Dear Aunt Bingo,
I became the saddest person in the world when I witnessed an act of racism at a local Bingo hall.
A Hispanic lady asked a non-Hispanic woman if somebody was sitting at the table next to her, and the woman's answer was that the Hispanic lady (and her friends) could not sit there because they speak Spanish. The Hispanic women became upset and called the manager, and right in front of the manager the non-Hispanic woman made a racist comment. The manager immediately told her that if she made another comment like that, she was not going to be allowed in the Bingo hall anymore. (I admire him for doing that!) All her friends started yelling to take the Hispanics out of the Bingo hall, while the woman was yelling and hitting the table very mad, saying, "Speak English, because you are in America!"
It is very sad to see how vicious and ignorant people can sometimes be. I am Hispanic myself. I was lucky to have come to this country when I was 17 years old and to have my mother support me so I could go to school to learn English and get an education. Some people are not that lucky and have to work hard to support their families and don't have the time to go to school and learn the language 100 percent.
I have been mistreated myself, so I feel very bad to see how people mistreat other people just because of their nationality. I think every Bingo hall should let people know that the Bingo tables are not their private property and that they must share, because everybody's money is the same no matter their color or what language they speak.
Most American citizens' ancestors probably spoke another language when they came to the United States from France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Russia, or elsewhere. This is an immigrant nation.
Let's play Bingo in peace, please! We all go to a Bingo hall to win and have a good time, right? So let's do so. -
Venny C., via e-mail
Dear Venny,
Ordinarily, I run several letters in each month's column, but because I felt your Bingo hall experience and observations were so important for readers to hear, I decided to devote the entire column to your letter.
Such behavior in this day and age - in a Bingo hall or anywhere else for that matter - is shocking and deplorable. As you say, people seem to forget that the United States is an immigrant nation. Had this country not opened its doors to our ancestors, many of us today could very easily be living in some dusty third-world village laboring for pennies, eating cabbage soup, and eking out the most basic of existences, instead of enjoying the comfortable lifestyle the United States offers so many of us.
There are millions of people worldwide who long to pursue the same American dream that we enjoy by birthright. And there are still many opportunities for these "new Americans" to make their place in the United States without harming anyone, and, in fact, enhancing the nation's diversity and vitality.
I encourage everyone to be tolerant and accepting of those different from themselves, and to take a stand whenever you see or hear someone express bias like this woman and her cohorts did at Bingo.
They should be ashamed of themselves - and at the very least owe the women whom they harassed an apology. If nothing else good came from their behavior, at least it serves as a lesson to the rest of us how not to behave.
- Aunt Bingo
Write to Aunt Bingo c/o the Bingo Bugle, P.O. Box
527, Vashon, Washington 98070, or e-mail her at
STENGL456@aol.com.
