Stupid nativist or clever marketing?

[nancylebov]

Not far from where I live Geno's Cheesesteaks has a sign that says "This is AMERICA. When ordering, 'SPEAK ENGLISH'."*

Geno says he's never turned anyone away for not speaking English, but I don't know if he's got any staff who can understand other languages.

In any case, how likely is he to get a customer who can read English but not speak it?

*At least one news story and Wikipedia misquote the sign as saying "please speak English". I've corrected Wikipedia. Let's see if it sticks.

Addendum: I don't know how to check the Hispanic press and blogosphere to see how the sign has gone over among Hispanics. I will note that there's Pat's, another cheesesteak place, across the street, and they're both about equally busy.

Added Addendum: It turns out that the sign really does say "Please speak English", as agrumer points out--it's just that the "please" is rather hard to see. The Wikipedia article had already been changed back by the time I checked on it.

Comments

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Remember that Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Aurally Comprehending are 4 different skills. Most limited-speaking Latinos i know can read more than they can speak, and understand aurally more than they speak.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I can read French much better than I can understand spoken French, but I thought it was because French is an especially smudgey sounding language with lots of useful but silent letters and I don't have spectacularly good hearing.

Actually, French is an especially smudgey language--they have transcription contests the way we have spelling bees.

[madfilkentist]

The sign is rude, but people have a right to be rude. They also have a right not to know other languages. This is one more case of power-crazy government officials trying to order people around.

An official is quoted as saying: "Individuals who operate in a place of public accommodation cannot post signage or express messages that might have the resulting affect of making any group, any ethnicity, and any national origin person feel unwelcome." This is a claim to be the Thought Police. The question of whether something MIGHT make someone FEEL unwelcome is completely subjective. A sign saying "ham sandwich" might make Orthodox Jews feel unwelcome. A sign saying "kosher food" might make Muslims feel unwelcome.

Such attempts to control what people can say, think, and feel are called "liberalism." How the language has changed.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I was mostly using this as a chance to snark about whether the sign would reach its apparent intended audience, and I may even have been unreasonable about that.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

A sign saying "kosher food" might make Muslims feel that they have a better chance of getting halal food.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

When we were in graduate school in Berkeley, a number of Muslims bought meat from our kosher butcher for just that reason.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

One measure of how very rude that sign is is that people have trouble quoting it without adding "please".

[avram]

No, this is not a claim to be the Thought Police. I just reread Nineteen Eighty-Four a few months ago. The Thought Police didn't haul people off for putting up signs that might make certain ethnicities feel bad. The Thought Police watched your actions and facial expressions at all times, looking for any twitch that made you look disloyal to the state. We are living in a time of Thought Police, but we call them "Behavior Detection Officers".

I didn't see the word "liberalism" used in that news story Nancy linked to, so I have no idea whether Philadelphia's policy is actually called liberalism, or if this is just something you're making up. Still, yes, racial and ethnic and religious egalitarianism are liberal impulses. It wasn't liberals who used to deny blacks service in the old South.

And, as others have pointed out, Muslims would more likely feel more welcome when seeing a sign advertising kosher food. In regions where halal food isn't readily available, Muslims seek out kosher food, because kashrut standards include all the standards for halal. And while a sign advertising ham sandwiches might signal to Orthodox jews that they won't find something to eat here, it's a legitimate advertisement of a product or service being offered. It's not in the same class is a sign saying "This is a Christian nation, take off your hat when you come in" posted in a neighborhood with lots of skullcap-wearing Jews.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Maybe he should get an English name...

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

People like that bring out a malicious streak in me. I picture a steady flow of would-be customers: someone from deep in the Outback, someone from inner-city Manchester, someone versed in Chaucer...

[ckd]

Better yet, have someone order in Cherokee. What's Cherokee for "we were here first, idiot"?

[supergee.livejournal.com]

It's like EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS in the customers' restroom. It gets a message to the customers without addressing its supposed audience.

[gildedacorn.livejournal.com]

When I was a student, I regularly met foreign students who could read English a whole lot better than they could speak it. This is because they had to pass stiff written examinations in English but as far as speaking it, they were on their own.

(And I also could read French better than I could speak it even then, let alone now.)

[avram]

Nancy, if you look closely at the sign, it does say "Please" in a hard-to-read scripty font that blends into the flag and eagle's feathers. I missed it at first, too.

[cellio]

Comprehension is easier than generation, and I've met many people for whom written forms were easier than spoken forms. (It makes sense; you can sit and stare at a text while figuring it out, but speech is just gone unless you have a good memory.)

Private business owners should be free to serve, or decline to serve, anyone they want for any reasons they want, sound or bigoted. That's not the law in the US, alas, but I think he's still on safe ground in this case.

[enegim.livejournal.com]

Geno says he's never turned anyone away for not speaking English, but I don't know if he's got any staff who can understand other languages.

I've been to Geno's. I'd be quite surprised if he didn't have staff who understand and speak Italian. (And I'd be really surprised if an Italian-speaking customer were harassed over language.)

[k-period.livejournal.com]

I took a cab in Boise, ID a while ago on a business trip, and the driver gave me a card as a receipt. It said "We speak English."

Now, there's something to be said for the difficulty in cab drivers that don't (NYC can be a multicultural experience), but it still struck me as... boldly jingoesque.