Latinos Told to Change Their Names By Boss

Larry Whitten is a hotel owner. In fact he is known as a person that buys hotels that aren’t as successful and then turns them around.

Larry Whitten doesn’t want ethnic sounding names to be used when his employees are at work. He doesn’t want Spanish speaking people to speak Spanish in his presence, because he doesn’t understand Spanish and doesn’t want the workers to talk about him. As if they wouldn’t do that once he was gone.

He claims he is not a racist.

"I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I'm just doing what I've always done," he’s said in his defense.

This is just as it’s always been, is basically what he’s saying. I’ve done this everywhere I buy a hotel, it wasn’t till I bought this one that someone did something about it.

“I do feel he's a racist, but he's a racist out of ignorance. He doesn't know that what he's doing is wrong," says protester Juanito Burns Jr., one of the leaders of an activist group called Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mexico.

Latinos started a protest, after some of the employees that didn’t agree with his changes became angered by his unperceived racist policies.

In his defense, Whitten said that he was called a “white n*****” by the people that he fired.

I know quite a few derogatory terms in Spanish. I’ve had quite a few Latino friends over the course of my life. I don’t know the term that is equivalent to “white n*****”.

I do know “gringo” which is a term for Americans, and the term “guero” or “weddo”, which is more along the lines of “whitey” or “white trash”.

I’m assuming that after telling the Latino workers that their ethnic sounding names had to be changed, someone called him a “weddo”.

Whitten had told his employees that Martin, pronounced “mahr teen”, should be pronounced just regular old Martin and Marcos should be changed to Mark or Bill, you know something nice, something Anglo.

This did not fly well with the Latinos in this New Mexico community.

“His rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains,” reported Melanie Dabovich of the Associated Press, “where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history.”

"It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.

One out of every six people in the country is “Spanish” in America. If people know 10 people, they may know something about Latino culture. If they watch TV, they may know something about Latino culture.

Most probably, if you live in America, you know about Latino culture.

Perhaps the 63 year old should speak for him self. I don’t know too many people that don’t understand the name Martin and Marcos.

Martin Gutierrez says he felt disrespected when he was told to use the unaccented Martin as his name.

He said that he told Whitten Spanish was spoken in New Mexico before English.

Whitten’s reply was that he didn’t care, that this was his business and this is how he ran it.

"I don't have to change my name and language or heritage," Guiterrez says. "I'm professional the way I am."

Yes Martin, you are. And if Mr. Larry Whitten was as half as professional as you are he wouldn’t force these kinds of policies onto you.

Marcos Jeanette said that he refused to change the name on his tag and was told that he was being rude.

“I was asked to change my name to Mark or Bill. I was uncomfortable with that, so I just stayed with Marcos,” Jeanette explain to a local news station. “They said that I was rude and that I was unlawful, so they fired me.”

The AP reported, “After the firings, the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national civil rights group, sent Whitten a letter, raising concerns about treatment of Hispanic workers. Whitten says he sent them a letter and posted messages on the hotel marquee, alleging that the group referred to him with a racial slur. LULAC denied the charge.

Comments Whitten has made in interviews with local media include referring to the townsfolk as "mountain people" and "potheads who escaped society," further enflamed tensions.

Really Larry, you don’t think you’re a racist, just a businessman?

I hope one day I can be rich and force my employees to change their names to something that sounds ethnic.

Sorry all you Toms, it’s going to be Thomas (pronounced “thow maas”) now. William, you will now be called “Wahab”, Andrew to “Ahmed”, Mike to “Mohammed”.

Oh and stop speaking English around me, I like the way Spanish sounds better.

And Larry, we’re changing your name to Lorenzo.

Martin and Marcos have both gone on the record of saying that they would not work for Whitten again.

“Not me,” Martin said during the protest, “knowing it took this much to change, no.”

Marcos said “I don’t want to be working for someone like that.”