Dealing with Diversity

In class, a lot of students told their accounts of having to deal with people who spoke a different language than them. With a growing minority of Spanish-Speaking people, I find that it is very difficult to figure out which language you are supposed to speak to them.

I work in a restaurant and in my experiences, many of the cooks and workers in the kitchen are Spanish-speaking. I have recently had one case in particular that was very confusing for me. When I first started working at my current restaurant, I was in the kitchen speaking with a cook in Spanish about how I studied Spanish in Spain for five weeks and have studied the language in school for many years. I got a promotion to a position that works directly with the cooks and food preparation. This position requires frequent communication with the cooks, all of which are Spanish-speaking. They also speak English, but as it is their second language, some speak it better than others. Just after I had gotten my new position, I was communicating in Spanish with the cook who was previously mentioned and he stopped me. "Do you speak English?" he asked me in English. I was dumbstruck for a second because obviously I speak English. I said yes and he replied "I do, too."

Apparently he did not like me talking to him in Spanish. Although he sometimes says things to me in Spanish now, and many of the other Spanish-Speaking employees talk to me in Spanish as well. It is confusing because I do not know which language I should speak to them in. Sometimes they do not understand when I say things in English, but catch on a lot quicker in Spanish. I do not want them to think that I am rude by speaking to them in Spanish, but I have studied the language for many years and lived with a woman who only speaks Spanish in Spain.

Some people, including some Spanish-speakers, think that because we are in America, everyone should know how to speak English. But in reality, this is not the case. Hopefully time will ease the awkwardness of these types of experiences.