Family Says They Were Discriminated in Restaurant Because They Were Speaking Spanish in Viral TikTok

TikTok user @chil_gamer is claiming that he and his mother were discriminated against by another customer in the restaurant after his family was speaking Spanish among one another and playing a phone message from their aunt at their table.

The TikToker writes in a text overlay of the video: "Racist family comes to my Hispanic table to complain about us speaking in Spanish."

The video then zooms into a woman wearing a pink top complaining to a man and a woman seated at a table having a meal. The man asks the woman to step away from the table but there appears to be further disagreement between the three of them.

The woman in the pink shirt doesn't go back to her table until the man stands up aggressively to face her but the woman doesn't back away and continues to talk to him.

In a follow-up, video @chill_gamer explains that the woman in the pink shirt is his mother. What appears to have happened is that the TikToker's family were sitting with one another and speaking Spanish among each other.

From other TikToks, it seems that the complaint was about the fact that the TikToker's family was speaking loudly, and not necessarily because they were speaking in Spanish. However, @chill_gamer says that they've received several complaints in the past when they've been out to eat over the fact that they're speaking to one another in a language other than English.

In a detailed "story time" post he delineates exactly what happened in the clip. "Here you can see there is two parties. The woman standing up is my mom the offended the family sitting down is the offender."

He said that they were seated in a loud restaurant and that there was "obviously a lot of noise" and "stuff going on" as a result.

He said that the man approached their table while they were talking in Spanish and listening to a message, presumably on a cell phone, from the TikToker's aunt. He said that the demeanor in which the man was asking them to be quiet was more of a commanding tone as opposed to an apologetic ask. Which prompted the woman in the pink shirt, @chill_gamer's mom to confront the dad about it.

He said that she asked the man why they were the only table he decided to get up and tell him to be quiet in the loud and bustling restaurant while there were other people at other tables making noise as well. He also points out that the man gets up in an attempt to intimidate his mom while her son sits at the table and records their interaction.

It's at this point that the woman begins to raise her voice because the man, according to the TikToker tells her to "get the f*** out of here."

TikTokers who saw the post had varied opinions on what went down. Some remarked that it appeared that the complaint was more about the fact that they were listening to messages from his aunt and playing it at a loud volume and the fact that they were speaking Spanish was irrelevant.

However, there were others who believed that it wasn't OK for a younger man to attempt to silence a woman who was older than him and some were convinced this was a case of overt racism in action.

Some just thought the fact that the man stepped to his mother in such an aggressive way would be a one-way ticket to him getting his lights punched out.

What do you think about the situation? Should the table have just complained to restaurant management about the noise level in the premises? Was the table in the wrong for the way they approached @chill_gamer's family's table? Have you seen people discriminated against in public for speaking a language different from the dominant dialect folks are speaking in a particular region?