My first RN job has lead me to a more rural part of the country. As a person of color, I have never experienced racism to this degree.
Some instances are subtle at work, but some are pretty blatant.
My first experience occurred when my preceptor mentioned repeatedly that I have a "black card" so I must be golden at my new position. (I never questioned her on what she meant.) My preceptor also mentioned things like "since you are black things will get stolen from you." Phrases like 'slave driver' have also repeatedly been mentioned in passing with my preceptor. Since I was on orientation, I let a lot of comments go and ignored them, due to fear of being let go or retaliation.
Now, the worst thing is that I have noted on several occasions, confederate flags waving from behind pick up trucks.
I'm not sure if I can stick it out for over a year in this place. What would you do?
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
OP, not only are you a person of color, but you are a man doing "women's work", AND you had the audacity to marry a local white girl!
You have hit the trifecta!
I was raised in a small, lily-white town in the North, 30 miles from the Big City. Yet I never even saw a black person, in person, until I was 9 or 10. None of the schools I went to ever had any black students or employees. Fortunately I was raised by a woman who was adamantly NON-racist and she made sure her kids knew without a doubt that we are all human beings, period. It was never, ever a question of race, color or creed, life was about character and how you treated others.
I moved to the South at the age of 27 and it was a HUGE culture shock in so many ways! Inside I was like this-->. I have to admit that many of the white people I came in contact with and observed made me quite embarrassed at being white and merely standing nearby when they opened their mouths and had what I considered to be some appalling conversation.
Once I worked through an agency and was sent to work in a small rural hospital where I was the only white girl in the whole hospital on the 3-11 shift. Now, because of how my mother raised me, I didn't really think about it all that much. It didn't bother me; I found it kind of interesting in that I had never been the odd man out. But I knew I wasn't REALLY experiencing what the lone black person might go through in an all white environment. Nobody was mean to me, I didn't feel threatened. Basically I was given my patient assignment and otherwise ignored. As a 'rent-a-nurse' I'd received worse treatment on other facility assignments.
Many of my co-workers, dyed-in-the-wool-Southerners, refused that assignment. The reasons they gave were individually explained in differing terms...and with some good, "honest" lies which they told with such sincerity you almost expected a halo to appear over their heads...but none of it hinted at the real reason they didn't want to take the assignment. The truth of it was an unspoken thing that was understood by all.
I still live in the South, but a different state. I married a Southerner who has quite a few Neanderthal-Racist relatives. Hmmm. I don't feel 'threatened' by them exactly, but even after 26 years I am viewed with some suspicion. You see, I am a Northerner, after all, a non-Baptist, Damn-Yankee who came and stayed! I am seldom surprised by the in-laws anymore, and my husband long ago gave up trying to explain to them that just because I was raised differently and did things differently, (like NOT waiting on my husband hand and foot) that didn't mean I was a bad person.
I still have the sensation of being an anthropologist sometimes.
First of all, I have never been a victim of racism so I can't say I know how you feel. I sounds like you are very offended and I wish that was not the case. Hopefully, I can help alleviate some of your distress and convince you to take a closer look at your situation because after all, moving back to a northern state is a big deal and you should make that decision AFTER you get the right perspective on your situation and understand what is really going on (a lot easier said than done, I know).
The short answer here before I go into details explaining my view of the situation is that no, you should not leave just yet because I think you may be over-reacting to what happened. Some of that sounds pretty bad and its hard for me to really know what happened without being there, but I do know that racism is perceived very differently by both perpetrators and victims in the south than it is in the north and some things that would be newsworthy hate crimes in the north are no big deal in the south and consequently, "victims" do not feel as victimized and perpetrators do not really intend as much harm. Every situation is unique and serious racial issues and hate crimes definitely remain a major societal problem, but I feel that we have an overall over sensitive and magnified view of the problem here in the north. It wasn't long ago that black people were being physically harmed by whites on a regular basis for simply being black and white people were getting away with it. Now a days, hate crimes are taken very seriously both officially and on a real, personal, and practical level. We are not done, but we have come a long way as a society and celebrating the progress we have made and admitting things are better does not (or at least should not) detract from the severity of the current condition or the significance of past injustices.
