A White girl's experience of restaurant Spanish
I'm reading an article for my Ethnographic Discourse Analysis class called "Language ideology and racial inequality: Competing functions of Spanish in an Anglo-owned Mexican restaurant" by Rusty Barrett and it is bringing back all KINDS of uncomfortable memories.
I was 18 when I first worked at La Madeleine, a faux-French restaurant in chic Bethesda. When I started, I was the only U.S. born person and the only White person working there, including the managers, and the non-managers were split evenly between immigrant Africans (Cameroon, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, etc.) and immigrant Latinos (from El Salvador and Mexico). Because the Africans were more bilingual (French and English), and because my French was better than my Spanish, I began as friends with them, particularly a man named Omar from Cameroon who continues to be one of the most genuinely good and kind people I've ever met in my life. Although I'd taken two years of Spanish in high school, I was completely unable to communicate with most of the Latinos whose English was far better than my Spanish but still not enough to have real conversations.
I'm not sure why I was inspired to really get to know my Spanish-speaking colleagues, when (from Barrett's article), it is obvious that many white people would simply prefer to keep to the communities they already understood. Barrett mentions how other white people would come and ask him how to say, "Fuck off" and other words that they could use to "put Hispanics in their place" if they felt they were being insulted (179), and I have to say I fully understand the impulse. I was constantly the butt of some of my coworkers jokes (particularly two middle aged Salvadoran women who constantly brought me up in sexual contexts, even bringing a little wind up penis to work and asking me over and over if I liked it - I brought a great deal of this on myself* by shocking them with the information that I was attracted to women as well as men), and as in order to learn Spanish (getting people to teach me vocabularly constantly and children's songs and desperately trying to have conversations despite the language barrier) I was forced to play the clown, a foolish, sluttish outsider. I'd say that I took the whole thing good naturedly, I recognized how much I had to learn, and being the ONLY White United Statesian, as well as the youngest, newest employee surely shifted my expectations for power and authority. I recognized that I had more upward mobility than anyone else working there, but I was also very very young, emotionally and socially if not physically.
By the second summer, the restaurant was changing; there were more Latinos and fewer Africans and the new managers were all U.S. born and the GM was white. She was pretty awful and her treatment of the Spanish-speaking employees was shameful. I had grown close to some of my coworkers, had written letters to them in broken Spanish during the school year, and once I returned home, spent almost every afternoon hanging out, driving them on errands, and helping out where English was necessary. But I was still the butt of jokes, still the foolish outside, and I was not yet terribly competent at understanding the social expectations of such an environment. I drew constantly during the extended down times and teased back and forth with people, including the Latino bilingual manager. I recall with real deep shame when I drew a picture of a woman with big ears, a flat head, and droopy breasts, labeled it "Your Mom" and gave it to said manager WHILE HE WAS AT A TABLE WITH CUSTOMERS. It would have been over the line in any case - although I didn't fully understand that in part because of the way I was teased by some of my Spanish-speaking coworkers - but it was totally unacceptable the way I did it. His reaction was profound and utter disbelief and a clear reprimand. I was very confused and apologetic, but I really didn't get it.
Of course, none of this is really about restaurant Spanish language ideologies, except perhaps some of mine. But even though my restaurant experiences were quite different from Barrett's in Chalupatown, there is enough in common that I question some of his conclusions about the use of Spanish and Mock Spanish. Much of it rings true - Mock Spanish was certainly used both to feel good about one's "accomodation" of the inferior/ignorant Spanish-speaker while simultaneously signalling a non-Latino identity. I can't say a White identity, as Barrett does, because my experience of it came from Africans and Black United Statesians. But there were times that it wasn't used that way, that instead what is undeniably Mock Spanish was used as something different. That is, Spanish-speakers AND English-speakers would use some of these words, like "finito" (which referred explicitly to the end of one's shift: "finito?" is your shift done? "finito!" my shift is done). When I tried - over a couple of weeks - to get someone to teach me the RIGHT way of asking this, something like terminado? or te vas?, I was consistently rebuffed and retaught "finito" by my multiple teachers. Although I had initially identified "finito" as something like Mock Spanish, by the end I thought it might actually be a Salvadoran innovation. Perhaps I was being intentionally excluded from proper Spanish (that is, a fluid conversation between two Spanish speakers), but my sense was that there were a number of words and phrases that became a sort of pidgin and were used as powerfully by Spanish-speakers as by English-speakers. I do not suggest that there was not racial tension - there certainly was, though (at least my first summer) in different ways from Barrett's experience - but when communication broke down, there was obvious frustration and disapproval on both sides. It is no surprise that the English speakers had more power in those relationships, but I believe it is a mischaracterization to suggest that the use of these Mock Spanish words were simply indicative of a "can't-be-bothered" attitude on the part of English-speakers that served as an excuse to escape blame for communication breakdowns. Not being in a position to use such commands very frequently myself (as the youngest and newest I took orders, I didn't give any), this observation came from watching such interactions take place every day (and break down every day).
