You Got Some ‘Splaining To Do: Why Are Latinos Always Late?
28 November 2007, 12:30 PM. By Carlos Posas
Last week some of us threw sobriety, Atkins, and genocide consciousness to the wind and celebrated Thanksgiving with other Latinos at our place. Even though our E-vite specified dinner would be served promptly at 7, the only people who were there before 7 were the Anglos, the Asians, and that hot German dude that let us lick absinthe from his navel. Every person of brown persuasion arrived late to our party. Again. WTF, hermanos? This means war! And a costly one at that.
Some “experts” have estimated that the cost of tardiness in countries like Peru and Ecuador can be as high as 4 percent of their gross domestic product. That’s like 87 dollars, people! Businesses in those two countries have tried to implement policies encouraging their workers to not be late. As if. NewsWise has this to say about those damn tardy Latinos:
Unpunctuality, or tardiness, is a well-documented and culturally accepted practice in many Latin-American and low-income countries. Although economic losses due to tardiness are difficult to measure, [Ed. Note: No shit] economists agree that unpunctuality is potentially an important source of inefficiency in Latin-American countries, a fact that explains the existence of the campaigns in Peru and Ecuador.
Tardiness is the new global warming, you guys. But we’re still perplexed. Do Latinos have a time genome deficiency that makes us incapable of punctuality? Fuck, even the Guanabee web server is late to reboot sometimes. And what is it with Alex arriving 2 hours late to her 11th annual Quinceañera?
Policies to Address Tardiness Will Not Work [NewsWise]
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I swear to God it had nothing to do with hot German dudes, absinthe and/or navels.
Um, if you’re the Latinos you SAY you are, then why are you so perplexed that your gente didn’t come “on time”? We don’t do ANYTHING on time…Being half white myself, my white relatives were always so annoyingly punctual… don’t you know that when I mean 8, I really mean around 9:30ish? How rude to show up before I’m ready!!!!
I learned the lesson long ago, from my mother, my Mexican family is asked to arrive 2 hours before the actual time…My friends have learned to do the same to me and usually take over under bets on when I will arrive. I’m usually on time for work though.
Haha, yeah, I’m always on time for work but late to everything else.
Last year I hosted a New Years party and I had a couple of gabachos show up ten minutes EARLY..hope they didn’t mind seeing me set up in hot rollers! lol
Funny, but my Rican friends are never late for happy hour…
That’s why all Latinos hate the Colombians. Always coked up and hurrying things along. It’s always “rush rush” with them, jeez, take a xanax or something…
I guess MY invitation got lost in the interwebs.
I’ve never understood this perception of Latino culture. My family always taught me to be on time and prepared for something, no matter what it was. I even show up to dinners and parties at the time I am told they begin. I can’t, for the life of me, understand where this perception came from.
I guess my family is different?
I was in a wedding for an African-American couple and a Pakistani-American couple. At one point they BOTH said, “Our people are always late so don’t think it’s gonna start on time.”
And when both weddings started about 2 hours late, I believed them. So I don’t believe it’s only Latin people with the tardiness problem.
CP time (Colored People’s time) is also said to stand for “Caribbean people’s time). I remember one of my anthropology prof. once said that this sort of informality comes from the laid back and vague aspects of our cultural background. People went to work at sunrise, no set time and so on.
People didn’t live by clocks.
hahaha its def a CP time. I think caucasians invented punctuality. Because it def applies to my African American/Filipino family and all of my Indian friends.
@ diego: my family is EXACTLY the same. extremely punctual and anal about punctuality. but i think we are exceptions cuz lord knows all my other latin friends are always late.
CPT.
I absolutely HATE this about us. I’m the only Cuban I know who runs on American Time - total pet peeve.
In fact, I’m still in therapy dealing with all the times my father was running late and would pick me up hours after school had dismissed or get me to my doctor/dentist appointments about an hour or 2 late. You know how many times my orthodontist’s (white) receptionist gave us a speech about this in front of a full waiting room?
Then again, now I have perfect teeth, so I shouldn’t complain.
ok,
so i live in here in peru, and it’s totally true. i’m a teacher, and these folks don’t show up to class until at least 10 minutes after, with most showing up between 10 - 30 minutes late.
other hits to national productivity would be:
a) a lack of change - business owners frown when you try to pay with the equivalent of $20 bill.
b) the census - two months ago the entire country was told to stay home until they’d counted us all.
but i’m sure there’s a good reason for all of this, and it’s all part of Presidente Alan Garcia’s grand plan…
No to over-punctualize my anality, but I’m Cuban and ALWAYS early. But for sure that is not typical of what I see around me.