What I can say is that there is a big difference in how racism is perceived between rural southern and metropolitan northern states. The truth is, racism isn't all that more prevalent in the south than it is in the north (maybe a little bit, but much less than most northerner's assume). In the north we are very sensitive to race, and even the slightest implication of racial bias or even accidentally saying or doing something racist is seen as offensive and unacceptable in the north. The difference is in perception. In the south, certain things are less likely to be perceived or intended to be offensively racist (unless of course its someone like you who was raised elsewhere) than they same thing would be up north. In a New York hospital, people would be fired over what was said to you and they would probably deserve it (because they most likely knew it was offensive and intended to offend you) while the actual people you experienced in the south could very well be completely nice, non-racist coworkers (although some of the comments seemed pretty bad) or maybe they intended to offend you for some other reason unrelated to your race and simply chose to offend you with racism because its more acceptable there and therefore its also less serious (i.e. they use a racial slur assuming you would only be mildly offended and don't really consider it racism, nor do they have a problem with your race maybe you just took their spot in the cafeteria). Its also possible that they were complete racists and meant to offend you even more than you were offended! All I'm saying is that racism is both intended and perceived to be less serious and offensive (by both white people and black people) in the south, and a lot of what you feel may go away once you adjust to the culture.
I suggest you talk to people of your own race about what happened to try and gauge how serious it was, maybe you can even find someone like yourself (from the north) and ask them how they have adjusted. I know its not as simple as just letting it go, but it would suck to leave a job prematurely because you had misunderstandings of their culture. The closest experience I had was the first time I worked with inner city black patients and their families and got called "whitey" a couple times. I felt very offended and uncomfortable and felt like they hated/distrusted me, but eventually I realized that was just how they talked about white people and even though it was technically "racist" and I was offended at first, they didn't mean to really offend me and had no ill feelings towards me. It still made me feel uneasy, but I didn't feel like I was hated or that they didn't appreciate the care I was providing. I KNOW my experience was minor compared to yours and I'm not saying white people are anywhere near as targeted as black people when it comes to racism, its just the only personal experience I have to compare to.
As for the confederate flag, ironically that is the LEAST racist thing you mentioned even though you referred to it was the "worst". I can say with confidence that the confederate flag has long been disassociated with racism, "white power", and slavery among southern culture. Sure, many (if not most) non-southerners, both black and white, see it as an offensive symbol and SOME people do in fact use it as an offensive symbol (i.e. the Charleston shooter seemed to have associated it with his perverted racist ideology) but MOST southerners fly it as a symbol of southern pride, solidarity, and strength. To them, the confederacy represents the American people holding their own against a tyrannical government. The south LOST the battle over slavery and were shown to be wrong about their view of black people, so it makes no sense to fly the flag in support of slavery or white superiority, that would be like a Russian Hockey team watching "miracle on ice" in order to celebrate their perceived superiority to a US hockey teams(miracle on ice is a movie about the US beating Russia in hockey in th 1980 winter Olympics). I've been to the south on several occasions and every time I have seen black people flying the confederate flag while hanging out with a white best friend. My (white) neighbor lived in a frat house that flew the flag and they were next to an all black frat house that also flew the confederate flag. When Charleston happened, both frats joined together (a rare event in its own right) and threw a "patriot party" in celebration of southern solidarity and in remembrance of the victims of the shooting and by the end of the night the stars and bars were body painted on almost everyone.
You are in an entirely different culture and if you have never actually experienced it other than what you see on the news and in TV/Movies, you (like most northerners) have a lot of false preconceived notions that may take a while to get over. There are good and bad people in this country just like everywhere else. People kill, rape, and rob each other every day. Other things like racism, sexism, and homophobia are less serious and less universal in how they are percieved. These are social issues that depend on the surrounding society. Northern metropolitan society and culture is VERY different than rural southern society/culture when it comes to social issues and if you have lived you whole life in one place, its not going to be easy to adjust. That said, I think once you do adjust you will appreciate the experience and realize the south and southern people are not any more or less evil than northerners. My experience has actually been the opposite, in the limited experience Ive had in the more rural south, I've seen a lot more friendliness and hospitality than the philly/new york area. Sure, occasionally I would see or hear something that made me cringe, but overall people both black and white seemed happier and more relaxed in the south, and that's what is really important so in going forward I encourage you to give the south a shot but if you can't adjust then you would best move back north because things aren't going to be much different just moving to another hospital.
