I end with "You're a very stupid man/woman" and hang up.

All of this in Russian, of course.

[niyad]

32. the mindset is that the world revolves around them--and they know, deep down inside

that they are assholes, and probably deserve to be talked about.

[Jokerman]

40. Thank you.

Most of the replies seemed to defend the self-centered, paranoid reaction.

[sammytko]

9. I just read that he was from Abeline Tx

one of the worst places to live in Texas. its out in the middle of nowheresville. his kind are rampant there. Whole other country is correct.

heck even in my little county i feel weird just going to do business in our county seat. I was born and raised in the area but feel out of place amongst the cowboys and slow moving ways.

[JoDog]

10. The name changes were wrong

but, I can understand wanting everyone to speak English on the job. One of the biggest problems in any workplace is communication. The easiest way to communicate is to have a common language. If the owner speaks English and not Spanish, then it makes sense to adopt that as a common language.

As far as him being paranoid...that may be a little of it. However, I know from experience that multilingual people do sometimes use their skills the speak around people or mock them.

[niyad]

34. on the other hand, since he has to know most of his employees are hispanic, how about HE learns

spanish? particularly since that area's culture has been such for how many centuries?

what an arrogant, chauvinistic, jingoistic little jerk.

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. He started his 'hotel business in Virginia, SOUTH CAROLINA, Oklahoma, Texas

Whitten said the protest has taken a toll on his business, and he plans to sell the hotel and leave Taos after renovations are complete. He said he expects the work to take several months.

"Right now we're going to stay open," he said. "As soon as we get it ready and get some financial history behind us, ain't nothing about Taos I like except Michael's restaurant."


Good grief, I was born in New Mexico and this guy is a typical Texan asshole

[snooper2]

19. He spent 40 years in the hotel business BEFORE

moving his wife to Abilene, Texas.

So how long you think he's lived in Texas...still a "typical Texan asshole", or maybe your typical asshole?


:eyes:

[BolivarianHero]

21. Typical asshole...

The biggest assholes in Texas, the Bushes, come from New England (too bad...I've been there...It's a nice place with great people :D). In contrast, Ann Richards, Ralph Yarborough, and Jim Hightower are true-blooded Texans.

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. OK...... Southern Asshole

BTW.... my son, grandmother and brother were born in Texas. I know Taos and how Texans treat New Mexico as one of their territories.

When I went to Taos the first time they spoke a form of spanish that was
500 years old especially in Rancho de Taos

[AspenRose]

37. "Texans treat New Mexico as one of their territories"

Which is why, upon moving to New Mexico with Texas plates on my car, some locals in Santa Fe pulled alongside me and yelled "GO BACK HOME!" I switched out my plates with the quickness.

I've seen folks in Colorado express the same sentiment. The assholes make it very, VERY hard for the honest, kind, *sane* Texans.

[varelse]

14. "It has nothing to do with racism...

I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.

Where has this asshole's head been for oh, the last 50 years?

[RedCappedBandit]

22. Pathetic, ignorant comment in soo many ways. Sigh.. nt.

[SoBascom]

15. Everyone should avoid his hotels. He's an asshole who deserves to be bankrupted

[niyad]

35. welcome to DU-- agreed--all of his hotels should be boycotted.

[lonestarnot]

17. Where does he hide his swastika? On his penis?

[BolivarianHero]

18. That would be an awfully small swastika...

So he's just another ignorant Repuke kook who was obsessed with the clenis because he wanted to know what a real dick looks like.

[BolivarianHero]

20. What a moran...

Why would you want to run a business along racialist lines in a community that would be left-wing even by Canadian standards?

[mulsh]

23. In the hotel business in Texas for 24 years & no Spanish?

This guy may not be a racist but he isn't very smart. Living and working in Texas and you don't have a cursory understanding of Spanish, he must be pretty isolated.

Over the years I've worked in various jobs with mostly Mexican or Chinese or Philipino workers and over a few months I've picked up rudimentarly bits of each language. I'm not particularly adept at other languages.

[XOKCowboy]

29. I picked up on that also. It's unusual to hear English in ANY hotel back hallway

especially in Texas. So this asshat has been in the hotel business for 40 years and doesn't speak one word of Spanish? He's purposely kept himself out of touch with his staff. Most hotels have multi-lingual heads of their HR, Housekeeping, Landscaping departments since the majority of their employees speak English as a second language.

I'm very happy that this jackass finds Taos so unfriendly. That makes me love it that much more.

[RedCappedBandit]

24. Honestly don't know how I'd react if somebody told me to change my name.

Hope this loser feels the repercussions of his actions for years to come.

[varelse]

30. I'd have to remind that person that the abolitionists WON the Civil war

When you hire people to work for you, they don't automatically become your property - thus, renaming them isn't one of your rights. The guy seems a little... disoriented.

[Cleita]

26. I used to love visiting Taos because of the Spanish cultural flavor of the plaza.

I certainly hate to see it Anglicized. Also, does that moron realize that most of those "Hispanics" are mostly of the native population of pueblo people? They were once baptized Christians and made to learn Spanish and take Spanish names by the conquistadores who settled New Mexico first before any English speaking people arrived. Do they have to change their culture again?

[ddeclue]

31. Fuck him and I'd never stay there.

[niyad]

33. I heard a story like this a couple of weeks ago--is this the same iidot, or another clueless cretin?

[niyad]

36. one of the things I demand of people who are of the "english only" mindset, is that, before they

demand "english only", they demonstrate a college-level proficiency in the reading writing and speaking of what is supposed to be their native language. whitten certainly doesn't qualify "this COSTED me. . " geez, go back to school, or back to texas, at least.

[moondust]

38. Rick Sanchez of CNN is okay with it.

Rick has a long Cuban/Hispanic name that he has shortened to basically make life easier for him and everybody else. He saw the guy's CNN interview and thought it was okay because it only applied to the people working the switchboard.

Of course a lot of immigrants from western Europe, eastern Europe, the Middle East, etc. have come to the U.S. and either changed the spelling of their name or changed their name altogether to make it more "American" (anglicized). It probably does make life easier for them and for everybody else.

[marmar]

39. So Mark is so much less complicated than Marcos?

And Rick Sanchez agrees, so all Latinos should do what he says?