Hotel Owner Tells Hispanic Workers To Change Names
Larry Whitten doesn’t workers speaking Spanish in his presence, because they might be talking about him. And he wants them to Anglicize their names. After taking over a hotel in Taos, New Mexico, Whitten says he’s doing what he’s always done.
After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.
“Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish,” Whitten says. “I’ve been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I’ve never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I’ve never had a reason to.”
Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile and insubordinate. He says they called him “a white (N-word).”
Fired hotel manager Kathy Archuleta says the workers initially tried to adjust to his style. “We had already gone through four or five owners before him, so we knew what to expect,” Archuleta says. “I told (the workers) we needed to give him a chance.”
Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it’s a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.
I wonder what he would have told an employee named Barack Hussein Obama to do.
Well he’s got every right to lord over his little empire like Caligula himself, just like most “entrepreneurs,” though I wonder how he knew they were calling him a “white N” if in fact he understands no Spanish.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
My dad and his buddies had to anglicize their funny-sounding foreign names when they were headhunters back in the ’60s, presumably because Italian, Greek and German last names were too difficult to remember.
This ain’t the ’60s anymore, though, and Mendoza, Aguilar, Lopez, etc. are all par for the course. This guy is more of a jerkoff than a racist, I believe. But he’s still somewhat of a racist.
John Galt Reply:
October 27th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
This ain’t the ’60s anymore, though, and Mendoza, Aguilar, Lopez, etc. are all par for the course. This guy is more of a jerkoff than a racist, I believe. But he’s still somewhat of a racist.
Interesting take from CNN:
media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/static/2009/10/2009-10-26-CNN-Sanchez.mp3
October 26th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
It’s also common to have overseas support desk employees change their names to something more “American” for the benefit of thei American customers.
Sorry, but if I’m calling Bangalore or Mumbai and someone with a thick Indian accent answers the phone identifying him/herself as Bob or Brenda … I ain’t believing it and the name change was a waste of effort.
On the other hand, I’ve walked out of businesses when the help started chattering away in Spanish thinking I didn’t understand what they were saying, if you know what I mean.
This is the USA. Speaking English here shouldn’t be any more of a problem than speaking French in France or Danish in Denmark.
placefield Reply:
October 26th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
This is the USA. Speaking English here shouldn’t be any more of a problem than speaking French in France or Danish in Denmark.
I don’t know, both of those would be a big problem for me.
karthiks030977 Reply:
October 26th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
If you try calling Comcast on their 1-800 number, you usually get Shaqille ONeal…that’s the best part of Comcast customer service, talking to an automated voice named after Shaq…
karthiks030977 Reply:
October 26th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I have had the misfortune of having to do that, several times…have tried being sweet, being angry, being sarcastic, begging for help…none of it works, Comcast is the perfect example of how Capitalism is its own worst enemy.
Rocky the Liberal Rottweiler Reply:
October 26th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Corporations don’t have to listen to you. They’ve got the money. They’ve got the power. A lot of them have virtual monopolies and if we don’t like what they do their answer is bend over and have some more.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I’ve been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there.
Hrm… Wonder what part of Texas he is from? I lived there over 35 years and never met a single Spanish person there(I do have a Spanish friend, but I met him in Sweden).
Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it’s a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.
Yep, perfectly reasonable policy. As is his expectation that his employees speak English in his presence.
October 26th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
speaking a foreign language in front of co-workers or employers that don’t understand that language is pretty rude, and there shouldn’t need to be a rule about it…making them change their name is kind of lame…I understand his reasoning…but I wouldn’t do it.
placefield Reply:
October 26th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
speaking a foreign language in front of co-workers or employers that don’t understand that language is pretty rude
I think this depends. Living where I do in California I have been surrounded by people speaking foreign languages around me all the time, even in the work place. When two people are talking to each other it is natural for them to gravitate to their native tongue. If they are having a conversation that does not involve me, who cares. I am not that insecure that I need to know all of the intimate details of everybody else’s business. Now if they truly were using their native tongue as a form of code so they could talk behind his back in front of him, well then yes, that is rude. I rather like the diversity of languages around me.
That being said weather I agree with them I not both of these managers requests are within his rights to ask. He is responsible for creating the image of his hotel he wants to show to the public.
jazmine Reply:
October 26th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Co-workers have every right to speak their own language amongst themselves. Period. Once a co-worker, enters that ear shot and does not speak that particular language, it needs to reverse back to a single common language. Period.
I don’t care what language or what country. Period!
October 26th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
There’s a chain motel in Bakersfield, CA just off 99 on the south side of town.
I stayed there several weeks each Fall over two or three years and got to know some of the staff. I’d see the office staff regularly and the housekeepers on the weekends when they came around to clean the rooms.
The employees liked the motel business but they hated the owner. The owner (her husband was a doctor or something) drove a new Mercedes-Benz, did very well for herself and made a point of letting the staff know how little she thought of them. The owner was, in fact, a racist. She considered people of her race smarter, better educated and harder working than the local people who worked for her and she wasn’t shy about letting the help know it.
The motel owner was an Indian (the south Asian kind) and her staff was majority Anglo with a few Hispanics.
Colmes tried to make an arse of Whitten in his interview but he came off like he was an alright guy anyway.
October 26th, 2009 at 11:20 pm