Like many students, when I was in university I had a part time job. I really enjoyed the work, because I had friendly co-workers. It often felt like I was hanging out with my buddies instead of working. There was, however, one fellow who completely rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t really put my finger on it until one day he mentioned that he and his wife (a fantastic person whom I genuinely liked) were going to Mexico for a vacation. Within seconds he started bragging about how he expected fast service and if the Mexicans serving him didn’t jump up and serve him fast enough they wouldn’t get their “Tippo grande” (his exact words). As he said this he mimed waving dollar bills under the nose of the imaginary server. At the time, my university major was Spanish language and literature. I had (and still have) many Latino friends from a variety of countries. I could not believe my ears. Shortly after this comment he started in about Asians. Considering that I am married to a Chinese-Canadian man, you can probably guess how well that went over. Tamping down my natural inclination to just clock him, instead I complained to my boss who took action and reprimanded him. (Yay boss!) The racist comments stopped immediately and my co-worker gave me a very wide berth any time we worked together afterwards.
Puerto Vallarta News
