Target Gives Managers ‘Multi-Cultural Tips’: Not all Hispanics Eat Tacos or Wear Sombreros

In Yolo County, California, three former Target employees are suing the company because of an insulting guide for managers on how to deal with Hispanic workers. These so-called “tips” remind warehouse managers that not all Hispanics fall into cultural stereotypes such as eating salsa and wearing sombreros.

The document is as follows:

“a. Food: not everyone eats tacos and burritos;

b. Music: not everyone dances to salsa;

c. Dress: not everyone wears a sombrero;

d. Mexicans (lower education level, some may be undocumented);

e. Cubans (Political refugees, legal status, higher education level); and

f. They may say ‘OK, OK’ and pretend to understand, when they do not, just to save face.”

Robert Gonzales, Bulmaro Fabian and Pedro Garcia-Ayala claim that their supervisors are explicitly racist and emotionally offensive. Not to mention, they are mostly Caucasian. To some, harsh racial jokes were openly said during work. When Gonzales complained to Human Resources, he was troubled by the even more discriminatory responses. The three employees state that they were fired because of their race.

As coworkers and supervisors in the workplace, this can be a sensitive subject. When situations like these occur, consequences can be crucial to the success of the company. Costs could include but are not excluded from the following: suing, a file and a complaint with HR, and bad publicity. Obviously, these type of costs could have been prevented if their HR Department had been involved when creating the manager training documents.

Click here for more information about the incident: //thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/07/09/2274041/target-multi-cultural-tips/?mobile=wp