Rick Sanchez pwns his politically correct co-anchors

[DarrinS]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/10/26/cnns-sanchez-dissents-colleagues-pc-treatment-hotel-owner




CNN’s Rick Sanchez shocked his colleague Kyra Phillips on Monday’s Newsroom, after agreeing with a New Mexico hotel owner who had asked his Latino employee to use an unaccented version of his name: “My real name is Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Reinaldo. I don’t use it because I want to be respectful of this wonderful country that allowed us as Hispanics to come here, and I think it’s easier if someone’s able to understand me by Anglicizing my name.” Earlier, Phillips and HLN anchor Jane Velez-Mitchell berated the owner for his supposedly bigoted treatment of the employee.

Phillips and Velez-Mitchell interviewed Larry Whitten, the owner of Whitten Inn of Taos, New Mexico just after the bottom of the 2 pm Eastern hour. Whitten recently fired some Hispanic employees who wouldn’t conform to his guidelines, which included not speaking Spanish in his presence and asking those who operated the hotel switchboard to use Anglicized versions of their names. He is now being accused of racism by these former employees and by Hispanic organizations who have taken up their cause.

Velez-Mitchell took a hostile stance towards the hotel owner from the start. She gave the following introduction to Whitten: “My name’s Jane Velez-Mitchell. I hope you don’t mind if I keep using the word Velez in my name.” The HLN anchor pressed the owner on his conduct, and rolled her eyes as he tried to explain (see video above):

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL: Did you ask him to change his name and Anglicize his name? Did you ask anyone to Anglicize their name?

LARRY WHITTEN, HOTEL OWNER: Yes. I asked Martin [with accent] to change it to Martin-

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Why?

WHITTEN: To better understand it over the telephone, over the switchboard-

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You can’t understand Martin [with accent]? Do you know that the vast majority of people who live in this community where you have your hotel are Latinos? So, your customers are going to be, to a large extent, Latino. Now, how do you treat the customers when they come in? Do you ask them also to change their names? Like, if I came in, would Jane Velez-Mitchell, so that you better understand my name, would you ask me to change it?

WHITTEN: No, ma’am.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It’s ludicrous, sir-

WHITTEN: No, ma’am-

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It’s ludicrous what you did, and you should just apologize and said you made a mistake. (rolls her eyes as Whitten continues to answer)

WHITTEN: And we didn’t ask people in maintenance; we don’t ask them in housekeeping to change their names. I only ask people on my switchboard, as I have done for 40 years-

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I find-

WHITTEN: And again, I never intentionally changed anyone’s names to insult them, insult their heritage, insult their culture. It’s a matter of- I wanted Martin to get the recognition, who was a fine young man, I might add. We looked forward to him being one of our managers- if you want to know the real truth, he was an excellent fellow- and we wanted him to get the recognition over the switchboard, not [for someone to] say that some boy was good for me on the phone or did me a great service. We wanted his name to be recognizable. That name was proven not to be recognizable, and I wanted him to get the credit for his great service.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me say this, sir. All of these states that we’re talking about with all these stories- Texas, New Mexico- New Mexico [with emphasis]- California- they were all Mexico at one point, and that’s why when you look at the cities and the street names, most of them are in Spanish to begin with. Los Angeles was Pueblo de los Angeles, and that’s why if you look up and down California- for example, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, San Diego- if you look at the street names- La Cienaga, La Brea- everybody understands them. If I tell somebody I’m going to La Cienaga, they’re going to tell me- they’re not going to say I can’t understand what you're saying. So, the idea that you’re presupposing the people cannot understand Martin [with accent], but they can understand Martin, really says a lot more about you, sir, than it says about your customers or anybody else.

Phillips also preached political correctness to Whitten later in the interview. Velez-Mitchell concluded the segment by giving her version of a condescending psychoanalysis of the hotel owner:

KYRA PHILLIPS: Jane Velez-Mitchell has a show called ‘Issues’ on HLN, and she joins me on a segment on subject matter that get to both of us on many levels, and this one, I guess, disturbed us because we feel like, in many ways, you haven’t familiarized yourself with the town, with the culture, and I think Jane, you made that point very well. I think- you know, Larry, you’re a Marine, you’ve got a strong personality, you lay down the law on how you want to do things to run a business, but I think in this case, have you thought about maybe opening up your mind that these employees- that this is their part of the country where they feel comfortable, where everybody knows the language, understands the culture. Why not embrace them, get to know them and incorporate your ways of running a business, but respect who they are and their culture and that they were doing - they know how to do the job? Maybe embracing their names and their language and the people that they work with could make a much better situation for you, for them and for everybody in that area.

