A hotel owner in New Mexico is telling his Latino employees to adopt English names becuase he has hard time pronouncing their real names!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33479833/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity?GT1=43001
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.
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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.
THIS IS STUPID!
Look, I am a substitute teacher! Sometimes, I got to memorize a 100 new names a day!
Some are hard to pronounce!
Some have creatively spelled names!
Some are foreign names!
I NEVER tell anyone to change their names!
I just learn how to pronounce them!
If you're easily overwhelmed by having to pronounce new names, you need some serious psychological help!
And this "I don't want people speaking other languages around me"?
I don't care what languages others around me are speaking!
Even if they're mocking me ..... if they're not saying it in a way I can understand, it's probably not that important anyways!
Mr. Whitten claims his decisions are not racially motivated, just business motivated!
Well, it's not good business! He got boycotted!
Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal. But he says Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel for $2 million. "Taos is so unique that you would not do anything in Taos that you would do elsewhere," he says.
Whitten grew subdued as a two-hour interview with The Associated Press progressed. He said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and insisted he has never been against any culture.
"What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that's costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?" Whitten said.
Welcome to the 21st century Mr Whitten!
