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Show THERE ARE NO IMMIGRANTS IN THE WORLD 60 concerned that he had offended me. I reassured him that I was grateful for his honest answer and I was not at all offended by his language. In these two instances, Joseph enlisted interpersonal skills to manage his behavior (Glenn, 1981). The first was at the protest. Although he was clearly upset by the verbal abuse directed at the protesters, he checked his own emotions and remained in control of himself during that time. He did not respond verbally or physically to any of the abuse aimed at him or the other protestors. The second was checking his behavior with me. He felt he could be honest with me or he would not have been, but he also wanted to show he respected me so he apologized for his language. Intrapersonal skills are not always about controlling oneself out of fear of negative consequences but also pertains to the amount of respect and courtesy we extend to others (Glenn, 1981). Joseph's apology to me was out of respect and courtesy, not an attempt to smooth over a potentially harmful situation. The men were aware of discrimination and prejudice when it was overt, such as derogatory language. When I asked the participants their feelings about the words "illegal" and "wetback," each displayed some form of emotional response. Gabriel was the most noticeably affected; he immediately began crying when I asked how he felt about those terms. Thomas and Joseph expressed their emotions regarding that language through anger and disgust, but neither of them directed that anger toward anyone person in particular. I then asked the men what they preferred Americans call them and each remarkably said the same thing in the same order. Each initially said "Mejicano [Mexicans]" and then each recanted saying that when Americans call them Mexicans "esto es un insulto. [it is an insult.]" Remarkably again, the men followed up with the same response. They each said, "Llámenos por nuestros nombres. [Call us by our names]". Gabriel seemed to experience the most overt discrimination at work, as he was regularly called names such as wetback and dog by the American customers. This was not an |