WHITTEN: Well, certainly, I agree with you. Taos [New Mexico] is very unique, more unique than anywhere I've ever been, I assure you of that- more beautiful than anywhere I’ve ever been as well. I wish I would have known more about the cultures. You know, I made some mistakes-

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Can I ask you a question, Larry?

WHITTEN: What I want you to, if you would, just understand- my switchboard is answered from people calling from North Carolina, South Carolina, and I can assure you, they don’t understand the culture here. They don’t understand- you know, they come from a different world, where I was raised- Virginia. We’re not accustomed to hearing- you know, if they were speaking Austrian- or German, I would have the same issue, that I want all my people on the switchboard to understand, not just- if it was all Spanish people coming here- if I went to Spain, do you think I would change anybody’s name? No, because everybody’s coming here from Spain. This was not intentional, Ms. Phillips.

PHILLIPS: But your assumption is that-

WHITTEN: It’s to help the hotel. I’m learning. You know, I’m going to make mistakes. I’m ready to- you know, correct what I can because I’ve got a lot of money invested here, and I want the city to understand that's what we’re here for- make a good hotel.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, my final thought is- and I don’t think this man is doing something that he thinks is wrong, obviously. He’s defending himself, and I have compassion for him, because ultimately, I think we need to take a 21st century look at this whole issue of discrimination, and to me, it’s a question of low self-esteem, not on the part of people who are being discriminated against, but on the part of the discriminators. If that’s the only way they can feel better about themselves, by saying that in some way they are superior because of an accident of birth, then I really have compassion for them, and I think they need to go in therapy and find out why they need to feel better than other people in that manner. You know, arrogance based on achievement, I can respect.

Seven minutes before the top of the 3 pm Eastern hour, Phillips brought on Sanchez, who immediately brought up her earlier segment with Whitten. The Caucasian anchor seemed genuinely surprised by her Hispanic colleague’s politically-incorrect take on the controversy:

SANCHEZ: You know that argument you were having with the hotel guy a little while ago?

PHILLIPS: Oh, Larry Whitten in Taos, New Mexico.

SANCHEZ: I agree with him.

PHILLIPS: You agree- okay, hold on a second. You agree with him that he should be able to fire people because they don't speak very good English-

SANCHEZ: No-

PHILLIPS: In addition to Anglicizing their names? Rick, what if someone said to you, ‘Rick Sanchez, your name, it doesn’t sound right, people won’t understand it. We’re going to change it to Rick Sanford. Let’s go now to Rick Sanford.’

SANCHEZ: My real name is Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Reinaldo. I don’t use it because I want to be respectful of this wonderful country that allowed us as Hispanics to come here, and I think it’s easier if someone’s able to understand me by Anglicizing my name, and all he said was-

PHILLIPS: But Sanchez isn’t Anglicizing your name!

SANCHEZ: Well, hold on, let me finish my point. When I was listening to the conversation, I heard him say- I don’t do that with all employees, only people who man the switchboard to make it easier for them to have conversations with prospective clients who are trying to call in. I- it didn’t sound to me like he was being unreasonable with that demand.

PHILLIPS: Rick! It’s Taos, New Mexico and he’s firing people because of their Spanish-English. And by the way, Sanchez, you haven’t Anglicized your name.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, I have. It’s Rick Sanchez.

PHILLIPS: Rick Sanchez!

SANCHEZ: My real name is Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Reinaldo, and I’m not going to go on the air and say, make people say, ‘Hi, you're watching the news on CNN with Ricardo Leon Sanchez de Reinaldo.’

PHILLIPS: But you speak Spanish. You speak Spanish on your show. You speak Spanish on your show. You’ve got a little picture thing where you play a little salsa music. I mean, you’ve got your culture in there. You’re identifying with the Latin culture.

SANCHEZ: Of course I do. I’m Latin. I couldn’t be prouder of being Latin. But I’m not going to let my being Latin get in the way of what is a respectful way of behaving when you’re in somebody else’s country. The culture of the United States is not Latin, and if you can Anglicize your name to make people in this country better understand you and to do business, then I don’t think it’s a bad idea, and that we need to be going- you know, that we need to be that critical. I mean- look, there's two sides to the story. It’s just- it’s one of those where I’m looking at it and I’m going, like- you know what? If you really think about it, it’s not a bad idea.

