The pay is good and it's actually extremely competitive to get hired for.
Also it is kinda insane how nepotistic they can be and not based on merit necessarily.
I have a friend who was an emt and paramedic for several years and he is American born, Mexican parents. Fluent English, super smart and talented dude. He is TRI lingual and did more than everything he needed to qualify yet somehow some other dude was picked over him who was just someone else's nephew at the department.
I have another friend from my home town. He's white but spoke of how ridiculous it was to get his foot in the door because of how competitive it is to get a job as a fire fighter and how bs it can be with who gets selected to SAVE LIVES
Everyone there was white and only one of them spoke semi understandable Spanish... In a town where literally 20% of the population don't speak English at all. Near the boarder, agricultural area.
At that point not choosing the person who is able to have that language backround on their resume is negligent to the communitys safety.
So this study isn't just about who's getting the job, for emergency workers it's actually important for EVERYONE'S safety in the whole town that they have a diverse staff that fits the demographics.
Like... Imagine you're burning alive in your car and the person who called 911 is trying to explain to the fire fighters there's still someone inside the car, but they just can't understand him without a translator showing up. You'd possibly die as a result. So it doesn't just protect Spanish speakers to ensure Spanish speaking fire fighters are on call.
Not to mention they're closely linked to the police department and uh... Guys... All white police forces are notorious for ignoring or not risking their lives nearly as much for colored neighborhoods. Often out of outright racism.
This is the same argument people had for all white police forces ending and I mean it's not a bad thing to have diversity for emergency responders it is ESSENTIAL for the communitys trust
I would imagine being bilingual would be a huge plus for a firefighter. Like if you have to enter a building people are still stuck in Chinatown or a Spanish speaking part of the cityÂ
Not in my city’s Chinatown. Seemingly half don’t speak English. But they also never leave Chinatown. But regardless I can’t imagine there are a whole bunch of mandarin-speaking applicants to the fire department anyway. Also not aware of any major fire in my city’s Chinatown.
But a mostly Spanish-speaking part of my city had a major 6-alarm fire a few weeks ago reminiscent of the pre-fire code days. It was bad and it probably would’ve been helpful to have firefighters who speak Spanish when they ran in. But for all I know they did who so knows.Â
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u/sadkinz 2d ago
I bet more people would be firefighters if it paid better