Can you speak English?

Ozzie Guillen, Asians and Latinos – previously unpublished in English

Yukan Fuji, 2010 – Robert Whiting

In a country of people with big mouths, Ozzie Guillen, the manager of the Chicago White Sox, has one of the biggest. He frequently makes the news with controversial remarks and his most recent salvo is no exception. Earlier this summer, the Venezuelan native charged that Asian players are treated better than Latino players in American professional baseball. “Why does every Japanese player have an interpreter but Latinos on the team have none?,” he asked, “They take advantage of us. We bring a Japanese player to the States and we give them all these privileges and benefits. We bring a Dominican kid in and give him absolutely no support at all.” The remarks prompted concerned articles in the NY Times and other big American newspapers and wide coverage on ESPN and other US television channels.

The basic facts of Guillen’s remarks are not wrong. When Tadahito Iguchi played for the Guillen’s White Sox, he had his own personal interpreter, but the dozen or so Latino players on the Sox playing alongside him had none. The situation on most other teams with Japanese players is similar. Each of the two Japanese players on the NY Mets this year has his own interpreter while the dozen or so Hispanic players on the Mets have none. And it’s not just in MLB. As Guillen pointed out, the White Sox minor league Class A affiliate employs an interpreter for a Korean prospect (whose salary is higher than any of the players on the team). The team itself had 17 Latinos, but no Spanish interpreters. 

However, a little context is necessary. Japanese (and Korean) players are given interpreters when they go to the US because they need them. Most of them, having slept through English class in high school, have no language ability and there are very, very few people living in the US who do speak Japanese. Thus going without an interpreter is the equivalent of a blind man walking around without a cane. 

Latinos, on the other hand, have a distinct advantage. Hispanics comprise about 15% of the population (roughly 46 million) of the United States. Over 32% of all MLB players (and well over 40% in the minor leagues), are Hispanic, compared to about 1% for Japanese. Thus, on any given team in baseball there are a number of players from Latin American countries (or Latino communities in the United States), who are fluent in both English and Japanese. The Latino player can get by because there is always somebody on the team who can speak both Spanish and English and can interpret for him. Moreover, unlike Japanese which is a Kanji based language, both English and Spanish are Latin based. There are many similarities in terms and one can often guess at the meaning of the word

In Japan it has always been considered good manners and common sense to help out a foreigner (Some Japanese teams have interpreters for English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean), because Japanese is not a widely spoken language. On American baseball teams, the Latino immigrant—who usually had to start out in the low minor leagues and work his way up– has long been expected to fend for himself. The Cincinnati Reds signed 103 MPH pitcher Aroldis Chapman from Cuba for a record $30 million and sent him to the minors for seasoning, but did not hire an interpreter for him, something that would be unthinkable in Japan. Some Hispanic players work hard to fit in, like the White Sox veteran All-Star shortstop Omar Vizquel. When he first came to the US he decided to live with an American family so he could learn the language. Others choose to concentrate on baseball and succeed without ever learning the language well (Fernando Valenzuela was one example). Still others, like Mexico’s great home run king Hector Espino, found the adjustment to a new language and new culture too hard to make and simply went home (much like certain Japanese players).

Guillen likes to say outrageous things. Earlier this year, he called Americans “lazy” “e-mail obsessed,” comparing them unfavorably to illegal immigrants from Latin America who he described as “workaholics,” without whom the country could not survive. Guillen’s rant might be more understandable to Japanese if we put his remarks in the context of America’s own particular “minority as victim” culture, where racial and ethnic minority groups can publicly complain of discrimination and often win better treatment as a result. 

The leading purveyors of this culture have been African-American groups, who, of course, have suffered the most, given America’s long history of slavery, which lasted from America’s early beginnings in the 17^th century until 1865 when it was abolished. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 essentially eliminated the last vestiges of segregation in schools, housing, the workplace and the voting booth that still existed in some southern States and since that time, Black groups have won millions upon millions of dollars in racial discrimination lawsuits and have benefitted from special government quotas designed to foster equality in education and the marketplace. 

Other minorities have benefitted as well. A 1974 ruling by the Supreme Court, for example, found that the San Francisco school district was violating non-English speaking students’ rights under the 1964 Civil Rights Act by placing them in regular classes rather than providing some sort of accommodation for them. An outgrowth of this ruling is that almost all government signs, pamphlets and instruction manuals in California appear in both English and Spanish. If you call to make an airline or hotel reservation in America you have your choice of English or Spanish. Spanish has become America’s de facto second language.

