¡basta ya!

I do love differing ethnic foods, people, music and culture, Okay, maybe not the British food thing but besides that I will try about anything. I shop at several stores a week for my groceries that include Asian, Hispanic, Persian, Greek and of course hippie grocery stores. This morning was the Hispanic Grocery stores turn to be blessed with my presence.

This was nothing new to me, I have been many times. You walk into the door and mariachi music is blaring and people are going about their business. The store is an old converted Homeland/Safeway so it is a "normal" sized store. I dutifully pushed my cart around the store getting the items that I needed. Fresh fruit, vegetables and a few meats, this was just one of the chores we all do everyday of our lives. The interesting thing to me was when I arrived at the counter to be check out.

The employees have always been very nice and considerate. I have never felt any unease or strangeness even when I am the only gringo to be seen in the entire place (yes I know gringo is a derogatory term but it is so to only a few people). The cashier speedily scanned my stuff and had me ready to swipe my card in no time at all. The problem was the card swipe machine did not work right. She tried to convey to me what to do but my Spanish is limited to what I learned in High School and what I learned from a girl I used to date, no phrases that I learned were being used by this young lady.

I asked her in English if she could tell me what I needed to do and she just smiled, turned red in the face and shrugged her shoulders. She then held up a finger and ran off to the office. She came back with the store manager and they were both talking rapidly to each other. They stood in front of my talking, pointing at me and making all kinds of signs, I do believe that the Spanish language must consist of 30 percent hand signals.

After 4-5 minutes of these two in front of me and a growing line of impatient people behind of me the manager turn and looked me right in the eye and said with no accent "I do not speak English". Now, I am not sure if I wanted to laugh or rip him up, all of this talking to announce that he did not speak English. At that moment a very attractive Hispanic woman pushed her way past me and glared at the two and started doing the ripping for me. Every time they tried to respond she coldly told them "¡basta ya!".

This young woman from Columbia (how I found that out is another story that you probably will never hear)started telling me, the line behind me, the two in front of me, that "you came to the US to become Americans yet you do not even learn the language of America" she then ranted on in Spanish while everyone looked horrified at this amazingly strong and beautiful woman.

She then wanted to know what the problem was and the manager mumbled something and she looked at me and said that it was their fault and I could just take my groceries and leave. Now, I do not have to be pressured to take free food so I looked at the manager and he nodded at me and waived me on.

I really do love the different cultures available in the US but could not have agreed more with her. The ethnic background does not make a person an American but the language and broader culture are what ties us together. You do not need to know the language when you arrive but you do need to learn it before you become a manager at a large grocery store.

So now I have a new friend that is a fiery Latino that enjoys her roots but loves being an American even more.