An Interview With NM Prime Minister of the Brown Berets, Juanito Burns about The Whitten Inn
Juanito Burns of the Brown Berets de Nuevo Mejico (New Mexico)
The Brown Berets and other organizations are gearing up for a protest against Larry Whitten of the Whitten Inn in Taos, New Mexico to protest his controversial employment practices in which he required all of his employees to speak only English in his presence. He even went so far as to require that employees either change their name to an English name or to pronounce their name in an anglicized manner.
“Marco became Mark, and he even tried to make one Chicana change her name to Buckwheat,” said Juanito Burns, Jr. Prime Minister of Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mejico in an interview with me. “Obviously the guy has problems.”
The Whitten Inn of Taos, New Mexico made national news a few days ago when the new owner chose to fire some employees that did not want to comply with the imposition of his culture over theirs. Since that time, the Brown Berets and other organizations have protested almost everyday in front of the hotel, while groups like LULAC and the ACLU have handled much of the legal and bureaucratic parts of the complaint.
They are all gearing up for a big protest on the 14th of November, in which other Brown Berets chapters, the Black Berets, LULAC,the ACLU and other groups will all march in protest of Whitten Inn. The March will begin at 11AM at the Century 21 Realty Office and end up right in front of Whitten Inn.
For his part, Juanito is calling for us Tejanos to orchestrate solidarity protests in Kerrville and Abiline, where the Whitten in has other branches. When I explained that it might be difficult considering that Abiline was almost as close to Taos as it is to my home town in Houston, he laughed. However, that didn’t deter him from continuing to call for a boycott on all Whitten Inns.
“Do what you can do, carnal. Publicizing the march is a big help,” he told me. Juanito takes on a gentler tone than one might expect. “I don’t hate Mr. Whitten. I feel sorry for him. I don’t think that he thought he was doing anything wrong.”
The Brown Berets will be providing security and personal details for some of the Raza coming down for the event. Generally, speaking, the march is a march against racism, said the Prime Minister. People of all races are welcome and expected. The one thing that he is hoping for is a public apology that the workers never got. “We just want him to be human, to be a person,” the Prime Minister concludes.
Check out some of the coverage on the situation. The Brown Berets are pictured.
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BOYCOTT WHITTEN INN HOTELS
To: Larry Whitten, WHITTEN INN HOTELS
Dear Mr. Whitten:
We are saddened by the news that you have chosen to mistreat your Latino employees for being who and what they are and will always be, like all the rest of the over 45 million-plus of us Latinas and Latinos in our great nation.
We take your discriminatory employment policies and practices, as a direct affront or insult to our great heritage and contributions to our multicultural U.S. society. I also served in the Marine Corps, and am a disabled Vietnam veteran who served our country proudly like so many other Latinas and Latinos, but we did not serve in anticipation of being treated like second-class citizens by you or anyone else just because of who and what we are and will always be, as were our ancestors long before your ancestors arrived here.
We are very proud of our great histories, cultures, traditions and mother-tongue; and this will always be the case regardless of citizens like yourself who demand we sacrifice this rich heritage, in order to fit into your Anglo or Eurocentric definition of what it means to be “a true American.” First and foremost, we are Native Americans or Indians, and you certainly can’t take that away from us — ever.
The U.S. is not England nor is it Europe. Your hotels should adapt to their environments, not the other way around.
We have called for a global boycott of WHITTEN INN HOTELS that will only end, if you publicly apologize to the employees directly effected by your discriminatory policies and practices; and to all the 45 million-plus Latinas and Latinos in this great multicultural nation of ours who are appalled by your disrespect toward all of us and our ancestors.
Sincerely,
Ruben Botello, JD
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These posts are 2009.
Any updates?
Thanks.
Coming this week