Good luck, I wish you the best!
And who has disassociated the confederate (battle) flag from racism? There may be exceptions and it may be out of ignorance of what it represents- the right for the southern states to maintain human beings as slaves. A history of violence.
I'm sorry, but chose a different symbol if you want to display your pride in (non racist) southern culture.
Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
jaybuzz, If you're white and you have based what you are saying/explaining on the fact that you have been in the South several times, pardon me for saying so, but you are talking through your hat. Prejudice? "It's not as big a deal" in the South anymore? Interesting. That may seem so on the surface, but start talking with black people here and you'll be disabused on tht notion pretty quickly.
Several months ago my middle-aged black female coworker, my 98-year-old patient and I were talking about racial problems r/t some recent news stories. Prior to all this, I had thought a lot of racial things had changed for the better, but my co-worker gave us examples of things she and her husband and family encounter every single day. My eyes were really opened by things I never thought happened anymore. This coworker is a fine , lovely,church-going woman with a quiet/calm demeanor... and things she recounted to us...made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I wanted to slap some of the people she told us about, for their perversely self-righteous ignorance, hatefulness and unwarranted superiority-complex. Honestly, it would scare me to be a black person in these days and times, and I don't think fear is too extreme a reaction, given the supposedly 'random' thinks that happen when you happen to be black..
Granted not everybody in the South, or North ( I am a retired New Englander) are racist, but there are people who revel in their sly, verbal "death by a thousand cuts". One or two cuts are not a problem, but cumulatively they can bleed you dry. They say things in a way that make them deniable, and snicker with their like-minded friends behind their closed front doors.
"There is so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the worst of us,
That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us."
This is good advice regarding gossip, but I think there is still a lot to be talked about. On either 'side' are the people who can't or won't listen to the legitimacy and emotions...what's behind the words, and instead, grow more and more heated and then hostile. I don't know the answer. If we could all realize and focus on the humanity beneath the skin, but how can we help create that epiphany within each individual, black or white, yellow, red, etc....I dunno. History and personal experiences are often held up as shields AND weapons.
SMH. I have met many supposed loving, tolerant people who are happy to proclaim their love for all humanity...as long as they are clean, polite and 'know their place.'
We've got Baptists, New Agers, Daughters of Dixie, Vegans vs Meat-Eater, Mexican/Latinos, pro-Gay and anti-Gay, ad infinitum, where I live. Each group preaches that the other group(s) need to practice tolerance, all the while holding themselves as being 'better' than the ones they say aren't tolerant of them and theirs.
All you can do is stop, look and listen. You can't NOT be struck by the intolerance.
I'm sorry this is happening to you, OP. It isn't right. And it IS a big deal. Nobody has a right to make you feel like this doesn't matter. I'm white. I can attest to the fact that sometimes, people who do not experience racial discrimination downplay how serious it really is, and I believe this is because we don't actually know how it feels. It's never right to make someone feel like they are less of a person. It's never right to tell someone that they are simply being dramatic and overreacting. What you've experienced IS racism. Other people telling you that you're overreacting is perpetuating the acceptance of racism. It's all wrong. I'm so sorry
I worked with a racist nurse who bullied all the African and Aboriginal nurses by making false reports, writing them up for things that didn't happen, etc. I worked on shift with one of the nurses she was targeting, so we started charting EVERYTHING, no matter how minor. I also personally kept record of everything she did, where she had changed documentation, and so on. When I left, I made it known that these would be shared with her licencing body. She quit before I could do it.
So yes, document everything. Not just impeccable charting, but what is being said and done, by whom and what time for your own records.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I am living in the south - not everyone will understand how bad it is or can be.
I am also in the South - but the person with concerns about racism who originally posted this thread is located in the North. We must be mindful that pockets of race-based intolerance exist in all regions.