[DarrinS]

P.S. My last name is a permanently Anglicized version of my ancestors last name. This was a very common practice with newly arriving immigrants.

[Yonivore]

Kudos to Sanchez. A good point, well made.

[hope4dopes]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/10/26/cnns-sanchez-dissents-colleagues-pc-treatment-hotel-owner It's absolutely amazing, I live in one of the most ethniclly diverse places in the country if not in the world and I've never once seen an immigrant hispanic go to any trouble to pronounce or learn to pronounce common vietnamese, chinese,indian,german,ethiopian,swedish, austrian,russian,hebrew,cambodian,nepalese,tibetia n, mongolian,afgahini,or english names.
I have a friend from botswana whose name due to his tribes unique form of speech is near impossible to pronounce, in order to communicate with ease he simply says, "call me roy".It doesn't seem to diminish him as a person or as an african.

[Winehole23]

Would TV viewers and phone callers be completely thrown by the difference between Martin and Mar-teen, or that between Rick and Ricardo?

I wonder.

[hope4dopes]

guess there is a difference between hispanic americans, and hispanics living in America.

[Winehole23]

Spell it out, micca. What's the difference?

[PixelPusher]

LOL, "respect" my ass. You're the same assholes who get red-faced and yell louder and slower in English when you travel overseas.

[hope4dopes]

LOL, "respect" my ass. You're the same assholes who get red-faced and yell louder and slower in English when you travel overseas.Tell me have you learned the language of every nation you've visited.

[hope4dopes]

Spell it out, micca. What's the difference?keep up with the thread patron it's the difference we're discussing or don't you get the points being raised.

[Yonivore]

LOL, "respect" my ass. You're the same assholes who get red-faced and yell louder and slower in English when you travel overseas.
There's a difference between traveling to another country and taking up residence there.

[Winehole23]

keep up with the thread patron it's the difference we're discussing or don't you get the points being raised.I was keen to know your own take, which you alllude to, but apparently refuse to put in your own words.

Your streak of non- responsiveness to direct questions remains unbroken. :toast

[EmptyMan]

My Sicilian grandparents had their name anglosaxon'd. They didn't give a shit. They were in America.

[George Gervin's Afro]

So CNN is a good news channel... which is it? are they good or bad? biased or not?

[panic giraffe]

My Sicilian grandparents had their name anglosaxon'd. They didn't give a shit. They were in America.

exactly, they came here. most of latino's, chicano's, pocho's, hispanic's(cringes) here in the southwest were here long before this was the US. not that we aren't proud American's (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_Americans_in_World_War_II) just that we didn't come from anywhere to be accepted here. we were here. that would be like halliburton Anglicizing Iraqi names just to open up a business there. Obviously the hotel guy doesn't think too much about the intelligence level of his customer base. Hell, they probably go to new mexico to absorb the culture, not get the mcdonalds version of it. sanchez is entitled to his own view of his own name just as we all are with our own, personally though, if i was in the media or had a major paycheck banking on it, i would take my white stepdads name just to fit in (like that white chick who after like 20 years added her husbands last name to run for mayor of SA), so i can see where he's coming from...

[101A]

I've got a buddy; lives in New Mexico; pure white bread; "Latinized" his name for him and all his family when he moved into the state.

All his kids got great scholarships to college.

True Story.

[panic giraffe]

I've got a buddy; lives in New Mexico; pure white bread; "Latinized" his name for him and all his family when he moved into the state.

All his kids got great scholarships to college.

True Story.

exactly. whatever helps...
although i call shenanigans on this one...been quite sometime since i finished high school and went off to college, but i definitely don't remember any scholarships based solely on a spanish surname. maybe merit or major specific, but supposed "affirmative action" based scholarships are the biggest crock of xenophobic shit ever...i applied for everything i qualified for, none were based on race/ethnicity, some existed because i was from poor area (echewood represent!) but none based on name alone. i could maybe see that happening in a place where i would be a true minority, but not south texas or new mexico for that matter.

[101A]

exactly. whatever helps...
although i call shenanigans on this one...been quite sometime since i finished high school and went off to college, but i definitely don't remember any scholarships based solely on a spanish surname. maybe merit or major specific, but supposed "affirmative action" based scholarships are the biggest crock of xenophobic shit ever...i applied for everything i qualified for, none were based on race/ethnicity, some existed because i was from poor area (echewood represent!) but none based on name alone. i could maybe see that happening in a place where i would be a true minority, but not south texas or new mexico for that matter.

