A Black woman is calling for people to boycott a Mexican restaurant in Long Beach, California, after she caught one employee calling her a racial slur in Spanish.
Kat Branchman took to social media to recount her recent visit to Sirenita’s Restaurant, an establishment that serves Honduran, Salvadorian and Mexican cuisine.
Branchman said she went inside to order takeout. While she was looking through the menu, she overheard two waitresses speaking and heard one refer to her as a “big nār” in Spanish.
“I was looking at a menu and they laughed in my face because they thought I did not know what they were saying. I left the restaurant quietly, took a moment to breathe and went back and quietly asked for an apology,” Branchman wrote on TikTok. “She proceeded to act like she did not know what I was talking about.”
Branchman recalled how shocked the women looked when she put the menu down, looked at them knowingly, and called them out.
āI was sitting there looking at the menu, and they thought I couldnāt understand what they were saying,” Branchman wrote in a caption on Instagram. “Dead wrong.”
In her video, she explained that her father is Panamanian, and she understood the waitresses’ conversation because he taught her Spanish and specifically warned her about that term to know when she is being racially harassed.
She said she immediately left and went to a neighboring business where she confirmed the meaning of the word with a Hispanic employee, then returned to the restaurant to confront the waitresses. When she returned and spoke to the offending employee, the staff member claimed she was talking about someone else.
“I even quietly give her a chance to apologize, and she starts saying she was talking about someone else!!! Yall I lost it. Cause whereās the other Big N**** in the restaurant!!???” Branchman wrote in the Instagram comments.
Branchman explained why she chose to post about her experience on social media.
” … I know that back in the day, my ancestors had to be called all kind of words and names and they had to eat that, and this is not back in the day. Like, I have every opportunity to not only defend myself but to also put out there establishments and businesses that do not prioritize equality and the Black dollar when it comes to who they hire and how they represent that establishment’s morals and values,” Branchman stated.
Many viewers flooded Branchman’s comments in support. Some in the Afro-Latin community even recounted their own experiences with racism.
“As a Panamanian who is fluent in Spanish, I canāt tell you how many times people have spoken about me in Spanish, thinking I donāt know, till I gladly cuss them out in both and they just stand there, shocked, glad you stood up for yourself!” one Instagram user wrote.
“Unfortunately, as an Afro Latina who grew up in LA that speaks fluent Spanishā¦ I’ve experienced this so much that it breaks my heart. At the end of the day, we all bleed red. Spread love not hateā¤ļøāš©¹,” another person commented.
After Branchman’s video went viral, people started flooding Sirenita’s Restaurant’s Google and Yelp pages with one-star reviews.
A similar incident happened at a Family Dollar store in Houston, Texas, last year, when an Afro-Latino man called out a Hispanic employee for disparaging Black customers in Spanish and claiming they only come into the business to steal.
Family Dollar subsequently fired the worker for her conduct and issued an apology.
