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Washing Their Hands Of the Last Frontier
Bernie Fischer and wife Mary Ngo, a Vietnamese American, do their dishes by hand in Columbia. She holds their son Gabriel, 5 months.
(By Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)
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Anecdotal evidence from Sears associates and customers suggests that Latinos care far more about cooktops than dishwashers, said Tina Settecase, vice president of home appliances.
"We're very careful about not changing our Hispanic customers," she said. "We're just trying to identify what the Hispanic customer wants and supply it."
But Mike McDermott, general manager of merchandising at General Electric, wonders whether more information about dishwashers might make a difference.
Like other appliance-makers, GE extols the dishwashers' energy efficiency. The U.S. Department of Energy agrees, citing findings that dishwashers, with a full load, use half as much water as washing by hand. Statistics from the D.C.-based Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers show that using the dishwasher six times a week costs $49 a year, a little more than the refrigerator.
"Where there isn't a dishwasher in a home, we need to understand why it's not there," McDermott said, "and what are some of the tools we can use to educate the consumer."
He will not have any luck with Douglas Lee's family. His American roots stretch back to 1963, when his grandparents emigrated from China. In three generations, nobody has used as dishwasher.
Lee, 22, of Springfield said he does not understand the appeal.
"Do you have to wash it beforehand to rinse it off? And if you wash it beforehand, why do you even need to use it?" asked Lee, a program manager for the Washington-based Organization of Chinese Americans. "I see a lot of my white friends doing it. I'm like: Oh, well, whatever. I guess I can't judge them on how they clean their dishes."
Bernie Fischer, a self-described "typical white guy" who grew up in Baltimore, knows all the benefits of the dishwasher. His parents had been so attached to theirs that they used it even though the wash cycle caused the lights to dim in their aging house.
But these days, his dishwasher is simply a drying rack. It was his wife's idea. Mary Ngo is a Vietnamese American.
"Mary's kind of set in her ways," said Fischer, 29, a soft-spoken Columbia psychiatrist.
"I just don't see the practicality of using the dishwasher," explained Ngo, 28, a job trainer born and raised in Montgomery County.
But she does let her husband turn on the appliance every two weeks -- to clean it, not the dishes.
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