This past weekend, I went out for breakfast to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) with my two friends who are both Hispanic. I am not. After about a 15 minute wait, we were finally shown to a table, and within a few seconds, our waiter approached. Without skipping a beat, he looked directly at my two friends who were sitting opposite to me, and said:
¿Qué desea tomar?
I looked up from my menu as did my friends, a bit shocked. The two proceeded to order coffee and juice, and knowing some Spanish myself, as he started to ask my friends what I wanted, I ordered a water for myself in Spanish. When the waiter left, the two said to me that they were surprised that the waiter was speaking Spanish, and upon looking around the restaurant, we could see that probably 80% of the tables were made up of Hispanics, and all the waitstaff were also Hispanic save for 3 employees despite the neighborhood we were in being about 90% white.
I asked my friends if they were actually offended that the waiter had essentially assumed that they spoke Spanish as he had not said a word in English. The two told me, it largely depends on who is doing the assuming. They said most Hispanics do tend to assume other Hispanics speak Spanish, but when it's like someone approaching them who is of a different race more or less assuming that they can't speak any English, it can become a problem.
My issue with our dining situation was until the waiter realized that I knew some Spanish, he only looked at and spoke to my friends directly as if I wasn't even in the same booth. The same went for the manager who sat us down, and the hostess at the front when we checked in. This is what a lot of people of any race/culture do when someone else does not speak the language and it's off putting in any situation.
I've been learning Spanish for a while now, so I used the opportunity to practice, but just completely ignoring someone or making assumptions about them in this manner, is wrong no matter the culture or language. As it turns out, our waiter ended up explaining to us, in Spanish of course, that he was being told to speak Spanish by his manager. When we were talking about all this in between our drinks and our order, we all pointed out that we could hear more on an American accent in his Spanish. My friends actually pointed out that I had a better accent than he had. The waiter did turn out to be really friendly though, aside from the initial rudeness, and was very complimentary of my Spanish, but if I didn't speak some of the language, I wonder if our interactions would have been the same.
These are those horrible situations I hear about on the news, where people go crazy and start screaming about how in America, we speak English, but looking around, America is truly a melting pot of all different races and cultures, and like many other countries, there can be more than one language spoken. I think it's a good thing that a restaurant can cater to their patrons, but that should not mean ignoring the few entirely to cater to the masses and language aside, it's also just not good service to ignore someone at a table who also needs to order food and drink and may be the one actually footing the bill and providing the tip, which I was.
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
1Opinion
I don't think he was rude. Most of the time if someone doesn't speak English well they get ignored and the person taking the order pays the most attention to the one who speaks English. It's not a personal attack against you. That's just how people are.
Well maybe the rudeness was wrong from them but I think sometimes when Is a mostly Latinos restaurant in a white zone you feel more comfortable to speak Spanish so if they talk to you in our language you fee more comfortable and “at home” so you keep coming back that’s why you see lots of latinos in the place plus we like to get down on some pancakes con huevos rancheros. And hun we are Latinos we are like roaches we are everywhere baby!!
I would avoid the place from now on.