Was a small, liberal arts school here in Texas; in house scholarships. Dude does O.K., but don't know how he afforded that for two children. Maybe you're right, and it didn't work out like he planned; but he's so deep he just had to pony up so those of us who knew him before/after wouldn't give him even more hell.

BTW: Old name = Martin
New = Martinez

[spursncowboys]

exactly. whatever helps...
although i call shenanigans on this one...been quite sometime since i finished high school and went off to college, but i definitely don't remember any scholarships based solely on a spanish surname. maybe merit or major specific, but supposed "affirmative action" based scholarships are the biggest crock of xenophobic shit ever...i applied for everything i qualified for, none were based on race/ethnicity, some existed because i was from poor area (echewood represent!) but none based on name alone. i could maybe see that happening in a place where i would be a true minority, but not south texas or new mexico for that matter.

Residents of N. Mexico get free college, regardless of your surname.

[doobs]

http://www.empireonline.com/images/features/police-academy/andrew-rubin.jpg

[Winehole23]

Who's that?

[doobs]

Who's that?

George Martin, from Police Academy.

[Winehole23]

Thx.

[panic giraffe]

Residents of N. Mexico get free college, regardless of your surname.

so doesn't that prove me right?

is that true? if so then my parents had me in the wrong state, student loans are a mofo.....

any proof to that? i couldn't find anything online...

[hope4dopes]

exactly, they came here. most of latino's, chicano's, pocho's, hispanic's(cringes) here in the southwest were here long before this was the US. not that we aren't proud American's (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_Americans_in_World_War_II) just that we didn't come from anywhere to be accepted here. we were here. that would be like halliburton Anglicizing Iraqi names just to open up a business there. Obviously the hotel guy doesn't think too much about the intelligence level of his customer base. Hell, they probably go to new mexico to absorb the culture, not get the mcdonalds version of it. sanchez is entitled to his own view of his own name just as we all are with our own, personally though, if i was in the media or had a major paycheck banking on it, i would take my white stepdads name just to fit in (like that white chick who after like 20 years added her husbands last name to run for mayor of SA), so i can see where he's coming from... That's absolute bull shit most of the chicanos in the southwest are not decendants of the hidalgos who settled in the southwest. Mexico had a very tough time trying to get people to settle in the north it was dangerous and Mexico expended little to no help to them, due to the fact they had enough problems of their own in Mexico proper. most chicanos famlies immigrated after the U.S. took possesion of those lands.Fucking Texas was a no mans land because of the commanche.

[Marcus Bryant]

I've never understood why conservatives devote such time to such matters. If an individual wants to go by a certain name, what's the issue? I have no problem with an employer requiring that an employee speak a certain language when interacting with customers.

Insisting on 'Americanizing' one's self is nothing new in this country. The amusing thing is that the origins of that could reasonably be placed on the "socialist" side of the political spectrum. Ever wonder why public school children have to recite the Pledge while paying homage to the national flag at the start of every school day? Or where the obsession with English as the only language got its start? That was so this nation could unite as one great militarist machine and dispatch with the old traditions and loyalties those dirty wops and kraut children might have brought with them to the New World.

I know my own Kraut forbears had their loyalties questioned repeatedly in this country, particularly during the First World War and again during the Second, which was a full century after their family had first made it here. I do wonder how much opinions would change of certain posters if the employees were Saxons and the language German.

While, yes, in theory, an employer should be free to make such stupid demands, and employees should be free to tell their employer how stupid they are and leave, as a political cause this is rather stupid, and a way that conservatives will manage to squander the grand political opportunity before them with the current majority party in increasing disfavor with the populace.

[Winehole23]

most chicanos famlies immigrated after the U.S. took possesion of those landsNew Mexico is sort of a special case, micca. Something like a third of the people who live there claim descendence from the original Hispanic settlers, and 83% of Hispanics there are native born according to the wiki.

Post WWII, New Mexico has been inundated with Anglos, not Mexicans.

