WANT SOME DISCRIMINATION SERVED WITH THAT?

 

Hi it’s Ivonne again, ranting about restaurant life and the many facets of this necessary but often ignored thing called serving tables. Now when I started this job in the US, I became aware of the way people of color, mainly African American and Latinos; are viewed and treated in the restaurant industry.

Recently during February, which is considered African American History Month; I was watching PBS and educated myself into the many struggles and challenges that the American African American community has suffered and there was a program about a group of four college students who staged a sit down protest at a Woolworth store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 4, 1960. All were black college students from the local university when they politely entered the establishment and asked for service. They were told that blacks were not allowed and were asked to leave. They remained in their seats and their action of passive resistance against racial discrimination in the South ignited the movement of youth and black communities in what was the beginning of the civil rights movement.
Today the melting pot that is the United States has opened doors to people worldwide that and with it the realization of the American Dream, in which many immigrants have been able to open restaurants, coffee shops, delis, food franchises and specialty food shops that reflects their ethnic, cultural and historical heritage. American food is basically the inheritance of all countries of the world, Mexican tacos, Italian pizza, Greek chicken, German sausage, Indian curry, Chinese noodles, and the list goes on.
With this influx of cultures, the people serving and patronizing the shops became diverse and global, Hindu folks visiting Mexican restaurants, German folks eating Spanish tapas, you name it. I have worked as a server in Mexican, Italian, Greek and Jewish owned pancake houses, Colombian steak houses; I have met servers from Ukraine, Ethiopia, France, Mexico, Serbia, Spain and my costumers are Black, Latin, White, Jewish, Asian, Indian, Native American, and probably some aliens from outer space.
As a rule, all the cooks I have ever worked with are like me, Mexican, and like me they too patronize other restaurants and as such we all have good stories and bad ones about service and the way we are treated in restaurants.
I was once given the dirtiest look at a famous pie restaurant when I requested a different table by a white man, when I asked our lovely server that we wanted to complain about him to the manager, she shyly replied that HE was the manager and that sadly, he disliked Mexicans and was always driving them away or being rude to them when they ate there.
Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.
Another time I was ignored by the white female server while she laughed and chatted with an all white male group of firefighters, when I complained to the Greek owner, he told me to move tables.
Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.
A good friend of mine who is Mexican and Black said that she went to a restaurant and was completely ignored by the hostess, she then asked the server, then the manager and basically everybody pretended she did not exist and refused to serve her. She never went back and when I asked her if she sued, she said it was a waste of time.
Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.
A server I spoke to once who is Irish said that he went to a sports bar and the bartender who was white; not only did not serve him his drink, he made fun of his accent and told him that Irish are the dirt of Europe.
Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.
When I first started waiting tables in the eighties and at the height of the AIDS epidemic, a costumer made a scene in the restaurant and threatened to sue because his server, my coworker; was gay and thus, he had AIDS (his words, not mine) and therefore, he was going to be sick and the restaurant should not be hiring “These people”.  I will not forget how hard he cried and his sadness lasted for many years to come.
Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.
A close friend of mine witnessed the owner of a restaurant she went to often humiliate and denigrate his busboys and cooks, screaming at them to speak English and being rude to them, she complained about it to him and he said they had to learn English in order to work there. She complained about it on Yelp, Facebook and I heard the owner’s brother had to plea with her to take down her comments because of how it affected business. The restaurant has been closed since then.

Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.

