White, and in the minority

[WhiteTara]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/30/feature/majority-minority-white-workers-at-this-pennsylvania-chicken-plant-now-struggle-to-fit-in/?utm_term=.e54db8a5d9a7&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

FREDERICKSBURG, Pa. — It was minutes before the end of the first shift, and the beginning of the second, and the hallways at the chicken plant swarmed with workers coming and going. One pulled a hairnet over her curly hair, giggling at a joke. Two others exchanged kisses on the cheek. A woman with a black ponytail hugged everyone within reach. And a thin, ashen woman, whom no one greeted or even seemed to notice, suddenly smiled.

There he was. Standing near the lockers. Tall and crew-cut. Her boyfriend.

snip

They didn’t know the heavy burden of discrimination familiar to members of historically oppressed minority groups, including biased policing and unequal access to jobs and housing. But some of the everyday experiences that have long challenged millions of black, Latino and immigrant Americans — the struggle to understand and be understood, feeling unseen, fear of rapid judgments — were beginning to challenge them, too.

snipp

Studies have shown how some whites, who are dying faster than they’re being born in 26 states, react when they become aware of a tectonic demographic shift that will, with little historic precedent, reconfigure the racial and ethnic geography of an entire country. They swing to the right, either becoming conservative for the first time, or increasingly conservative — “politically activated,” explained Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard University, who among others found that white Democrats voted for Trump in higher numbers in places where the Latino population had recently grown the most.

snip

She could handle the monotony. She could deal with standing under the vents, which cooled the production floor to 40 degrees. She could even tolerate the mess. The day chicken juice got all over her hair and face, the thing that had been intolerable had not been the smell or the taste, but that she didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.

snip

“It’s already open,” her father replied, and she started thinking of all of the possibilities of working there — conversations, friends, belonging — rather than the reality of what awaited her hours later, which was another bin full of raw chicken legs, and Salvador again making her way toward the back of the line to pick it up. Heaven watched Salvador coming, annoyed. Why couldn’t she learn English? Why was it up to Heaven to change? Salvador was the newcomer, not her.

What Heaven didn’t know was that Salvador agreed with her. She thought it was her responsibility to learn English, too. She’d grown up seeing Americans come through her town along the Dominican Republic’s northern coast, and had dreamed of following them back to the United States. But when she finally got here in April 2017, all she’d found was a sick mother, who had sponsored her green card but whom she now had to care for, endless household chores and a 45-minute commute from their home in Reading, Pa., to a chicken plant where there was no need to learn English because everyone spoke Spanish. So now, nearly as monolingual as when she arrived, all she did when she reached the back of the line was smile at Heaven, who smiled back, then wheel the chicken away.


The answer is that the plant have English/Spanish classes paid by the plant for 20 minutes a day. We are social creatures and only through communication can we break the barriers and end hatred. Of course, I don't run the plant, so...

[ck4829]

1. Huh, they are really concerned about being a minority in the US

It’s like they have this notion in their minds that when you are a minority, you get treated like a second class citizen. Where did they ever get that idea?

[WhiteTara]

2. They care about nothing beyond their own tiny circle

That white is still a majority to them is nothing. They're surrounded by "other" and rather than having empathy, they close up and hate them for existing in their realm of the world.

My mean mind wants to say, womp womp but that won't help. They must learn to communicate. If they won't speak spanish,then maybe the plant should have esl classes for the spanish speakers so there can be some communication. I bet many of the Hispanic would jump at the chance.