Melinda Tuhus Photo
As protesters leafletted, Eloy Lira, a supervisor at Atticus Bookstore Cafe and a Mexican immigrant more fluent in Spanish than English, defended his boss from charges of discrimination over an English-only directive.
Lira (at left in photo) addressed a memo last November from his boss, Charlie Negaro, to all Atticus workers. The memo provoked a firestorm after the Register reported on it last week. Protesters leafletted outside the store at noon Saturday in protest.
The memo stated, “Here, we speak English: Effective immediately the official and only language spoken on the floor and behind the counter is English. Spanish is allowed in the prep area, the dishwasher area and the lower level. Let’s make our customers feel welcome and comfortable.”
The controversy has spotlighted work rules and free speech questions at a downtown business known for hiring immigrants and supporting community causes.
After an unnamed employee complained about the rule, a new group called the New Haven Workers Association took up the cause, leafletting outside the Chapel Street eatery. The group’s leaflet included the words from Negaro’s memo, adding below, “We didn’t expect this sort of behavior from a business that has ‘Censorship Causes Blindness’ printed on the back of its company t‑shirt.” Leafletters urged passersby to call Negaro and tell him they’ll boycott his establishment “until that rule is changed.” Longtime activist Art Perlo (pictured on left) asked those who were going in anyway (like these two young women) to at least express their opposition to the rule.
After a while Jean Marcel Recapet, the shop’s longtime manager manager, came outside to read a statement to the gathered media.
“We at Atticus are proud of our long tradition of diversity among our staff and our customers,” Recapet read. “We have a staff of people who speak Spanish, French and English. We decided that what would be best for the purpose of customer service was to speak in the language of our customers. After having a staff meeting last night with the owner, managers and employees we all took a picture under the banner that you can see on the wall in the cafe.” (He’s pictured below gesturing to the sign.) “We apologize if our policy was misunderstood.” He declined to answer any questions. Negaro said on Friday in a note posted on the cafe’s website that Atticus managers and staff would undertake a “review” of “our policy of appropriate language usage to determine how we can avoid misrepresentations of this kind in the future.”
Lira then came out with the assistant manager, Colleen Carroll (pictured on right in photo at top of story). Carroll said Lira wanted to express his opinion. He began to do so in halting English.
It was hard to catch his meaning, so this reporter questioned him in Spanish.
He said it’s fine to respond in Spanish on the floor or behind the counter to customers who address the waitstaff in Spanish. He was then asked if two employees for whom Spanish is their first language may speak to each other in their native tongue in areas where customers are present. He paused and looked uncomfortable. Then he said, “We can do it quietly.”
Lira, a 13-year employee at Atticus, praised his boss and the opportunities of the job: to have health coverage, to participate in English classes and to have a job where he feels like an important part of the team. “He [Negaro] is a very good boss. He is like my second father and this is like my second home,” he said .
Carroll said the memo reflects a policy, that, like any policy, “must be black and white.” But then she said its enforcement is fluid, and that “no one has ever been punished for speaking any language” other than English.
One customer, Estelle Davis (pictured), agreed with the new rule. “My position is that when you are working you have certain duties, like waiting on the public in English. The fact that they talk to each other in Spanish I find off-putting.”
Ada Martinez-Betancourt (pictured on right) was up from Wilmington, Delaware, visiting her daughter, Yale senior Gabriele Betancourt-Martinez. She said she enjoys going to Atticus, “where I walk in and the people already know how I like my coffee — and I don’t even live here!” She said one response to the directive, which she found offensive, was to boycott. Another is to speak Spanish with the waitstaff, which is what she does. “I will keep doing it,” she said, “The customers need to exercise their power.”
This seems like a silly issue. It's only New Haven's Labor ... that would want to make problem of it and then only to use it as an excuse to draw attention to themselves.
It is clearly common sense that customer service employees would use the language of the customers to serve those customers in the areas of the business where the customers are served. How else could it possibly work? Unless of course the customer speaks a language other than English in common with the customer service employee. I don't see a problem with that.
Maybe "longtime activist" Art Perlo should get a job instead of organizing boycotts that would rob others of theirs.