You have got to take care of yourself and your mental health. I know plenty of nurses who were miserable at their first job and had to, in lieu of preserving their mental and physical health, switch jobs and fast. If you're seriously worried about the 5 month thing then consider another new grad program. There are a lot of new grad programs out there! I know, for example, that Vanderbilt takes new grads after they have been working for awhile. I know someone interviewing next week. I am living in the south - not everyone will understand how bad it is or can be. Worst case scenario, tell your potential hiring managers that you're applying because you're just really excited about their program. Above everything else, you need a positive environment with coworkers that support you. Life's too short. There are plenty of places that won't think twice about you being in a position for 5 months, Things change. circumstances chance. YOU DO WHAT's GOOD FOR YOU!
On a personal note - I just want to tell you that you are NOT ALONE. I'm a few years into working for a hospital in the south. It's a nice enough town and all, coworkers are great - but boy some of the patients are so righteous in their bigotry. It makes me literally sick some days. I am looking forward to moving back out west.
I'm hoping that I get something soon. I will be patient though and remember that all things are temporary. Thanks for your reply!!!!
I'm sorry this is happening to you, OP. It isn't right. And it IS a big deal. Nobody has a right to make you feel like this doesn't matter. I'm white. I can attest to the fact that sometimes, people who do not experience racial discrimination downplay how serious it really is, and I believe this is because we don't actually know how it feels. It's never right to make someone feel like they are less of a person. It's never right to tell someone that they are simply being dramatic and overreacting. What you've experienced IS racism. Other people telling you that you're overreacting is perpetuating the acceptance of racism. It's all wrong. I'm so sorry
Thank you for your reply! I think I thought at first that I was being too sensitive on the first instance. Like it was ok that I was being singled out even momentarily in passing because of my race. But, accepting bad behavior is not helpful for anyone.
I worked with a racist nurse who bullied all the African and Aboriginal nurses by making false reports, writing them up for things that didn't happen, etc. I worked on shift with one of the nurses she was targeting, so we started charting EVERYTHING, no matter how minor. I also personally kept record of everything she did, where she had changed documentation, and so on. When I left, I made it known that these would be shared with her licencing body. She quit before I could do it.
So yes, document everything. Not just impeccable charting, but what is being said and done, by whom and what time for your own records.
WOw! Thats amazing that you did that and so sad that that nurse went out of her way to target those nurses. Gees.
First of all, I have never been a victim of racism so I can't say I know how you feel. I sounds like you are very offended and I wish that was not the case. Hopefully, I can help alleviate some of your distress and convince you to take a closer look at your situation because after all, moving back to a northern state is a big deal and you should make that decision AFTER you get the right perspective on your situation and understand what is really going on (a lot easier said than done, I know).
The short answer here before I go into details explaining my view of the situation is that no, you should not leave just yet because I think you may be over-reacting to what happened. Some of that sounds pretty bad and its hard for me to really know what happened without being there, but I do know that racism is perceived very differently by both perpetrators and victims in the south than it is in the north and some things that would be newsworthy hate crimes in the north are no big deal in the south and consequently, "victims" do not feel as victimized and perpetrators do not really intend as much harm. Every situation is unique and serious racial issues and hate crimes definitely remain a major societal problem, but I feel that we have an overall over sensitive and magnified view of the problem here in the north. It wasn't long ago that black people were being physically harmed by whites on a regular basis for simply being black and white people were getting away with it. Now a days, hate crimes are taken very seriously both officially and on a real, personal, and practical level. We are not done, but we have come a long way as a society and celebrating the progress we have made and admitting things are better does not (or at least should not) detract from the severity of the current condition or the significance of past injustices.
What I can say is that there is a big difference in how racism is perceived between rural southern and metropolitan northern states. The truth is, racism isn't all that more prevalent in the south than it is in the north (maybe a little bit, but much less than most northerner's assume). In the north we are very sensitive to race, and even the slightest implication of racial bias or even accidentally saying or doing something racist is seen as offensive and unacceptable in the north. The difference is in perception. In the south, certain things are less likely to be perceived or intended to be offensively racist (unless of course its someone like you who was raised elsewhere) than they same thing would be up north. In a New York hospital, people would be fired over what was said to you and they would probably deserve it (because they most likely knew it was offensive and intended to offend you) while the actual people you experienced in the south could very well be completely nice, non-racist coworkers (although some of the comments seemed pretty bad) or maybe they intended to offend you for some other reason unrelated to your race and simply chose to offend you with racism because its more acceptable there and therefore its also less serious (i.e. they use a racial slur assuming you would only be mildly offended and don't really consider it racism, nor do they have a problem with your race maybe you just took their spot in the cafeteria). Its also possible that they were complete racists and meant to offend you even more than you were offended! All I'm saying is that racism is both intended and perceived to be less serious and offensive (by both white people and black people) in the south, and a lot of what you feel may go away once you adjust to the culture.
