Speak English or starve: The Philly cheesesteak saga continues

December 16, 2007

It’s back in the news again.

On Friday, December 14, a hearing was held here in Philadelphia on whether Joey Vento, owner of the popular South Philly cheesesteak shop Geno’s, violated non-discrimination policies when he put up a sign that reads: “This is America. When Ordering, Speak English.” A decision by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations is at least two months away.

This has been a very divisive issue in Philly and beyond ever since it first hit the news in 2006. People seem to have very strong feelings about this – those who are offended by the perceived bigotry vs. those who seem to be offended by foreigners and immigrants who aren’t so fluent in English.

A very amusing aspect to the story is that, when you visit Geno’s or any of several other cheesesteak shops in Philly, the ordering hardly sounds like English:

“Gimme a Whiz, wid.”

“Provolone widdout. Scoop it.”

At Geno’s, this is the “English” you must speak in order to get your cheesesteak quickly and with minimal harassment.

That irony aside, when this issue first hit the news, I found the sign offensive, and I still do. My immediate reaction was that it is discriminatory and should not be allowed. But then I cooled down and started to look at it as a free-speech issue. And this is exactly the argument that Vento’s attorneys are using.

Let Vento keep the sign up, I thought, and let fair-minded people boycott his shop and support Vento’s competitors, like Pat’s Steaks across the street. Money talks.

But then I heard the argument set forth at Friday’s hearing by Rev. James Allen, chairman of the Commission, who said that the sign at Geno’s reminded him of signs he saw while growing up in the segregated South.

And I thought about my own Grandma Leoni, who immigrated from Italy in the early 20th century but never really got a good grasp on the English language. She was loved by all in her neighborhood, even though her English was very poor. She was a warm and kind-hearted person, always ready to set another place at the table. And people gladly made the extra effort to communicate with her.

If Grandma Leoni were alive today, how would she feel about that sign at Geno’s?

Isn’t Vento himself a first- or second-generation Italian American? Did his grandparents speak English as fluently as he would like to require of his customers?

What would Grandma Vento think?

Finally, we need to think of the tourism industry. What does Vento’s sign say to all the people from around the world who visit our city and want to experience our most famous cuisine? If Philadelphia is ever to be seen as a world-class city, can we as a city really condone this kind of apparent discrimination?

I said it when this issue first arose in 2006, and I want to end with it again: Philadelphia is supposed to be the City of Brotherly Love, not the City of Xenophobic Bigotry.

Philly’s own Ben Franklin, that great proponent of brotherhood and tolerance, is surely spinning in his grave.

Mary Shaw is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail:

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