Latina Met with Racism in Houston Airport (VIDEO)

Sep 11, 2015
11:24 AM

Rosmila González Negrín, a Venezuelan-born Texan, posted a video on Facebook yesterday explaining what happened as she tried to make sure her visiting mother safely got on the plane back to Venezuela.

Q se haga viral

Posted by Rosmila Gonzalez Negrin on Thursday, September 10, 2015

 

Here’s a bit of what Rosmila had to say following her ordeal:

I decided to make this video because I believe in the power of words. I believe sometimes a person should speak when it’s necessary to say things, because if you don’t say something, it doesn’t have effect on other people. And a lot of times you must listen in order to be aware of things. …

My mom left for Venezuela. She took an early-morning flight. It’s 5:50 in the morning, and the day got off to a difficult start. Nevertheless, one always has hope in people, especially concerning customer service, that they should treat you with respect, right?

As with every year, I asked American Airlines to do me the favor of tending to my mom because she’s a person of age. Usually I enter with her and walk her to the gate. This time the person who tended to me, well, it seems as though she was a Donald Trump follower or watches a lot of television or woke up in a bad mood. But this is the first time in 15 years of my life that I have lived in this country —a beautiful country filled with opportunities, a country filled with beautiful people, because I believe the majority of this country has virtuous, beautiful, sweet, respectful people— well, it’s the first time in my life that something like this has happened to me.

This lady, when I asked her for the pass to enter with my mom because my mom doesn’t speak English, the lady stares at my mom and says my mom is perfectly fine and can enter by herself. I tell her, “Ma’am, the thing is that every year, every time my mom comes, I take her to the gate because she’s nervous. She’s an older lady; she’s older than 65. That’s why I ask for a pass so that I can enter.”

She took my ID. The lady simply kept staring at my mom. And when I saw her staring I said, “The thing is that my mom doesn’t speak Spanish. Understand? And so to find the gate, sit down and talk to the people in Houston is a bit hard for her.” The lady kept looking at me cynically, and she tells me, “That’s weird, because after all the majority of the people living in the world speak English.” And I tell the lady, “Well, yeah, that is strange because my mom, she lives in Venezuela, and she speaks Spanish. She doesn’t speak English.”

Offended by this, of course, I ask her, “With all due respect, do you speak Spanish?” The lady tells me, “No. I don’t need to speak Spanish. I live in America, and so I don’t need to speak Spanish.” And then I tell her, “Well, you’ve proven my point, see? My mom lives in Venezuela, and she doesn’t need to speak English. That’s why she doesn’t speak English. Even though you say that the majority of the people in the world speak English, she doesn’t, and she needs to enter with me.”

The lady gave me a pass to enter. After I waited in line and it was time to enter, she grabbed the pass and tore it up in my face, and she enjoyed doing it, saying, “Now we’ll see how you’re going to get it.” …

In short, my recommendation is the following: For the people who think what this man Donald Trump is doing doesn’t affect anyone, I think this person is doing the same thing Hugo Chávez did in Venezuela. He’s using us —us Latinos— to win the election. What Hugo Chávez did was use the poor, to grab the poor and make them believe the rich were evil. Well, here they’re using the Latinos and they’re discriminating against all of them.