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The Fear of the Other
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Photo by Elmer G. Cato
Having grown up with immigrant parents and generally around a family who utilized English as a second language, I have a certain amount of empathy for people who are shunned at the work place because their grasp on the English language.
Recently, a Filipino immigrant has started at the place that I work at, much to the chagrin of my co-workers. Obviously, he’s having difficult communicating – both verbally and socially. I try my best to engage in small talk, using my passable Tagalog, but some other people I work with simply write him off.
I take this a bit personally since as a first generation Filipino-American, I’ve had to grow up in a society where people don’t really understand why my family (or Filipinos in general) do things like cook fish in the garage, play mahjong for days straight or feel try to get discounts from Filipino sales people (the answers to these: cooking fish in the garage keeps the smell of the food outside; gambling is fun; and a deal is a deal, especially in this economy).
I think the thing that irks me the most is that people assume that this gentleman is being difficult when it’s clear that there’s a cultural divide that they don’t really see because they are all suburban inhabitants whose broad spectrum of the racial palate is really black and/or white.
Learning the English language itself is a rather daunting task. How many times have you used the incorrect version of there, their or they’re? Personally, I have a lot of respect for this guy who is walking into a situation with a limited grasp of his surroundings and doing his best to get by. If only everyone took a risk like that, we’d all be better people.
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