In article >,
Terry Pulliam Burd > wrote:


> which was owned and operated by Hispanics. When my tile was delivered,
> my contractor was present, and I had a look at some of the tile just
> to make sure it was the right stuff. Very unhappily, about half the
> tiles had noticable stripes - two each - on them, which *wasn't* on
> the sample tile. I told the tile vendor that I was not paying for the
> striped ones and, although he ranted and raved that this was from the
> way they were dried - stacked - he admitted that the sample did not
> have stripes and agreed to replace the striped ones, which
> necessitated going through every single tile for about a 600 square
> foot room. While the vendor, his helper, my contractor and I were
> sorting through the tiles, he was muttering to his helper the entire
> time, calling me every name in the book. I just kept sorting. When he
> delivered the replacements, which I also sorted through, I told him
> (in Spanish) that he had better watch who he called names, b/c you
> just never know who speaks Spanish.


One of my daughter's best friends is Mexican. She studied some English
in Mexico, but the family moved to the US when she was fairly young.
Not only did she learn Spanish when young, but her parents speak only
Spanish, so she had no choice but to be bilingual.

So they go to a Mexican restaurant together. Now, my daughter is
obviously a gringo, with white skin and brown hair. Her friend,
however, has very black hair and dark skin. To my untrained eye, she
looks very Spanish. They spoke English at the restaurant, since my
daughter speaks very little Spanish. The staff start making cracks
about them in Spanish. The friend just ignores them. After they finish
and pay, and are walking out the door, the friend turns and unleashes a
torrent of Spanish at the staff. They are just dumbfounded.

--
Dan Abel

Petaluma, California, USA