When I first started waiting tables in the US, I let myself be brainwashed into the myth that we Latinos and our black cousins were bad tippers and difficult costumers. As time went by I learned from this mistake and decided to make my own mind and to simply treat costumers and coworkers with respect and patience. I learned that this myth is NOT TRUE, as I have not only received very good tips, but the loyalty of wonderful costumers who have given me more than money in my pocket, but a whole new view of the world in which I as a human being and as a person in the service industry have the obligation and right to treat and be treated with respect, patience and dignity in a public establishment and not be denied service, ignored, disrespected, humiliated and discriminated against based on the color of my skin, my ethnicity, my culture, my accent or my gender.
Restaurants should have sensitivity training and servers have to learn about the importance of being color blind and treating our customers with dignity, some  people are not good tippers, period, but this I have honestly learned have nothing to do with the color of their skin.
We Latinos have the thought, for example, that servers make minimum wage plus tips and therefore we make a lot of money, so a tip is a little extra because we think we are doing good money. Well I have educated all my family and friends about the details of our salaries and how tipping works and after this, all my family and friend tip accordingly because” Our daughter/sister/auntie/friend waits tables for a living and she told us how important good tipping is for servers.
On the other hand, I have taught them and everyone I know that if someone in a restaurant or any public service establishments refuses you service, ignores you, makes fun of you for your skin, accent, ethnicity, and downright discriminates against you, you have every right to sue them, complain in every social site about them and
Never went back there and bitched about them to everyone.

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Comment by Ivonne Canellada on June 13, 2012 at 9:32pm

Hi Brittanny and Polly, thank you soooo  much for sharing your comments, I really appreciatte you taking the time to read my blog, I am quite grateful, and Polly, hugs from Chicago to Portugal!

Comment by Polly on June 13, 2012 at 12:41am

and me again; :-)) in my very little corner of my city, here, lost in this small corner of Europe-oh, right, i´m talking about Lisbon, Portugal---i personnaly must say this kind of experiences and storys amazes me, and not in the good way; beeing descendent of amazonic indians, my skin colour is not obviously white caucasian tone, i´m almost white at the winter, kind of pale cinnamon,but at summer time, yyppeehhaayyey with my chocolate brown tone of skin; but even if i was or become purple with yellow and blue spots skin type, my jobs never were dependet of that kind of ítem, neither the way i was waited in other restaurantes or public services,and the only place that i felt i was treated with declareted discrimination for about my colour skin, i immediatly demanded to talk with the superior of that chief that i had by the time, and intended to sue the company; at this point, i can see the american and portuguese burocracy get along very well, it doesn´t worth sometimes, it´s a total waste of time, money, fisical and psicological resources! in our profession, at least here, in Portugal, you have a lot of troubles to make a point of view, whatever if it is about your competence, your skills, your ideias, ´cause of the jealous of the ones who are above of you, or even some coworkers, but rarely because of the skin colour or ancestry; i must say that the chief that i liked more to work untill now, was a cuban guy, named Lázaro, one of my best work partner was an ukrainian boy very funny and higly committed to the work, one of my biggest friend and coworker, also, was a angolan girl, the other was a portuguese from the higlands of portugal, all of this to say what--that usually the question of racism here in portugal is not totally wiped out, but it´s not a fundamment that we use constantly as an escuse to mistreat people, specially at the jobs; stupidity, jealous, invey, competence or incompetence, capacity to interact with the others, etc, yes, are reasons that are often used to keep an element or not in the team, but skin colour?.....so sad, really, i feel so disapointed when i read this comming from a country like america!! about the gay question, that is such from an ignorance and cruelty!! i know gay people, and honestly, as a costumer, what tha fuck do i care if the guy( or girl) wich is bringing my food to the table is straight or not?? where he/she like to give or take, it´s their problems, i don´t pay to know where they most like to take, i pay for food, quality, good service, good time with my company!! with all our modern knowledge, our teniques, our informatic era, our medicin and cience discovers, and wonders, etc, in comparison to some of the ancient historic people, so sad for us, that we actually are much more ignorant then they ever could´ve been! well, my mother used to say-get used girl, this is a wonderfull world, but it doesn´t come with instruction book to save him, neither justice is the god who rules him!

see you latter :-)                                                         Polly

Comment by Brittany Lauren Garcia on April 25, 2012 at 11:00pm

Never judge a book by its cover...that's for sure.

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