Griping about inequality is America’s national pastime. It has become a grievance culture, as opposed to one many, many years ago where people actually took responsibility for themselves and did the best they could with what they had. Turn on the TV at any given time and you will see evidence of that. Anyone can scream “prejudice” and the media (and often the courts) will take him serious and pay attention. That is perhaps why Guillen decided to open his big mouth, in the hopes perhaps that he could force the White Sox to hire some Latin interpreters next season (and no doubt spare he and his coaches the task of serving as an interpreter for his players).

In the process, however, Guillen unintentionally aroused the ire of black groups who retorted that Latinos have it quite good compared to blacks. MLB clubs, they point out, spend far more money scouting, recruiting and nurturing baseball in Latin America, through BB camps and academies and such, than they do in black communities in the U.S. (Pedro Martinez learned to speak English at the LA Dodger Dominican Academy). They do this because the cost of player development in these impoverished Hispanic countries is so much lower than paying signing bonuses to top black athletes who may also have offers from the NFL and NBA. As a result, however, the percentage of black players in MLB has dropped dramatically and some blacks, among them Hideki Matsui’s teammate Torii Hunter, have called for a change in MLB policy to reverse this trend (and open baseball academies in inner city ghettos). 

So what does this lesson in American politics mean for Japanese players? 

Nothing much. No change at all. No one is calling for Japanese players to be treated any differently, As ESPN’s Harold Reynolds put it, “Japanese players are in a different category. They are not 16-17 year olds coming into the minor leagues from Latin America. They are established stars with national followings. There are 500 reporters waiting for them after each game to hear their comments. They are expected to help immediately. It makes sense they would be treated differently.” 

That being said, there are those who think it is about time Matsui and Ichiro, at least, started speaking some English, given the time they have been living in America. Granted it is more difficult to learn a foreign language at age 30 than it is age 15. But 10 years should be enough time to be able to give a TV interview in English—and perhaps even learn the words to the American National Anthem? 

END

UNUSED NOTES:

—American players who play Winter Ball in Latin America, incidentally, are expected to fend for themselves. When Hideo Nomo played in Venezuela, he made do without a day-to-day interpreter.

—Among other outrageous remarks by Guillen was the time when Japan won the WBC, he loudly proclaimed that Team Japan was really not very good and if they played a full season in MLB would win only 20 games. Last May he accused the people of Arizona of racism in drafting a new law to control their borders. 

—-Guillen is the MLB version of Koichi Hamada. 

—On the 2010 White Sox, in fact, there are 9 or 10 Latinos who are fluent in both languages. They include the team’s leading hitter Carlos Rios. The team’s manager, one might also note could serve as an interpreter if need be.

—Omar Vizquel went on to a 20 year career in MLB. Carlos Santana of Cleveland worked with field staff, front-office members, a mental skill coordinator and a cultural coordinator so he could learn the nuances of English that would help him succeed as a catcher in the majors. Often, Santana would role-play several situations to re-enact what he might face after his call-up 

.—Moreover, there are other reasons to give Asian players special treatment. Most of the time, when a Korean or Japanese player comes to America, he already has established himself as a star player and goes straight to the big leagues. In most cases, teams feel more inclined to get the “star” player accustomed to the U.S. because he’s going to be needed help the team immediately. 

—As Guillen pointed out, Latino players, to a man, eventually learn enough English to function successfully in American society,—so why not Japanese?

How hard is it to say, “The pitcher threw me a fast ball and I was able to hit it.”

–Torii Hunter: People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they’re African American,” Hunter said. “They’re not us. They’re impostors.”

Hunter was noting the relatively small number of black ball players compared to those from other countries. Baseball’s African-American population is 8 percent, according to USA Today, compared with 28 percent for foreign players.

Hunter suggests the dark-skinned Latinos are deceiving some fans. “Even people I know come up and say, ‘Hey, what color is Vladimir Guerrero? Is he a black player?’ I say, ‘Come on, he’s Dominican. He’s not black,’” Hunter said.

And it’s not just Hunter who feels that way, he says. “As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us,” he said. “It’s like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It’s like, ‘Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?”