And so the moral of this story is....? :)

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is. But we've got a couple of Mexican guys who do work on our cars all the time. Last summer they were the ones who figured out that DH had gotten a tank of bad gas in teh truck causing it to cease to start, which is more than I can credit the Ford dealer. they also do terrific body work.

I didn't know that the aimless ramblings that we do here from time to time, had to have a moral....Just pretend it's one of those daily journals.

But really, I was trying to point out that sometimes what you may initially think to be not good, turns out to be quite good.

A.

I know the feeling. Our 40-year dentist just retired and I feel abandoned...LOL DH says the person who took over the practice is nice but I just don't like change. josh

For the past 20 years I've had the same dentist,the same mailman,the same person running the cleaners I use,the same people operating the local grocery store,the same vet,and I can tell you,if any of that changes,I'm going to be mighty grumpy.

I've had the same dentist and vet and personal physician for a long time and I like having a doc who knows me well. But the rest of it seems to change every week and I don't even notice.

I thought your post was pretty timely (amazing how the GP sometimes mirrors daily patterns). I was just thinking about the business I have known for years who are closing down and being replaced. One of them was a very reputable used car lot. I always checked them first, as did my father, when I needed a new truck. He was one of those people who would "look around" for you and call you when he saw something you'd like. He also stood behind his vehicles and was honest. He was in in for the long haul, and knew if he did people right, they'd be back again, and again. I had to laugh, because he retired. He's allowed. LOL.

I don't look at the nationality of a craftsman or businessman. I don't think we can ever say that groups of them do shoddy or good work. My niece's husband is oriental/hispanic and he started a little business and it went booming from his hard work and intelligence. Also have several cousins who's father is hispanic. He was a tailor and an artist who took great pride in his work. His kids sometimes have to overcome the stereotyping of their name and complexions and when it's people you love, the unfairness of it hits very close to home. One does accounting work and is smart as a whip, and the other is in the beauty business. She married a man with a Polish last name and that throws people off so they talk freely in front of her with their prejudices and don't realise her ethnicity. She calls them on it.

The incident I still chuckle over is when I took a vacuum in to the repair shop of a major very American Company and there sits a little Vietnamese man who speaks very little English. He had just immigrated to the U.S. and he looked over my unit. Looks up to me and sucks air through his teeth, squints and says "this sweeper a piece of crap". I nearly pee'd myself. How's that for honesty? I'll bet the Anglo who could've looked at my unit wouldn't have been so truthful.

We found when we moved to Texas that finding a good dentist was the hardest thing we had to do. In St. Louis we went to the same dentist for 30 year. I started going to his dad when I first moved there & stayed with his son when he took over the practice. Since we've moved down here we've been through 4 dentists before we finally landed on one we felt we could trust.

Why wouldn't Hispanics know how to work on American cars? They're all built in several different countries anyway. None are truly American. Being born in another country doens't make one's work ethic any less or more pristine.

My American mechanic knows how to work on my Toyota Prius...

Sorry but the post made me feel uncomfortable.

I am glad though you had a great experience and can trust your new mechanics. That is always reassuring. Great life lesson too.

I've been going to the Chevy dealer in this little town for service since I bought my S-10 four years ago, even though I didn't buy it from them (got an awesome deal from the credit union on a repo),it was still under warranty. They were a bit more expensive, but I felt like they took good care of me.

Until the last time...

I took it in for brake work, it was time...while it was in, i asked them to look it over and see what else it might need, everything they suggested was reasonable, ended up spending about $800.

two days later there was a horrendous noise and vibration coming from the front end...they diagnosed a broken wheel bearing...and also said it had nothing to do with the brake job they'd done. Humph. Cost me another 400 smackers.
Ouch.

Same folks have been there forever...will I be going back? Not unless I get a factory recall or something.

Ya just never know.

I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable Weebus. Surely you can understand that going into an old familiar place and NONE of the faces are familiar that there might be a momment of hestitation that these folks might not be as capable as the old familiar crew. To be totally trusting around strangers that are going to perform a service for you, is not exactly wise. At least not in my book.

They could have been Swedish or Austrailian or from Bali. I could have lied about what they were. Pretend I said they were Eskimos. I think that meeting a group of total strangers with the added problem of poor English skills, would cause most people to be wary. It's the strangness of the situation that is upsetting. Not the nationally of the people involved.

PB, I think your story does have a moral -that is not to judge people based on their ethnicity. Or, don't judge a book by its cover etc., etc.,

We still have a long way to go in this country if in 2006 people are still assessed because they are _____________ (fill in the blank.)