[Ignignokt]

Anglicizng your name is freakin faggotty. Up yours if you can't accept an authentic name. I'm American, but i have a culture within a culture. And I'm not Latino or Hispanic, that's for the twat like mexican's who live in SoCal and celebrate Cinco de Mayo by ordering the Shiner Bock marinated fajitas at Serranos and listen to Carlos Santana. Nothing but puro Conjunto and Chuletas cabron!

Puro Mexicano buey!

[doobs]

I've never understood why conservatives devote such time to such matters. If an individual wants to go by a certain name, what's the issue? I have no problem with an employer requiring that an employee speak a certain language when interacting with customers.

Insisting on 'Americanizing' one's self is nothing new in this country. The amusing thing is that the origins of that could reasonably be placed on the "socialist" side of the political spectrum. Ever wonder why public school children have to recite the Pledge while paying homage to the national flag at the start of every school day? Or where the obsession with English as the only language got its start? That was so this nation could unite as one great militarist machine and dispatch with the old traditions and loyalties those dirty wops and kraut children might have brought with them to the New World.

I know my own Kraut forbears had their loyalties questioned repeatedly in this country, particularly during the First World War and again during the Second, which was a full century after their family had first made it here. I do wonder how much opinions would change of certain posters if the employees were Saxons and the language German.

While, yes, in theory, an employer should be free to make such stupid demands, and employees should be free to tell their employer how stupid they are and leave, as a political cause this is rather stupid, and a way that conservatives will manage to squander the grand political opportunity before them with the current majority party in increasing disfavor with the populace.

I agree that conservatives shouldn't really care about this, but it's the liberals who are making hay of this. DarrinS---and by extension, me---would never have heard of this if CNN hadn't made a story of it. (Or was this a big story reported elsewhere? Regardless, the CNN soapbox was in full effect.)

Anyway, I get a little annoyed when Hispanics over-pronounce their names . . . particularly those Hispanics who can barely speak any Spanish and whose families have been here forever. It seems so phony.

Fair or not, Anglo culture is the dominant culture in this country. Without speaking English and understanding Anglo culture, one's opportunities are extremely limited. In most contexts, IMO, people risk marginalizing themselves when they cling too tightly onto their Hispanic cultural identity. It's kind of like when black people name their children Shabaz'Quan.

But whatever. It's their life. Just like it's this guy's life if he ends up alienating his workers by making them Anglicize their names.

[panic giraffe]

That's absolute bull shit most of the chicanos in the southwest are not decendants of the hidalgos who settled in the southwest. Mexico had a very tough time trying to get people to settle in the north it was dangerous and Mexico expended little to no help to them, due to the fact they had enough problems of their own in Mexico proper. most chicanos famlies immigrated after the U.S. took possesion of those lands.Fucking Texas was a no mans land because of the commanche.

how does that explain me and my family, my ancestors were at the alamo, we weren't the only ones either, someone had to kill davy crockett. mexico may have had a tough time w/east and north texas but not south which was always a vibrant part of the state of Coahuila y Tejas (infact the texas administrative district was named Bexar, as in Bexar county, as in san anfuckingtonio, as in shut the fuck up if you don't know the history of this state) north was all indian battle grounds, and east was a french swamp til white slave owners kept moving westward and didn't want to pay their mexican taxes, so they started a war. i'm not going to lie, there are alot of decendents of mexican nationals here in texas, but don't call them chicano. originally chicano and pocho were derogatory terms used by the ones kept south of were guadelupe hidalgo left them to us northerners cause we mixed with the cowboy culture (tex-mex food, tejano, speaking fucking english or a butchered form of it anyways) and those terms weren't used for good til the 60's when activist decided to retake the word. so either you're in north texas or you don't know how to read a book.

[hope4dopes]

New Mexico is sort of a special case, micca. Something like a third of the people who live there claim descendence from the original Hispanic settlers, and 83% of Hispanics there are native born according to the wiki.

Post WWII, New Mexico has been inundated with Anglos, not Mexicans.well that depends on your perspective, if you go the pueblos they'll tell you they been inudated by hispanics.So do we go the upper mid west and use scandanavian accents and inflections, do we go to pennsalvaynia and use german and dutch accents and inflections with their names, do we go to south boston and use gaelic accents and inflections, do we go to lousiana and use proper french accents and inflections.....no we don't.
Hell even in New Mexico chicano don't use proper spainish accents or inflections most of the time.And I'll tell you navajos, zunis ,tewas,apache, almost always have a christian first name,a practice brought to them by ........the Chicanos of New Mexico.

