Speaking Spanish across the United States can subject you to offensive and racist comments. Unfortunately, there are some who mistreat others for speaking Spanish or any other language that isn’t English. Dulce Nereyda and her mother were recently on the receiving end of some vitriolic comments after an unnamed bearded man started yelling at them for speaking Spanish.
While Dulce, who is Mexican-American, didn’t record the entire encounter, she did post about it on Facebook, where she explained that she and her mom were just at an Arizona Walmart to shop for baby shower presents.
“This ⬇️ man starts yelling, ‘I can’t wait until Trump does away with you all!’ I was like, ‘Excuse me.’ He yelled ‘Leave, just leave. YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!’ All because I was speaking Spanish to my mom,” she wrote on Facebook.
The encounter took her by surprise, but Dulce felt like she shouldn’t stay quiet after seeing the fear in her daughter’s face. So with her phone recording, she approached him.
“So do you want to tell me to get out again?” she said while she aimed the camera at the man. “Because this is my country, too.”
At first, the man ignored her, but eventually, he reiterated his bigoted views and his support for President Donald Trump and the border wall.
“This is my country, whether you like it or not,” she responded. “And English is not the language of this country.”
The United States does not have an official language, and Spanish has been spoken in the country (before it was the United States) longer than English.