Another example from a study conducted in Texas by Achugar and Pessoa
indicates that this mindset is not exclusive to California:
[T]here you know I have met some Chicanos here that don’t speak
any Spanish but that seems to be because their parents came from
some other part of the country where they try to be white or
something and so they don’t speak any Spanish, but hopefully ... I’ve
met some white people that have lived here all their life and they
don’t know any Spanish, like none. And I’m like, “How can you not
know any?”, I mean, don’t you hear people talking ever? Like, I don’t
understand that. So, yeah, they just must be very, like, secluded, like
all their friends are white.
(Tania, English-dominant, cited in Achugar and Pessoa 2009)For the rest of this chapter the discussion will focus primarily on the
experiences of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Chicanos/as and Latinos/as
in the Southwest. It is important to note that there are large populations of
Cubans, Salvadorans and other Spanish-speaking individuals in Southern
California; however, the nature of the data does not allow me to separate
these groups when discussing, for example, housing discrimination.
A sampling of Discriminatory Language-Focused Practices
Against Latinos/as
1. San Jose, CA: A 58-year-old Latino speaking on his cell phone
in Spanish was punched in the face by a 28-year-old Anglo
male, who shouted “Speak English!” (Dee 2009).
2. Pennsylvania, 2008: In hearing a criminal case on conspiracy
to commit robbery, a judge offered four Spanish-speaking
defendants a choice: learn English or go to jail for two years
(Weiss 2008).
3. “[A professor] in college refused to believe that I had written
an essay ... because she assumed that Mexicans don’t write
very well and so therefore I couldn’t have written this paper”
(Cobas and Feagin 2008).
4. In Beaufort County, North Carolina, a county commissioner
asked the health and social services departments to keep count