I got an email today from the official brother of the kurdsworld blog. He lives near Phoenix, AZ, in the funly named town of Surprise. He had a response to my blog about grocery stores. Here it is:
One of the grocery stores here has so long had a stigma of being only a place for folks of Mexican heritage that they have waged a fairly large campaign of radio ads to let people know that they carry American products and even speak English. I will now try to recite from memory one of the more hilarious of their ads:
You hear a guy listening to one of those learn-to-speak-Spanish tapes and his wife walks in. (He has a very "white" name, Tom, I believe, and she is named Rosa, but speaks without a hint of an accent.)
Rosa: What are you doing, honey?
Tom: Practicing my Spanish; want to hear?
Rosa: Sure.
Tom: Yo quiero. (Spoken very slowly and with no attempt at an accent.)
Rosa: Wow. That's very good. Say, could you run down to Food City and pick up some pork for the pizole tonight? (I'm not sure what pizole is or if I spelled it right.)
[Editor’s note: According to www.m-w.com, pozole is “a thick soup chiefly of Mexico and the United States Southwest made with pork, hominy, garlic, and chili.”]
Tom: Maybe you should go, honey. My Spanish isn't that good.
Rosa: You know they do speak English at Food City, right? (She sounds perturbed.)
I lose my interest after that point but it always makes me laugh.
My friend Adam is a pharmacist and he occasionally has to do a shift over there, and on his lunch break he headed over to the deli. He said the guy behind the counter seemed genuinely annoyed that Adam did not speak to him in Spanish.
Likewise, he also has done shifts at AJ's, which is a very expensive, upper-crusty grocery, and he says he does a lot more prescriptions for things such as Percoset there.
Take it as you will.
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