[hope4dopes]

how does that explain me and my family, my ancestors were at the alamo, we weren't the only ones either, someone had to kill davy crockett. mexico may have had a tough time w/east and north texas but not south which was always a vibrant part of the state of Coahuila y Tejas (infact the texas administrative district was named Bexar, as in Bexar county, as in san anfuckingtonio, as in shut the fuck up if you don't know the history of this state) north was all indian battle grounds, and east was a french swamp til white slave owners kept moving westward and didn't want to pay their mexican taxes, so they started a war. i'm not going to lie, there are alot of decendents of mexican nationals here in texas, but don't call them chicano. originally chicano and pocho were derogatory terms used by the ones kept south of were guadelupe hidalgo left them to us northerners cause we mixed with the cowboy culture (tex-mex food, tejano, speaking fucking english or a butchered form of it anyways) and those terms weren't used for good til the 60's when activist decided to retake the word. so either you're in north texas or you don't know how to read a book. Yeah so what, the fact remains that Mexico was the New World it was the edge of the empire. texas new mexico arizona california colorado were off the map. they couldn't even get enough priests to minister to the people of northeren new mexico. Mexico even told the people living in Sonora and Chiuahuahua that they lived there at there own risk that the federal goverment was not going to spend the money or man power on protecting them from the yaqui and the apache.Much less New Mexico and Texas and Arizona.Hell the Pueblos a group of peacefull farmers who were constantly being robbed by the Navajo and apache were able to form an uprising and kick the Hispanics out of New Mexico, Nobody in Mexico got real excited about it, I don't think anybody bothered going back into the New Mexico for like 7 years.Until the price of apache slave got good again I guess.New Mexico and Texas were nothing but a buffer zone of expendables between Mexico and the french of Louisiana.Damn few Mexicans were willing to go north...what for.And by the way the commanche raided pretty fucking far south into texas and controled it.

[panic giraffe]

And by the way the commanche raided pretty fucking far south into texas and controled it.

which is what led to the missions being created, protect, preach and enslave the peaceful natives down here in the south. also w/the lack of priest up here, most jewish-catholic converts got left alone, monterrey, etc, which is how a former jewish fam like mine were able to get a land grant around what is now brauning lake...but anyways, back to the subject at hand, could care less if ricardo goes by rick for a paycheck, i would do the same.

[hope4dopes]

which is what led to the missions being created, protect, preach and enslave the peaceful natives down here in the south. also w/the lack of priest up here, most jewish-catholic converts got left alone, monterrey, etc, which is how a former jewish fam like mine were able to get a land grant around what is now brauning lake...but anyways, back to the subject at hand, could care less if ricardo goes by rick for a paycheck, i would do the same.There ain't no Jews in Northeren New Mexico I'll tell you that ,but I read about how alot of jews joined the conquistadores to escape spain very interesting, I gotta say I've never run across any in N.M. or Arizona, although to be honest in N.M. catholicisim is or was VERY hard core, much more intense than in the rest of the southwest.where is echewood

[Winehole23]

well that depends on your perspective, if you go the pueblos they'll tell you they been inudated by hispanics.This was the only part of your response that was responsive. It doesn't contradict anything I said. Instead it's historically parallel, and as such, reinforces what I said in my post, if obliquely. So thanks for the sideways acknowledgement. :tu


Hell even in New Mexico chicano don't use proper spainish accents or inflections most of the time.North of Panama there ain't much Castellano. Your point?

[Winehole23]

There ain't no Jews in Northeren New Mexico I'll tell you that ,but I read about how alot of jews joined the conquistadores to escape spain very interesting, I gotta say I've never run across any in N.M. or Arizona, although to be honest in N.M. catholicisim is or was VERY hard core, much more intense than in the rest of the southwest.where is echewood
There ain't no Jews in Northeren New Mexico I'll tell you that ,but I read about how alot of jews joined the conquistadores to escape spain very interesting, I gotta say I've never run across any in N.M. or Arizona, although to be honest in N.M. catholicisim is or was VERY hard core, much more intense than in the rest of the southwest.where is echewoodThe crypto-judaism debate is interesting, and came to me anecdotally while I was in college.

Survivals from the Conquista seem unlikely (though not impossible.) I do wonder how many Jews who settled in Mexico in the 19th century hispanized and converted, and subsequently came to the US. My own Jewish ancestors did not.


in the late 1800s, a number of German Jews settled in Mexico as a result of invitations from Maximilian I of Mexico, followed by a huge wave of Ashkenazic Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. A second large wave of immigration occurred as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, leading many Sephardic Jews from Turkey, Morocco, and parts of France to flee.

