Albuquerque

I now live in Albuquerque New Mexico. Albuquerque has mostly Hispanic Americans. They live in all parts of the city, all the way from the foothills to the south valley. I am White person here in Albuquerque, which is a minority in this city. All the groups here in Albuquerque, major and minor are spread all over town. There is not a specific place in the city where there is just one ethnic or racial group.

I do not look like the majority group here in Albuquerque. I have blond hair, blue eyes, and very light colored skin. And the majority group all has dark colored hair, brown eyes, and not dark skinned, but in between dark and light. Also, a lot of the majority group speaks Spanish. Some of them only know how to speak Spanish because they moved here to Albuquerque straight from Mexico.

I also feel that since the Hispanic group is the major group here, they feel that they do not have to be nice to the minority groups. I do not know for sure how the Hispanic group treats the other minority groups here in Albuquerque, but my group, the White people are not treated with very much respect. I can go to the doctor office or even to a restaurant and they look down on me. I have to try to get their attention before they are even willing to meet my requests. And, it is not like the requests I ask are out of the blue. I go to the doctors office for appointments, so I ask to check in, and at the restaurant I go there to eat, and they I am in a position to wait on the Hispanic group, I always do my best to please, because that is my job.

We have a good local media. They cover most of the news. But, most of the news they cover is about Hispanics. For example, a Hispanic girl was shot while she was trying to break into a white mans home. The white man is being charged for the murder, but when they broadcast the story it is mostly about the Hispanic girl, and they do not say much about what is happening to the white man. Some would say that the news focuses more on the Hispanics for news here in Albuquerque because the news casters are mostly Hispanic. So, I would have to say the news covers news for the majority group in Albuquerque, which is the Hispanics.

The leaders for the Albuquerque community do not treat anyone different based on race or ethnicity. They were all voted to the city council fare and square. They are working on getting our downtown area cleaned up right now. The downtown area has many vacated buildings, which means they are being broken into by vagrants. And the vagrants are using those buildings for drugs. The city council wants to encourage all the residents and business owners of the area to contribute their ideas to improve the area. I have driven down in that area many times before and I have to agree with what they are doing. I would not want to go downtown by myself ever. I would not feel safe, the area is run down and scary. Having the area cleaned up will not only improve the area's looks, but it will also improve the businesses income, and the crime will go down because there will be no vacant buildings for vagrants to occupy.

The people that are in the city council are mostly white. This makes them like me. But, the have gone ahead and furthered their education already, and I am just starting to further mine now. Also, the city council members are much older then me, I am only twenty-one years old, and they are most likely in their late thirty's early forty's. It doesn't really matter how different or the same the city council members are to me, what matters is they take care of the community, and treat everyone like a human being, which is how it is supposed to be.

I went ahead and interviewed a community leader. Her name is Candace Buckmaster, and she is a Human Resources Manager at a company called Clientlogic here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is in charge of hiring members of the community to work for the company. Clientlogic is a huge call center, and all sorts of races and ethnic groups come to get hired by the company.

I asked her, "How long have you lived in Albuquerque?"

Candace said, "I have lived here eleven years."

I asked her, "How long have you worked at Clientlogic?"

Candace said, "I have worked at Clientlogic four years."

I asked, "How long have you been in the Human Resources position?"

Candace said, "I have been in that position for the past three years. I spent my first year in the recruiting aspect, and the last two years as a HRIS (Human Resource Information Systems)."

I asked, "Do you have many different races come apply for jobs?"

Candace