I suggest you talk to people of your own race about what happened to try and gauge how serious it was, maybe you can even find someone like yourself (from the north) and ask them how they have adjusted. I know its not as simple as just letting it go, but it would suck to leave a job prematurely because you had misunderstandings of their culture. The closest experience I had was the first time I worked with inner city black patients and their families and got called "whitey" a couple times. I felt very offended and uncomfortable and felt like they hated/distrusted me, but eventually I realized that was just how they talked about white people and even though it was technically "racist" and I was offended at first, they didn't mean to really offend me and had no ill feelings towards me. It still made me feel uneasy, but I didn't feel like I was hated or that they didn't appreciate the care I was providing. I KNOW my experience was minor compared to yours and I'm not saying white people are anywhere near as targeted as black people when it comes to racism, its just the only personal experience I have to compare to.
As for the confederate flag, ironically that is the LEAST racist thing you mentioned even though you referred to it was the "worst". I can say with confidence that the confederate flag has long been disassociated with racism, "white power", and slavery among southern culture. Sure, many (if not most) non-southerners, both black and white, see it as an offensive symbol and SOME people do in fact use it as an offensive symbol (i.e. the Charleston shooter seemed to have associated it with his perverted racist ideology) but MOST southerners fly it as a symbol of southern pride, solidarity, and strength. To them, the confederacy represents the American people holding their own against a tyrannical government. The south LOST the battle over slavery and were shown to be wrong about their view of black people, so it makes no sense to fly the flag in support of slavery or white superiority, that would be like a Russian Hockey team watching "miracle on ice" in order to celebrate their perceived superiority to a US hockey teams(miracle on ice is a movie about the US beating Russia in hockey in th 1980 winter Olympics). I've been to the south on several occasions and every time I have seen black people flying the confederate flag while hanging out with a white best friend. My (white) neighbor lived in a frat house that flew the flag and they were next to an all black frat house that also flew the confederate flag. When Charleston happened, both frats joined together (a rare event in its own right) and threw a "patriot party" in celebration of southern solidarity and in remembrance of the victims of the shooting and by the end of the night the stars and bars were body painted on almost everyone.
You are in an entirely different culture and if you have never actually experienced it other than what you see on the news and in TV/Movies, you (like most northerners) have a lot of false preconceived notions that may take a while to get over. There are good and bad people in this country just like everywhere else. People kill, rape, and rob each other every day. Other things like racism, sexism, and homophobia are less serious and less universal in how they are percieved. These are social issues that depend on the surrounding society. Northern metropolitan society and culture is VERY different than rural southern society/culture when it comes to social issues and if you have lived you whole life in one place, its not going to be easy to adjust. That said, I think once you do adjust you will appreciate the experience and realize the south and southern people are not any more or less evil than northerners. My experience has actually been the opposite, in the limited experience Ive had in the more rural south, I've seen a lot more friendliness and hospitality than the philly/new york area. Sure, occasionally I would see or hear something that made me cringe, but overall people both black and white seemed happier and more relaxed in the south, and that's what is really important so in going forward I encourage you to give the south a shot but if you can't adjust then you would best move back north because things aren't going to be much different just moving to another hospital.
Good luck, I wish you the best!
Jaybuzz, I wish that before you wrote this lengthy comment that you took the time to read the other comments. I am NOT in the South, I'm actually in NY state. Racism is actually experienced by POC more than just in the South. When a Northern person decides to display a confederate flag, what type of culture are they trying to be proud of?
jaybuzz, If you're white and you have based what you are saying/explaining on the fact that you have been in the South several times, pardon me for saying so, but you are talking through your hat. Prejudice? "It's not as big a deal" in the South anymore? Interesting. That may seem so on the surface, but start talking with black people here and you'll be disabused on tht notion pretty quickly.