I thought this was an informative article on the Crypto-Jews in NM hypothesis: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SOR/is_1_63/ai_84396056/pg_4/?tag=content;col1

Intriguing (http://www.answers.com/topic/crypto-judaism#Current_times) but far from dispositive:


Recent genetic research, however, has shown that many Latinos of the American Southwest may be descended from Anusim (http://www.answers.com/topic/anusim) (Sephardic Jews who converted to Roman Catholicism). Michael Hammer, a research professor at the University of Arizona and an expert on Jewish genetics, said that fewer than 1% of non-Semites, but more than four times the entire Jewish population of the world, possessed the male-specific "Cohanim marker (http://www.answers.com/topic/y-chromosomal-aaron)" (which in itself is not necessarily endemic to all Jews, but is prevalent among Jews claiming descent from hereditary priests), and 30 of 78 Latinos tested in New Mexico (http://www.answers.com/topic/new-mexico) (38.5%) were found to be carriers. DNA testing of Hispanic populations also revealed between 10% and 15% of men living in New Mexico, south Texas (http://www.answers.com/topic/texas) and northern Mexico (http://www.answers.com/topic/mexico-country-north-america) have a Y chromosome (http://www.answers.com/topic/y-chromosome) that traces back to the Middle East.[13] (http://www.answers.com/topic/crypto-judaism#cite_note-12)


In addition to these communities, other now Catholic-professing communities descendants of Crypto-Jews are also said to exist in Cuba (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Cuba), the State of Nuevo León (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Nuevo_Le%F3n) in northern Mexico, and amidst the populations of various other Spanish-speaking countries of South America (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/South_America) (Argentina (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Argentina), Venezuela (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Venezuela), Chile (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Chile) and Ecuador (http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/Ecuador)). From these communities comes the proverb, "Catholic by faith, Jewish by blood".



All the above localities were former territories of either the Spanish or Portuguese Empires, where the Inquisition eventually followed and continued persecuting the Jews who had settled there, and where it endured for longer than it had in Spain herself.


http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/sefard5.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/12/ferry2.htm

http://www.houstonpress.com/2005-04-14/news/who-s-your-daddy/

[Obstructed_View]

I agree that conservatives shouldn't really care about this, but it's the liberals who are making hay of this. DarrinS---and by extension, me---would never have heard of this if CNN hadn't made a story of it. (Or was this a big story reported elsewhere? Regardless, the CNN soapbox was in full effect.)

Anyway, I get a little annoyed when Hispanics over-pronounce their names . . . particularly those Hispanics who can barely speak any Spanish and whose families have been here forever. It seems so phony.

Fair or not, Anglo culture is the dominant culture in this country. Without speaking English and understanding Anglo culture, one's opportunities are extremely limited. In most contexts, IMO, people risk marginalizing themselves when they cling too tightly onto their Hispanic cultural identity. It's kind of like when black people name their children Shabaz'Quan.

But whatever. It's their life. Just like it's this guy's life if he ends up alienating his workers by making them Anglicize their names.

If your paying customer is going to remember a guy named "Johnny" and can't remember "Juan" it seems like simple good business. If you had Spanish speaking tourists and had trouble with the names you could go the other way, and would never expect people to refuse. Keeping track of names in another language is difficult, and those of us in Texas and New Mexico might tend to take that for granted since there's so much of a Spanish-speaking culture around us all the time. Regardless, it's very much in the tradition of the melting pot to change your name, and I'm not sure how it's suddenly racist or selling out to simply go by a name that's easier for your customers to understand.

I don't always agree with Rick's opinions, but I think he's right on with this. None of these people are pretending to be someone they aren't, and he's certainly not the first television personality to use a different name on the air.

Playing devil's advocate, I wonder what he would have said if CNN had been the first ones to tell him he had to go by "Rick" when they offered him the job.

[hope4dopes]

This was the only part of your response that was responsive. It doesn't contradict anything I said. Instead it's historically parallel, and as such, reinforces what I said in my post, if obliquely. So thanks for the sideways acknowledgement. :tu

North of Panama there ain't much Castellano. Your point? Yeah well that's not what I'm talking about maybe you should visit instead of reading about it on "wiki"

[Winehole23]

I've been to New Mexico and to Mexico, many times.

