A video of a man threatening to report Spanish-speaking restaurant workers to US immigration authorities in New York has gone viral on social media.
The footage shows a customer berating staff for speaking Spanish at the premises in Manhattan.
“Your staff are speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English,” he tells one employee.
He then threatens to call the US deportation force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“My guess is they’re not documented, so my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country,” he says.
Other patrons at the restaurant can be seen laughing at the man during the incident on Tuesday, which was captured in footage posted on Facebook and contains some strong language.
Social media users have strongly criticised the man in the video, who local media report is a New York-based lawyer.
New York City receives thousands of tourists every day and not all of them speak English. I am bilingual and if a customer needs assistance in Spanish, I will gladly speak to him in that language. If other customers get offended, IDGAF, they can throw tantrums all they want.
— Alvaro Favela (@alvaro_favela) May 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/ClaudiaRivero10/status/996944073507426305
A man.
Living in MANHATTAN.
Is freaked out by hearing languages other than English being spoken. https://t.co/1N7rfULFYo
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) May 16, 2018
ICE later criticised the recorded threat to report workers to the agency.
“ICE’s Tip Line is solely for the purposes of making legitimate reports of suspected criminal activity,” Rachael Yong Yow, the spokeswoman for the New York field office of ICE told the New York Times.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote on Twitter that the city’s diversity was its strength, adding that it was home to people who share more than 200 languages.
New York City's diversity is our strength. It's what makes this city great. The 8.6 million people who call this city home speak more than 200 languages – they’re all New Yorkers and they’re all welcome here.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) May 16, 2018
There are currently 56.5 million Hispanic Americans in the US, according to the Pew Research Centre.
Trump’s immigration crackdown
The US contains a highly diverse population, the product of numerous and sustained waves of immigration.
Ethnic and racial diversity – the “melting pot” – is celebrated as a core element of the American ideology.
Hispanics from the southern Americas are among those seeking the promise of prosperity and freedom which remains one of the defining hallmarks of “the American dream”.
However during his campaign for presidency, Donald Trump pledged to construct a border wall with Mexico and described Mexican-Americans as “drug dealers, criminals and rapists”.
In January, Mr Trump sparked outrage when he reportedly used crude language to describe foreign countries in an Oval Office meeting.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump said that immigrant gangs are “animals, not people”.
The president added that the US has the “dumbest immigration laws in the world”.
“…..Other patrons at the restaurant can be seen laughing at the man…..”
It is kind of funny, but only because it happened in NYC, which has always been the landing point for aliens both legal and illegal. I don’t think this guy has been in NYC for very long, and if I.C.E. went to work there, they wouldn’t know where to begin.
It’s an international city, and it’s difficult to call it part of America. It has very little to do with the rest of the country culturally, or demographically. Personally, I’ve had more than enough “diversity” for one lifetime, and I appreciate living among Americans now.
I didn’t get any sound out of the video, and I was looking forward to hearing his rant.
“I didn’t get any sound out of the video, and I was looking forward to hearing his rant.”
This type of video automatically plays with the sound turned off. If you click the sound icon at the bottom and restart the video, you will have sound.
I really have no problem w them speaking spanish to those who use the language, but i resent like heck them speaking their language around English speaking customers. It is very annoying, and i won’t go back if done in my presence.
I see this as highly positive and I think we’ll see more encounters like this. This man has had enough; he is totally fed up. He spoke the truth courageously when so many others just quietly go along. The colonization is moving along quite swiftly and unless more voices are raised like this, it will soon be complete.
I remember Henry ending the broadcast one day with: “And remember, stay pissed.” That is such excellent counsel for these times. To not be angry is to be ignorant. I don’t mean we can’t have periods of joy in between, but anger alerts us that something is terribly wrong and it is the springboard for taking action. I hope the man in the vid gains much appreciation and respect and inspires others to speak out.
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You reminded me of a meme I saw years ago…it’s still good:
If you’re not OUTRAGED, you’re not paying attention!
My Mom’s parent came to Ellis Island just after WW1. They had to have a sponsor…you couldn’t just come to America because you wanted to…you needed someone already here, in good standing, to vouch for you PERSONALLY, that you were a good, upstanding individual and a law-abiding, contributing member of society.
My grandparents knew that the “streets were paved with gold”…but in order to succeed here, they needed to BECOME AMERICAN and fit in. It was considered EXTREMELY RUDE to speak your native language within earshot of an English-speaking American…a faux pas that would put you in a bad light and perhaps keep you from succeeding in your goal of a better life here…it just wasn’t done, period! I have ZERO problems with what this guy was ranting about. Having grown up in South Florida, it irritated the hell out of me that tourists or anyone assumed that, because I live there, I speak Spanish!!! Now, if someone came to me for directions or whatever in broken English but was trying their best, then yes, I will help them in Spanish, French, German…or any other way I can. The ASSUMPTION is what gets under my skin.
Heritage is important. It should be cherished and nurtured….AT HOME!!!! When out in public, speak English!!!
