Show us your passport – woman’s racist rant in Virginia restaurant goes viral
- White woman abused Spanish-speaking family including girl, 7
- Tirade is latest anti-immigrant incident caught on video
A white woman accosted a family speaking Spanish at a Virginia restaurant, demanding they show their passports and shouting vulgarities in the latest incident of anti-immigrant sentiment to go viral on video.
The incident, which comes as Donald Trump has injected a stream of invective against immigrants into the midterm election campaign, happened at Andy’s restaurant in Lovettsville, Virginia, on Friday.
The video, obtained by Telemundo 44, shows a sunglasses-wearing white woman wagging her finger and shouting at the family to “show your passport” and “go back to your fucking country.”
The victim of the tirade told Telemundo she was dining with her seven-year-old daughter and a group of relatives visiting from Guatemala when the fellow customer abused them.
“She asked us for our passports. She said that she knew everyone in the area, that we should get out,” said the woman, who was not identified. “We told her: we are not talking to you, we are talking among ourselves.”
An employee said she was calling police, and the woman continued her tirade after stepping outside the restaurant. “You do not fucking come over here and freeload on America, OK?” she said. “I’m tired of this shit.”
Police were called to the restaurant but no charges were filed, according to Telemundo.
Andy’s restaurant denounced the white woman’s behavior in a Facebook post, saying she was not welcome to return to the business.
“Thank you for disrupting the rights of others who were enjoying an evening of camaraderie in a confined public space,” they wrote. “Thank you – and we mean this with all the aforementioned respect that you rightfully deserve – for never returning to Andy’s. You are not welcome.”
It’s the latest in a spate of incidents captured on video that have shown people berating strangers with anti-immigrant abuse.
Video from a Colorado grocery store this month showed a woman confronting two fellow shoppers who were speaking Spanish among themselves, while another woman came to their defense.
In California earlier this year, a driver launched into an anti-Asian rant directed at another motorist who she felt wasn’t driving fast enough. “This is not your fucking country,” the woman said. “This is my country.”
A Manhattan lawyer, Aaron Schlossberg, became infamous after he was caught on video berating a manager at a Manhattan restaurant after he overheard a customer speaking Spanish with an employee, and threatening to call immigration authorities “to have each one of them kicked out of my country”.
He was banned from his office building and faced calls for his disbarment. He later apologized.
A woman in Portland, Oregon shouted racist comments at a Filipino American outside a donut shop, saying: “You’re illegals crossing the border.”
Soon after Donald Trump’s election, a driver in Queens went on a profane anti-Muslim rant against another driver, calling him a terrorist. “Trump is president,” the man says on the video. “So you can kiss your visa goodbye.”
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