Several months ago my middle-aged black female coworker, my 98-year-old patient and I were talking about racial problems r/t some recent news stories. Prior to all this, I had thought a lot of racial things had changed for the better, but my co-worker gave us examples of things she and her husband and family encounter every single day. My eyes were really opened by things I never thought happened anymore. This coworker is a fine , lovely,church-going woman with a quiet/calm demeanor... and things she recounted to us...made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I wanted to slap some of the people she told us about, for their perversely self-righteous ignorance, hatefulness and unwarranted superiority-complex. Honestly, it would scare me to be a black person in these days and times, and I don't think fear is too extreme a reaction, given the supposedly 'random' thinks that happen when you happen to be black..
Granted not everybody in the South, or North ( I am a retired New Englander) are racist, but there are people who revel in their sly, verbal "death by a thousand cuts". One or two cuts are not a problem, but cumulatively they can bleed you dry. They say things in a way that make them deniable, and snicker with their like-minded friends behind their closed front doors.
"There is so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the worst of us,
That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us."
This is good advice regarding gossip, but I think there is still a lot to be talked about. On either 'side' are the people who can't or won't listen to the legitimacy and emotions...what's behind the words, and instead, grow more and more heated and then hostile. I don't know the answer. If we could all realize and focus on the humanity beneath the skin, but how can we help create that epiphany within each individual, black or white, yellow, red, etc....I dunno. History and personal experiences are often held up as shields AND weapons.
SMH. I have met many supposed loving, tolerant people who are happy to proclaim their love for all humanity...as long as they are clean, polite and 'know their place.'
We've got Baptists, New Agers, Daughters of Dixie, Vegans vs Meat-Eater, Mexican/Latinos, pro-Gay and anti-Gay, ad infinitum, where I live. Each group preaches that the other group(s) need to practice tolerance, all the while holding themselves as being 'better' than the ones they say aren't tolerant of them and theirs.
All you can do is stop, look and listen. You can't NOT be struck by the intolerance.
Thank you! To dismiss someone's complaint and say well you are just overreacting is just as bad as the perpetrators committing the act.
No Stars In My Eyes
5,632 Posts
OP, not only are you a person of color, but you are a man doing "women's work", AND you had the audacity to marry a local white girl!
You have hit the trifecta!
I was raised in a small, lily-white town in the North, 30 miles from the Big City. Yet I never even saw a black person, in person, until I was 9 or 10. None of the schools I went to ever had any black students or employees. Fortunately I was raised by a woman who was adamantly NON-racist and she made sure her kids knew without a doubt that we are all human beings, period. It was never, ever a question of race, color or creed, life was about character and how you treated others.
I moved to the South at the age of 27 and it was a HUGE culture shock in so many ways! Inside I was like this-->
. I have to admit that many of the white people I came in contact with and observed made me quite embarrassed at being white and merely standing nearby when they opened their mouths and had what I considered to be some appalling conversation.
Once I worked through an agency and was sent to work in a small rural hospital where I was the only white girl in the whole hospital on the 3-11 shift. Now, because of how my mother raised me, I didn't really think about it all that much. It didn't bother me; I found it kind of interesting in that I had never been the odd man out. But I knew I wasn't REALLY experiencing what the lone black person might go through in an all white environment. Nobody was mean to me, I didn't feel threatened. Basically I was given my patient assignment and otherwise ignored. As a 'rent-a-nurse' I'd received worse treatment on other facility assignments.
Many of my co-workers, dyed-in-the-wool-Southerners, refused that assignment. The reasons they gave were individually explained in differing terms...and with some good, "honest" lies which they told with such sincerity you almost expected a halo to appear over their heads...but none of it hinted at the real reason they didn't want to take the assignment. The truth of it was an unspoken thing that was understood by all.
I still live in the South, but a different state. I married a Southerner who has quite a few Neanderthal-Racist relatives. Hmmm. I don't feel 'threatened' by them exactly, but even after 26 years I am viewed with some suspicion. You see, I am a Northerner, after all, a non-Baptist, Damn-Yankee who came and stayed! I am seldom surprised by the in-laws anymore, and my husband long ago gave up trying to explain to them that just because I was raised differently and did things differently, (like NOT waiting on my husband hand and foot) that didn't mean I was a bad person.
I still have the sensation of being an anthropologist sometimes.