at Target yesterday
It’s the day after Christmas so shoppers are perusing the 50%-off decorations. A little boy accompanies his mother. She points to the word PEACE spelled out in gold plastic. In Spanish, she asks her son, “What does that say?” In English, he tells her “Peace.” In Spanish, she asks him, “What does that mean?” In English, he says loudly, “PEACE.” She asks him again what it means. He smirks and does a weird shruggish gesture with his hands, either at me or at the invisible television sit-com camera taking in the scene.
I felt embarrassed for them both. I wanted to tell the woman, “Paz” so she would know, but I didn’t want to let her know that I’d understood their conversation and the disrespect her son had shown her.
Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnicity in the United States.
I shopped around some more and, after a while, realized that everyone I’d heard speak in Target so far had been speaking in Spanish. I noticed because a white-looking woman made an uncomfortable face at a family of Columbian-looking women chattering in the middle of the aisle. As long-time readers of this site know, I happen to speak Spanish poorly but sufficiently for my purposes, and I happen to be half Mexican and half white, and I consider myself Latina because I grew up with the Mexican half of my family, but I look totally white.
I wondered, if I were white and I didn’t speak Spanish, if I would feel uncomfortable about people constantly speaking it around me. I don’t think I would, because most of the discomfort I hear non-Spanish-speakers discuss seems to be based in racist paranoia. Because I can understand Spanish, I know that the Latinas shopping at Target had no interest in me or the other shoppers at all. Like people who speak English, they have their own concerns. I imagine most people, no matter their mother tongues, are primarily concerned with themselves.
After Target, I stopped at Subway to get some single-mom-with-kids-away style dinner. I was very tired. The only two clerks were teenage girls, giggling and speaking Spanish as I came in. I didn’t bother to eavesdrop on them as I decided what to order. Then, I waited on one of them to wait on me. They argued over who should do it. The smaller one finally sauntered over, her face plainly indicating that six dollars an hour wasn’t enough compensation for her to pretend my satisfaction as a customer mattered. I tried to compose my face to indicate that I expected a sandwich and nothing more. As she put the turkey on the bread, the other girl muttered something from behind a bread rack.
“Hablale, Maribel,” said my sandwich technician with a giggle. That means “Talk to [him/her/it].” I wondered if Maribel had said something about me and her friend had dared her to say it to me, herself.
“No… se mira triste,” replied Maribel. That means, “No… [he/she/it] looks sad.” Her friend glanced at me and giggled again.
I almost said, in Spanish, “Actually, I’m just really tired.” But then I decided to say nothing at all. Maybe they were talking about something else. Maybe I did look sad. I just wanted to get my sandwich and go home. So I did.
A lot of non-Latino-looking people speak Spanish around here. Rude people will learn that on their own, one way or another. It’s easier to ignore rudeness, because it’s usually accompanied by ignorance, and ignorant people never react satisfactorily to clever admonishments or life lessons.
Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to learn Chinese.
