White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen may be controversial, but as usual, he is always brutally honest. And, in this case, he definitely has a point. Even if that point is somewhat incomplete.
Guillen’s assertion is that Asian players are given privileges in the United States that Latinos are not afforded. He goes on to say that there are a lot of pressures for young Latinos to take PEDs, and that he is trying to educate them against it.
Look, all that may be reasonable and if Guillen is indeed trying to educate young Latinos, good for him. But, he is not quite saying the whole truth in his rant for reasons we’ll get to in a moment.
First, more Ozzie:
“Very bad. I say, why do we have Japanese interpreters, and we don’t have a Spanish one. I always say that. Why do they have that privilege, and we don’t?” Guillen said Sunday before Chicago played the Oakland Athletics.
Point taken. Why MLB teams are willing to furnish translators for Japanese players comes down to simple economics, and the law of supply and demand.
For the few Japanese players available relative to the vast number of Latinos, teams simply have to offer more to obtain the services of those players.
Still, he is right in that it offers the Japanese player an advantage that Latino players are lacking.
But, when Guillen goes on to add the following, he leaves out one important issue, which we’ll get to next.
“We’re in the United States, we don’t have to bring any coaches that speak Spanish to help anybody. You choose to come to this country, and you better speak English.”
Now, I have absolutely no problem with his statement that you come to America, and you learn to speak English. In fact, for a Latino to say that is very admirable.
Yet, to think that this is a problem facing only Latino baseball players is where Guillen is short-sighted.
Many so-called immigrants come to this country without the benefits that are afforded the Latino ballplayers.
For example, at least they are coming to a country that panders to Spanish-speaking individuals. By that, I am referring to the fact that ATMs routinely ask if you want English or Spanish, even if you are in an area that is 99 percent white.
Likewise, anytime you place a call and there is some kind of automated system, it usually directs you to ‘press one for English, or two for Spanish’.
Now I’m not saying that any of this is wrong.
What I’m saying is that this affords Spanish speaking immigrants an advantage over the Polish, Italian, Irish, and other immigrants that come to this country and are expected to be on their own when it comes to language.
It’s easy for Ozzie to say ‘learn the language’ when he is in a country that replaced the ‘walk/don’t walk’ signs with pictures of hands so that you don’t need to read English to understand when to cross the street.
Additionally, if his assertion that we should speak English in this country is so widely understood, then why is the Arizona immigration law being met with such fierce opposition?
They say they unfairly target Hispanics with that law. Yet, all it’s really asking is that you be a legal resident of this country.
The Mexican president says we are racist. Meanwhile, did you know what it takes to become a legal resident of Mexico? I tell you, it’s a lot more difficult than it is to become a legal citizen of this country.
But, we digress. Still, it shows that while Guillen’s rant is reasonable, it is easy to see how it only presents only one side of the story, which is why I say it is “incomplete.”
Leave it to Ozzie to say something controversial. In a society where everything seems to be politically incorrect, it is refreshing even if it does not tell the whole story.
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