Years ago, in South Florida, a Yankee tourist was annoyed at a Burger King when he ordered his food and the kid said it in Spanish thru the microphone. He complained to corporate. Corporate made a mandate that BK was to be English-only. The complaints piled up about screwed-up orders during the next few months…and BK rescinded the mandate.
Reminds me of a joke:
Two Arab terrorists sneak into NYC and meet at the designated time at the little deli on the corner to plan their next move. Both are clean-shaven, blue jeans and golf shirts. The first guy is already seated and the second one walks over, pulls out the chair to sit down and says, with a perfect American accent, “Hey, how’s it goin’?” The seated guy reaches over and slaps him across the face and says, “Idiot! We’re in America now…speak Spanish!”
Ha ha ha. Good one!!
🙂
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Good one man!! LMAO!!
This happened in my AO about 2 weeks ago –
It says in this guys profile that he speaks Spanish .. whats the problem chump , did you hear something you didnt like ?
1st amendment covers all languages here ,as a matter of fact English was not the original language of this Land , it was Native Indian and …ta da Spanish , and when the immigrants came , many other languages , just because you cant understand what they might be saying about you , doesnt give you the right to be paranoid about it lol
too many people think that just because you only speak 1 language or only understand 1 language , that everyone needs to cater to you .. well we’re supposed to be FREE.. so that just dont jive with FREE now ,,, does it?
Freedom of speech doesn’t dictate language
now before you flame me , i do understand that English is the chosen language for this country .. but it doesn’t say that in private conversations we cant speak other languages , or make our own language up ( Im sure these people weren’t even talking to him , so hes the rude fuker butting in)
I know groups of people who talk to each other in a made up language that they only know , and with Opsec becoming a huge deal in this country with as many gestapo we have spying on every move we make and say.. maybe its high time we find other ways of communicating that a limited few only know
EOTS, I’m stretching to understand your perspective. Are we to become a Tower of Babel society? In order to cooperate in building a peaceful and free society do we not need understanding? Hard to do that without a common language. Maybe I have a blind spot here, but I don’t see how things can get done without mutual understanding.
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I guess in a nutshell what im saying is, if it was a private conversation, he needs to mind his own business
obviously they weren’t talking to him in Spanish , or he would have replied in Spanish , it says he speaks the language in his profile
so he must have been eavesdropping and didn’t like what they said
and to that I say tuff crap pal , its a free country (sposed to be anyways) if he wants to make up his own language to talk to his friends or use any language he chooses thats his prerogative , again freedom of speech doesn’t say you have to speak the native tongue
as far as the tower of babble .. well we are the melting pot , and it is recognized that English is the language used here
but that doesn’t regulate what language he MUST use to talk to those in his private conversations , even if those private conversations are in a public setting with people who may be foreigners that dont speak English
Too many people busy with getting into other peoples business, usually hate it when they cant understand whats said
no one was forcing this guy to speak a language he didnt want to , and no one was telling him that the USA needs to speak Spanish ..
But is not a restaurant a public institution serving the public? These were the employees serving the public. I guess you can say the restaurant is a private enterprise, as are some hospitals and other services the public needs, but can you see what could happen if one needs help and there’s no common language for understanding?
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ps: At a California farmer’s market, I was forcefully reprimanded for not speaking Spanish.
I see the wave and I don’t want to drown.
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Racist NYC lawyer tries to hide in his umbrella as he flees reporters outside his home:
After going viral for yelling at Spanish-speaking employees in a Midtown Manhattan cafe, lawyer Aaron Schlossberg ran away from reporters outside of his home who wanted to ask him about the incident.
The New York Post reported Thursday that the lawyer who was outed as a Trump supporter and recorded during another racist tirade years prior hid behind his umbrella as a few journalists flanked him. He also appeared to be recording the reporters around him as well.
“Do you feel bad about what you said, were you just having a bad day?” one reporter asked. “Or are you always this way?”
“Please send help,” Schlossberg was heard saying to someone on his cell phone. “They’re claiming things that aren’t true…grabbing me, not letting me walk.”
“Why are hiding?” the reporter asked as the lawyer walked away, face in his umbrella.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/watch-racist-nyc-lawyer-tries-hide-umbrella-flees-reporters-outside-home/
Ambush Journalism.
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Jeez, I can hear mort goldman’s voice in this story!
After New Yorker’s racist rant goes viral, his law firm gets pummeled with 1-star Yelp reviews:
Aaron Schlossberg, a New York-based lawyer, became internet famous on Wednesday for the worst of reasons: a racist rant that went viral.
Schlossberg was captured on a smartphone video yelling at employees in the restaurant Fresh Kitchen in midtown Manhattan. His complaint was that the workers were speaking Spanish to customers.
“And my guess is they’re not documented,” Schlossberg said to an employee, who appeared to be a manager. “So my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country.”
So many reviews were flooding Schlossberg’s page that Yelp jumped in to say the listing is undergoing an “active cleanup alert.” According to Yelp, when a business attracts posts because it “made waves in the news,” the company works to “remove both positive and negative posts that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than the reviewer’s personal consumer experience with the business.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/racist-viral-video-lawyer-aaron-schlossbergs-law-firm-yelp-bombed.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
He sounds like a tyrant