Of course, I was no anthropologist carefully versed in what to be watching, and I obviously missed a great deal (which I intended to illustrate clearly in mentioning my embarrassing well-intentioned racist drawing), but I don't think that necessarily makes what I did get completely useless. Beyond the simple difference of experience, I think it is important to actually bring up the possibility of a restaurant pidgin that worked in conjunction with Mock Spanish, rather than a simple instance of well-intentioned racism. I do not intend to contest the idea that racism was at play and at work in the language use there, but I do contest the idea that Latinos were only resistant in their use of Spanish to exclude English-speakers. Instead, I suggest that the use of Mock Spanish by Spanish-speakers became an act of resistance in itself, and was wielded against incompetent managers and coworkers.
* After a convo with my bud tatterpunk I feel like I should add here that I do not think sharing my sexual identity should have necessarily opened me to such sexual teasing, only that sometimes it does. And the experience helped me to learn what sort of places I need to be more wary. Again, not that queer people should have to be wary, but that sadly we don't live in that world most of the time. Also, this is nothing compared to the badness that could have come, and I am glad I learned the lesson in such a relatively harmless way.
----
I have decided to leave this a public entry for now. I'm a little nervous, as my presentation of myself feels risky, but if I took the risky parts out, you wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the context of these observations and ideas. I have often spoken up in favor of such risky anthropology, and even though this isn't anthropology I'm trying to put my money where my mouth is. That said, if I get too flamed, I'm exercising my privilege and friend-locking this puppy.
I was 18 when I first worked at La Madeleine, a faux-French restaurant in chic Bethesda. When I started, I was the only U.S. born person and the only White person working there, including the managers, and the non-managers were split evenly between immigrant Africans (Cameroon, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, etc.) and immigrant Latinos (from El Salvador and Mexico). Because the Africans were more bilingual (French and English), and because my French was better than my Spanish, I began as friends with them, particularly a man named Omar from Cameroon who continues to be one of the most genuinely good and kind people I've ever met in my life. Although I'd taken two years of Spanish in high school, I was completely unable to communicate with most of the Latinos whose English was far better than my Spanish but still not enough to have real conversations.
I'm not sure why I was inspired to really get to know my Spanish-speaking colleagues, when (from Barrett's article), it is obvious that many white people would simply prefer to keep to the communities they already understood. Barrett mentions how other white people would come and ask him how to say, "Fuck off" and other words that they could use to "put Hispanics in their place" if they felt they were being insulted (179), and I have to say I fully understand the impulse. I was constantly the butt of some of my coworkers jokes (particularly two middle aged Salvadoran women who constantly brought me up in sexual contexts, even bringing a little wind up penis to work and asking me over and over if I liked it - I brought a great deal of this on myself* by shocking them with the information that I was attracted to women as well as men), and as in order to learn Spanish (getting people to teach me vocabularly constantly and children's songs and desperately trying to have conversations despite the language barrier) I was forced to play the clown, a foolish, sluttish outsider. I'd say that I took the whole thing good naturedly, I recognized how much I had to learn, and being the ONLY White United Statesian, as well as the youngest, newest employee surely shifted my expectations for power and authority. I recognized that I had more upward mobility than anyone else working there, but I was also very very young, emotionally and socially if not physically.
