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Well done!
By Andy
May 16th 2008
at 12:04 am EDT
This post really does a great job of showing Target's initial expectations that the community in the area will, assumedly, gentrify and thus become whiter, and that therefore bilingual signage was unnecessary. This just goes to show how little the "redevelopment" in the area is really expected to help the people currently living in the community, and how much it is geared toward bringing in (even more) already better-off white people to the area. Also, bilingual signage is not a symbol of non-assimilation: consider that bilingual and even unilingual signage in a foreign language was/is common in the mom and pop shops of European immigrant communities both a hundred years ago and even today. I hear few "white" people whose immigrant ancestors did this complaining about it, but now when a modern nationwide corporation (the dominant mode of consumption and exchange) wants to cater to immigrants in the communities it has stores in, this shows how "hostile" those people are to assimilation. This just isnt the case, with most studies showing that hispanic immigrants pick up English in as few generations as past immigrant groups. Also, bilingual signs might even aid in picking up common english phrases. I know its helped me to pick up some spanish, so why not the other way around?
Well done to Bobby and to the Target decision makers who have decided to put in bilingual signs in the very Latino neighborhood of Columbia Heights!
Some of you may recall the story I wrote a few months ago about the new Target in Columbia Heights’ decision not to install bilingual signs – despite the region’s concentrated Hispanic population.
People commented that it’s a trivial issue, that Spanish-speaking folks don’t need signs to find shampoo, and that I was painting Target as anti-neighborhood when really they’re creating jobs for local residents and providing valuable products.
But it’s not simply the store’s lack of signs that merited the most attention, it's how the store decided not to install bilingual signs – and how this decision reflects on the store’s expected demographics.
The Target Spokeswoman told me “the Target team surveyed Columbia Heights’ demographics and commerce trends and concluded that the store does not fit the criteria for bilingual signage.”
What kind of survey did they conduct? Did they even conduct a survey? Have the surveyors ever visited Columbia Heights? The spokeswoman could not answer these questions.
Ward One Councilman Jim Graham had no idea that Target had no plans for bilingual signs. In an official statement from Graham he told me the city would immediately look into the issue.
Well, the city didn’t think the lack of signs was trivial. Now every major hanging sign in the store reads in both English and Spanish.
Hopefully this inquiry shone light on Target’s methods of conducting demographics and commerce trends.
And I could only hope that the newly installed signs will make navigation in the store for Spanish-speaking customers easier and more user-friendly.
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Well done to Bobby and to the Target decision makers who have decided to put in bilingual signs in the very Latino neighborhood of Columbia Heights!