Latina Mom Verbally Attacked by Racist for Speaking Spanish in Disneyland

The Latinx community is no stranger to seeing our people harassed and attacked in public, from street vendors to casual bystanders, especially for speaking Spanish. From two Latinas who were stopped and interrogated by U.S. Border Patrol for speaking Spanish in a convenience store, despite both of them being citizens to a mother and daughter physically attacked for speaking Spanish near a subway station, this bigotry is all too common throughout the U.S. Last week, vendor activist Eva Ramirez was the victim of such harassment when she was in a Disneyland bathroom speaking Spanish to her two-year-old son. A woman began screaming racist remarks including “I hate Mexicans” and “You don’t speak Spanish in America. It’s an English-speaking country.” Though Ramirez reported the incident, Disneyland refused to eject the woman since there was no physical altercation according to her post. In the video, Ramirez explains that she used the larger stall with her son and the woman, who was with another woman in a wheelchair, began verbally attacking her as a result.

“I can’t believe it’s 2023 and we are knee deep in hatred and bigotry yet this person wasn’t even subtle nor hiding it,” Ramirez said in an Instagram post sharing the video. “I’m sharing this because Racism starts at home. People have access to several resources, but still make the conscious choice to continue to be ignorant. Never thought I’d experience this and I thought I’d ignore someone like this, but in the presence of my son no one will scream at him nor me what language to speak in‼️🇲🇽”

Ramirez, a software engineer, originally went to Disneyland to celebrate her son’s second birthday. She can be heard defending herself and her son throughout the two-minute video like “I can speak Spanish to whoever I want to. We’re free to speak Spanish to whoever we want.” According to Ramirez, the woman shouted “Great, you’re a f—–g Mexican, right?” before she started recording. But even during filming, she repeated herself, screaming racist remarks about Mexicans and Spanish speakers including “I don’t care. I hate Mexicans, it’s true. There it is.” From the video, it seems that the woman was unhappy that Ramirez used the handicapped restroom, as she was accompanied by a woman in a wheelchair who can be seen coming out of a regular stall. But as Ramirez pointed out, “Being handicapped has nothing to do with being racist.”

“Your comment is racist, and it has nothing to do with using the restroom,” she can be heard saying in the video. Toward the end of the video the woman is seeing giving Ramirez the middle finger before wheeling the other woman away in her wheelchair.

Activist Alex Enamorado was arrested for allegedly protesting outside of the perpetrator’s home with a group of other activists in Apple Valley, KTLA reported. Police have not said how Enamorado found the woman’s address or what he’s been charged with. Ramirez told CBS that she doesn’t want anyone to retaliate against the woman but would like for Disney to acknowledge what happened. She shared that the security guard had told her “‘Well, I already heard their story and you should go about your day,'” Ramirez recalled.

“If someone would have at least acknowledged that it did happen to us and not try to shove it under the rug, I feel like that’s all I was looking for,” Ramirez told CBS.

HipLatina reached out to Disney for a statement and received no response at the time of publishing this story.