By the second summer, the restaurant was changing; there were more Latinos and fewer Africans and the new managers were all U.S. born and the GM was white. She was pretty awful and her treatment of the Spanish-speaking employees was shameful. I had grown close to some of my coworkers, had written letters to them in broken Spanish during the school year, and once I returned home, spent almost every afternoon hanging out, driving them on errands, and helping out where English was necessary. But I was still the butt of jokes, still the foolish outside, and I was not yet terribly competent at understanding the social expectations of such an environment. I drew constantly during the extended down times and teased back and forth with people, including the Latino bilingual manager. I recall with real deep shame when I drew a picture of a woman with big ears, a flat head, and droopy breasts, labeled it "Your Mom" and gave it to said manager WHILE HE WAS AT A TABLE WITH CUSTOMERS. It would have been over the line in any case - although I didn't fully understand that in part because of the way I was teased by some of my Spanish-speaking coworkers - but it was totally unacceptable the way I did it. His reaction was profound and utter disbelief and a clear reprimand. I was very confused and apologetic, but I really didn't get it.
Of course, none of this is really about restaurant Spanish language ideologies, except perhaps some of mine. But even though my restaurant experiences were quite different from Barrett's in Chalupatown, there is enough in common that I question some of his conclusions about the use of Spanish and Mock Spanish. Much of it rings true - Mock Spanish was certainly used both to feel good about one's "accomodation" of the inferior/ignorant Spanish-speaker while simultaneously signalling a non-Latino identity. I can't say a White identity, as Barrett does, because my experience of it came from Africans and Black United Statesians. But there were times that it wasn't used that way, that instead what is undeniably Mock Spanish was used as something different. That is, Spanish-speakers AND English-speakers would use some of these words, like "finito" (which referred explicitly to the end of one's shift: "finito?" is your shift done? "finito!" my shift is done). When I tried - over a couple of weeks - to get someone to teach me the RIGHT way of asking this, something like terminado? or te vas?, I was consistently rebuffed and retaught "finito" by my multiple teachers. Although I had initially identified "finito" as something like Mock Spanish, by the end I thought it might actually be a Salvadoran innovation. Perhaps I was being intentionally excluded from proper Spanish (that is, a fluid conversation between two Spanish speakers), but my sense was that there were a number of words and phrases that became a sort of pidgin and were used as powerfully by Spanish-speakers as by English-speakers. I do not suggest that there was not racial tension - there certainly was, though (at least my first summer) in different ways from Barrett's experience - but when communication broke down, there was obvious frustration and disapproval on both sides. It is no surprise that the English speakers had more power in those relationships, but I believe it is a mischaracterization to suggest that the use of these Mock Spanish words were simply indicative of a "can't-be-bothered" attitude on the part of English-speakers that served as an excuse to escape blame for communication breakdowns. Not being in a position to use such commands very frequently myself (as the youngest and newest I took orders, I didn't give any), this observation came from watching such interactions take place every day (and break down every day).
Of course, I was no anthropologist carefully versed in what to be watching, and I obviously missed a great deal (which I intended to illustrate clearly in mentioning my embarrassing well-intentioned racist drawing), but I don't think that necessarily makes what I did get completely useless. Beyond the simple difference of experience, I think it is important to actually bring up the possibility of a restaurant pidgin that worked in conjunction with Mock Spanish, rather than a simple instance of well-intentioned racism. I do not intend to contest the idea that racism was at play and at work in the language use there, but I do contest the idea that Latinos were only resistant in their use of Spanish to exclude English-speakers. Instead, I suggest that the use of Mock Spanish by Spanish-speakers became an act of resistance in itself, and was wielded against incompetent managers and coworkers.
* After a convo with my bud tatterpunk I feel like I should add here that I do not think sharing my sexual identity should have necessarily opened me to such sexual teasing, only that sometimes it does. And the experience helped me to learn what sort of places I need to be more wary. Again, not that queer people should have to be wary, but that sadly we don't live in that world most of the time. Also, this is nothing compared to the badness that could have come, and I am glad I learned the lesson in such a relatively harmless way.
----
I have decided to leave this a public entry for now. I'm a little nervous, as my presentation of myself feels risky, but if I took the risky parts out, you wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the context of these observations and ideas. I have often spoken up in favor of such risky anthropology, and even though this isn't anthropology I'm trying to put my money where my mouth is. That said, if I get too flamed, I'm exercising my privilege and friend-locking this puppy.