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Spanglish is becoming the language of money in Houston
CultureMap ^ | Saturday, October 2, 2010 | Carolina Astrain

Posted on 10/02/2010 11:37:29 AM PDT by Willie Green

NO COUNTRY FOR BITTER WHITE MEN

They’ve made your lawns, beds and meals for several years, but now they might be signing your paychecks. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in Texas increased about 40 percent.

If money in Texas could talk, it’d speak Spanglish.

While Hispanics (namely Mexicans) in New York are largely seen are the mops and rags of the workforce, in Houston they are the face of new leaders emerging in the business world. Maybe it’s because they know their audience, which happens to have a projected $3 trillion purchasing power this year. This past summer, the Spanish-speaking television station, Univision, blasted to the top of TV ratings across the country.

In Houston, you’ll find a lot of color at the top. Ed Muñiz grew up in a South Texas border town and had his start in the workforce picking cotton, but later became the founder and owner of MEI Technologies, a world-renowned space manufacturing company.

My father had a similar upbringing. Jose Astrain spent most of his early childhood playing hooky and fishing out of the Rio Grande with the old men of his hometown of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. After my father's ninth birthday, my grandfather scored a job at a truck manufacturing company in Racine, Wis. and soon-after my father, grandmother, uncle and eight aunts piled into a sedan bound for the north in the dead of winter.

“We weren’t cold, I can tell you that,” my father told me recently over dinner at The Spaghetti Warehouse.

During my father’s sophomore spring break, he came home to a house full of clients waiting for my grandfather to finish up their tax returns. My grandfather learned how to file taxes on the side and because of his bilingual prowess, his coworkers and neighbors brought him plenty of business.

My father has always been a ladies’ man. He purchased a portable typewriter after completing a typing course he admits to enrolling into just to admire the young collegiate flowers of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Father asked my grandfather to teach him the ways of deductibles, dependents and refunds — and soon grandfather, who worked by hand, was bested by my father's stenographer skills, which allowed him to work three times faster.

Now, what was once a way of making a bit of extra money to feed the kids is now a prominent family-owned business on the north side. One of my favorite lines from the movie, No Country For Old Men is something the female protagonist’s mother says as they pull into a Texas border town, “It’s not often you see a Mexican in suit.”

Hide your three-piece.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 2surrender2mexico; 4thecommongood; death2america; invasion

1 posted on 10/02/2010 11:37:29 AM PDT by Willie Green
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To: Willie Green

I’d rather they own their own business then be on the dole.


2 posted on 10/02/2010 11:43:16 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Willie Green

“Language, Borders and Culture”.... Savage


3 posted on 10/02/2010 11:43:17 AM PDT by Don Corleone ("Oil the gun..eat the cannolis. Take it to the Mattress.")
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To: Borges
I’d rather they own their own business then be on the dole.

Sure but like half of A-Rod's home runs, you have to put the asterisk next to them 'cause of minority preferences, which I gather would be available to them.

4 posted on 10/02/2010 11:44:37 AM PDT by the invisib1e hand (after your fifteen minutes are up you get a lifetime of ignominy.)
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To: Willie Green

So what’s her point,that this hasn’t been a land of opportunity for Hispanics? How’s Muniz’s company doing since NASA’s primary mission has become to build up the self-esteem of Moslem countries? Maybe this is why Hispanics are turning on the Democrats, in spite of Obama/Holder pandering.


5 posted on 10/02/2010 11:48:03 AM PDT by gusopol3
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To: Willie Green

I don’t know if this is the same in Houston but in El Paso, rich Mexicans have fled Mexico for the US to escape the drug violence. They have money to spend and prefer to deal in spanish. It doesn’t really matter who owns the businesses, it’s who has the money that determines what language is spoken.


6 posted on 10/02/2010 11:49:52 AM PDT by RightOnTheBorder
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To: Borges

“I’d rather they own their own business then be on the dole.”

I’m guessing that many of them got the money to start their own businesses by being on the dole. We feed their families, provide healthcare, educate their children and provide them with any special services they need. Did I miss anything? Oh yes, they hate us.


7 posted on 10/02/2010 11:55:07 AM PDT by dljordan ("His father's sword he hath girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him")
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To: Willie Green
They’ve made your lawns, beds and meals for several years,

Who? I do my own cooking and I make my own bed, and I mow my own lawn

8 posted on 10/02/2010 12:07:03 PM PDT by BenLurkin (This post is not a statement of fact. It is merely a personal opinion -- or humor -- or both.)
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To: Borges

If the Latinos start to become business owners, watch how fast they turn conservative.

When I run into blacks they unfortunately almost always work either for the government or some large concern. They think like employees who must always bargain for more money from some amorphous giant that is loaded with cash. It is not surprising they are liberals.

Once a person starts to create wealth by starting their own business, and they see how deadly and interfering the goverment agenda is, they tend to leave liberalism behind with other childish notions.


9 posted on 10/02/2010 12:12:24 PM PDT by I still care (I miss my friends, bagels, and the NYC skyline - but not the taxes. I love the South.)
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To: Willie Green

Me gusta me español e ingles puro por favor.


10 posted on 10/02/2010 12:13:35 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Willie Green
They’ve made your lawns, beds and meals for several years, but now they might be signing your paychecks.

Naaa, they won't hire me because they're pretty much racists and hate me because of the lack of color in my skin. Who has that picture of the "undocumented worker" flipping the bird and grabbing his crotch?

11 posted on 10/02/2010 12:15:23 PM PDT by theymakemesick ( islam - inspired by Satan www.prophetofdoom.net)
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To: onedoug

Puedo decir que no veo esto en Houston.


12 posted on 10/02/2010 12:24:39 PM PDT by conejo99
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To: Willie Green

Between spanglish and ebonics we have a nation filled with illiterates.


13 posted on 10/02/2010 12:38:16 PM PDT by Carley (For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.)
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To: Borges
I’d rather they own their own business then be on the dole.

I've never had a problem with legal Hispanics who want to work and grow a business. Blacks too. I do have a problem with those who just want to sit on their porch and whine that government isn't doing enough for them. And I do have problems with those who don't want business to be done in English.

But, outside of that, no problems amigo. The more people who are invested in the economy, the more people that will fight to protect it from predatory government.

14 posted on 10/02/2010 12:41:25 PM PDT by OrangeHoof (Washington, we Texans want a divorce!)
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To: Borges

Right, then they might pay some taxes and think about what it costs to feed, shelter and care for those who pay NOTHING.


15 posted on 10/02/2010 1:10:42 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Half of the population is below average)
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To: Willie Green

English speaking businessmen generally have no problem hiring qualified Hispanics, and of course at the lower levels in some parts of the country they are pretty well all Hispanic.

I’m curious if this is reciprocal. Do Hispanic business owners really hire lots of gringos? I’d be curious if anyone has any first-hand knowledge about that.

Because I doubt that they will write a whole lot of checks for us Norteamericanos after they take over.

And what are the chances of a North American going down to Mexico and getting a job with one of those numerous Mexican billionaires like Slim?


16 posted on 10/02/2010 1:35:43 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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