Gas station employee berates customer for speaking Spanish in viral video rant
A woman who engaged in conversation with a Bay Area gas station employee after being greeted in Spanish found herself verbally attacked and berated by a second worker who interrupted them to demand she speak English instead.
Grecya Moran said she was “in shock” when she posted video footage of the racist employee to Facebook last Thursday, encouraging others to share the three clips “to see all the bad people that exist in this world.” In another post, Moran said the confrontation happened at at the Shell Station in San Jose, Calif. “just because I was talking Spanish to the other cashier, and apparently she did not like that.”
Want daily pop culture news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Entertainment & Lifestyle’s newsletter.
Moran, who was holding her 18-month-old son in her arms as she endured the harassment, told ABC 7 she at first attempted to apologize to the employee for speaking Spanish.
“I said, ‘Excuse me, I’m sorry,” Moran said. “‘All she was saying is … she was greeting me in Spanish. ‘How my day’s going.’ And she said, ‘I don’t care, you talk in English because this is America.'”
But this seemed to enrage the worker even more. So Moran started fighting back — and she started filming. “She started saying something about, ‘Trump needs to hurry up and build the wall,'” Moran said. “That’s when I was like, oh my God, she’s being serious,” Moran said. “I just got my phone, started videotaping her.”
“This is a free country,” Moran says in one clip. “If I want to talk in Spanish, I can talk in Spanish.” The belligerent employee begins yelling over her, seeming to insist she can do what she wants too, and can speak in English, while also insisting, “I don’t care.”
In another video, the employee is yells, “You know what? F*** you,” to which Moran maintains her composure and offers a simple, “Are you happy about that? Congratulations.” She then announces, while slurring, that she’s going to quit her job at Shell soon, but insinuates that Moran doesn’t care because “you have your money. You can do whatever the f*** you want,” while, she states, “I’m poor.”
Then, the employee accuses Moran of not being a United States citizen, but Moran, who was born and raised in the U.S., corrects her. The two then get into a dispute about showing proof of citizenship. “Show me,” the employee insists. Moran responds, “I don’t have to show you my birth certificate.” The argument eventually seems to make the little boy cry.
Moran reported the incident to the San Jose Police Department as a possible hate crime, and the complaint is being investigated. The employee, who has not been identified, was fired from Shell the day of the incident. Her former supervisor confirmed she had been working there for two or three months.
The videos have gone viral and accrued more than 4,000 shares. Hundreds of commenters have weighed in, mainly to defend Moran and decry the employee’s tirade.
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Teen faces backlash after asking date to dance with racist ‘picking cotton’ sign
Ref who forced high school wrestler to cut dreadlocks is claiming defamation
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
