Pair Hired, Fired For Speaking Spanish They Didn’t Limit Their Use Of The Language To Conversations With Customers

Rosa Gonzales and Ester Hernandez were hired by Allied Insurance because they spoke Spanish. They were fired for the same reason.

The two were “being very rude for speaking in a language we don’t understand,” Allied co-owner Linda Polk said.

Gonzales and Hernandez said they spoke regularly to the agency’s large Hispanic customer base in Spanish. They said they used the language to speak to each other about work and not for personal chats or secret talk about co-workers.

“Being able to speak Spanish is an advantage to us. We don’t want our heritage taken away from us,” Gonzales said.

Another Allied co-owner, Pat Polk, issued a memo stating that “this be an English-speaking office except when we have customers who can’t speak our language. … If you can’t live with the rules here - Draw your pay and make the rules at your next job.”

Three women in the office were handed the memo. One signed it, while Hernandez and Gonzales refused and were fired.

“When we read it, we were very upset. They never warned us,” Gonzales said.

Linda Polk said Gonzales was hired in November and Hernandez in March “to speak Spanish to non-American-speaking people” and not to each other.

“It would be just like getting over in a corner and whispering,” she said.

The incident is the second language-related conflict here in three years. In 1995, a judge ordered a woman to speak English as well as Spanish to her daughter, 5. English-only rules may violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 unless an employer shows they are necessary for conducting business, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission handbook.

A federal appeals court rejected the 1993 claim of workers who sued under circumstances similar to the Allied firings.

The Amarillo chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens said it will promote a boycott of Allied. If Allied wants to do business with the Hispanic community, it must respect the Spanish language, said the chapter’s president, Jose Ruiz.

Pat Polk responded: “They’re going to try and ruin my business because I had two rude people working for me.”