[Winehole23]

What was your point again? Your post was unclear.

[panic giraffe]

There ain't no Jews in Northeren New Mexico I'll tell you that ,but I read about how alot of jews joined the conquistadores to escape spain very interesting, I gotta say I've never run across any in N.M. or Arizona, although to be honest in N.M. catholicisim is or was VERY hard core, much more intense than in the rest of the southwest.where is echewood

also from wiki so think of it what you will:

Monterrey’s founders were crypto-jewish conversos who represented the first European settlers in the vast, hostile, Amerindian territories, initially called Nuevo Leon by the new settlers. The most famous of these crypto-Jews who inhabited Monterrey is Luis de Carvajal y de el mozo; who along with his family was burned at the stake for practicing Judaism. He was the nephew of the Spanish founder of Monterrey. His memoirs suggest that, at the time, the majority of Spanish settlers in Monterrey were of Jewish descent.
The early twentieth century saw the arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. There is a small organized Jewish community numbering less that a thousand with a community center that is the center of Jewish life which houses the only synagogue, day school, and sports facilities. Although the synagogue is Modern Orthodox, most of the families adhere to a lifestyle most similar to that of the Conservative movement. The community has remained relatively stable in its numbers with a low degree of assimilation.
[edit]Conversos

There are also some Mexicans who consider themselves descendants of Conversos, Jews who converted to Catholicism to escape the Inquisition, but retained some Jewish heritage (like lighting candles on Friday nights). For example, the famous painter and Converso descendant Diego Rivera wrote in 1935, "Jewishness is the dominant element in my life. From this has come my sympathy with the downtrodden masses which motivates all my work."


although i think its sad that we're so off topic now and i have to explain my own ethnicity to a stranger, but whatever. echewood is just a joke way of saying edgewood, its a extremely poor district just west of downtown sa, its main claim to fame is the whole "robin hood" law for texas school districts.

it would be funny is sanchez was told or "convinced" to whiten up his name by cnn...are there any video/audio clips of him pre-cnn when he was doing news in florida, running over people?

[Winehole23]

it would be funny is sanchez was told or "convinced" to whiten up his name by cnn...are there any video/audio clips of him pre-cnn when he was doing news in florida, running over people?

It would seem not.TKL199N65ac

[panic giraffe]

damn, homeboy was just a coconut for coconutty sake...

well he looks like a frat boy instead of a MEChAista anyways...

whatever pushes that benz i guess...

[doobs]

Who knew he had a dark side?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Sanchez


On December 10, 1990, Sanchez, drunk, struck a pedestrian, Jeffrey Smuzinick, with his car on a residential street near Dolphin Stadium after Smuzinick darted into the road. Smuzinick was paralyzed and eventually died in an assisted living facility in 1995. Sanchez, who had just left an NFL football game with his father (and left the scene of the accident), was not charged with causing the accident, but was charged with and pleaded no contest to DUI.


Although he initially thrived at WSVN, Sanchez originally left the station when it was discovered that 1985 wiretaps recorded him trading favors with Alberto San Pedro, a self-proclaimed political fixer described by police as "a major corrupter in Hialeah" and who following a federal grand jury indictment for bribery of a federal public official and conspiracy to commit bribery, pled guilty to the conspiracy charge.

[hope4dopes]

I've been to New Mexico and to Mexico, many times. yeah where bouts santa fe taos

[Winehole23]

Santa Fe, Carlsbad, White Sands, Valley of Fires, Albuquerque, Ruidoso, Bandelier, Tesuque, Acoma...all over the place really.

I've never been to Taos. Hear it's nice though.

[hope4dopes]

Santa Fe, Carlsbad, White Sands, Valley of Fires, Albuquerque, Ruidoso, Bandelier, Tesuque, Acoma...all over the place really.

I've never been to Taos. Hear it's nice though.I was born and raised in northeren New Mexico

[hope4dopes]

damn, homeboy was just a coconut for coconutty sake...

well he looks like a frat boy instead of a MEChAista anyways...

whatever pushes that benz i guess... coconut that's funny because most of the Hidalgos I grew up with in New Mexico have fairer skin than I do.

[Winehole23]

New Mexico is a tough, tough place in the world, but damn beautiful.

[hope4dopes]

New Mexico is a tough, tough place in the world, but damn beautiful.yeah, it is tough. and it's beautifull.