I thouhgt your post was wonderful and showed how we can expect good even from so called strangers Thanks

I can absolutely understand the anxiety of the situation. I enjoy reading your posts and the inneraction and life you bring to this place.

This is the phrase that stood out in my mind, and I like the fact it made me uncomfortable. It shows me I am on the road I want to travel regarding humanity.

And to make matters more uncomfortable, they were all Hispanic. You hear so many dreadful tales about shoddy work, etc. Was this what we wanted to trust our dear cars too????? Did they understand American Cars?

We have a very large problem here with illegals. They pop up in all sorts of places and cause all sorts of problems, including shoddy work (as do whites and asians and african-americans.) In this area where I live, it's a new thing. The police are helpless unless they violate some local or state ordinance. They can't be arrested for merely being illegal. That's a job for the immigration department. And it is badly understaffed.

Do we want to encourage illegals by doing business with them? That's the big question that we have here. It may not be a problem in other areas, but it is here. Does it make a difference in how we view them. Yes it does. Does it make me and others like me politically incorrect? Perhaps, but to act as if we are completly unaware of the possibility that they are illegal, seems to me to be unwise.

Therefore, in some areas, unfortunately, the Hispanic groups (you'll notice that I did NOT say individuals)are viewed with a little apprehension until proven trustworthy and legal. They are the new guys and gals in town.

I'm glad that you gave them a try, and they turned out to be helpful and good at their job. The best thing you can do to pay them back is to recommend them to others. You can't guess on ethnicity whether a worker is shoddy or good. More problems arise when their language skills are poor, and communication difficulties set in, but that could just take a little more effort to make sure messages come across clearly. My favourite dress material shop is run by very recently immigrated Vietnamese. It takes a little charade and holding up of fingers before they know how many metres of what you want (and Vietnamese even hold up fingers differently, starting with the littlest), but their stock is excellent, wonderful range, and the prices are cheap. They even open on Christmas Day, I suppose Christian holidays don't mean a lot to them. Good luck to them, and I hope they find their niche in Australia.

This area has been multi-cultural for so long, I've almost forgotten that it *used to be* rural farms, mostly white, and everybody had known everybody else for years, so you knew who was or wasn't a good mechanic, just like you knew who had the biggest, freshest eggs for sale. But our closest neighbor was Indian (not East but Apache, I think); we went weekly to DC's farmer's market with the stalls around us mostly run by Black people; and we often had friends of our parents visiting us - from Mexico, Pakistani, Peru, France, Britain, and so on. No big deal was made of any of it; some spoke American quite well, and some didn't -- and it was understood that we should be grateful for their linguistic efforts because no matter how poor their English, it was better than we could do in *their* native language. What we did learn was that the color of the eyes, or hair, or skin, was important only as a physical description - and nationality didn't have much to do with it since one British doctor had skin the color of a dark Hershey bar, and a friend from Spain had red hair and milk-white skin and a totally blank look when the Scots spoke.

Nowadays, the local elementary school has 500 students, among whom is spoken 70+ non-English languages; my dentist is Pakistani; the nearest town to my home is nicknamed (by the Washington Post newspaper) "Little Korea"; the neighbors in my residential enclave come from VietNam, Singapore, Korea, Great Britain, Portugal, Poland, Mexico, Switzerland, Texas, Hawaii, and other non-Virginian areas. The gentleman who sold me my car spoke better Urdu than English; the dealership is owned by a German [selling Japanese cars]; and the service shop's foreman quite possibly Salvatorean or Mexican or Peruvian or Jamiacan or... it doesn't matter, the work is good.

This doesn't mean that if my dentist retires, or the car's mechanic moves to a different area, I'm not going to be unhappy. I will be. I will miss the comfort of knowing what to expect when I do business with them, and I will miss the simple familiarity. I don't like the process of having to hunt for a good doctor or dentist, or an honest mechanic. In fact, I'm on the hunt now for good haircutter: skill with scissors is needed, not English.

PB you don't say if these folks were illegal, but since you did business with them I assume they were not?

This all reminds me of World War II when just being Japanese was enouigh to label you an enemy and get you carted off to a camp for the duration.

I believe we must always beware of looking at someone and making assumptions followed by judgements about them because of how they look. It doesn't matter that the ethnicity - so, PB, even if you had said "and to make matters more uncomfortable they were all Eskimos" it's still making a judgement on how the people looked to you.

And, by the way, there are lots and lots of illegal caucasians here too. From all over the place. I personally know a German and two Canadians.

Anyone want to see my green card?? :)