A white West Virginia woman became social media’s latest viral bigot over the weekend, thanks to a xenophobic stream of hatred she aimed at an American citizen working in a Parkersburg Mexican restaurant. In the undated pair of videos recorded by Miranda Castillo and first posted to Facebook by her mother on Feb. 16, diners in the sunlit Tampico Mexican Restaurant dining room look on as a woman, addressed only as “Jill,” channels her inner Aaron Schlossberg: “I lived in California for 20 years and … English is our first language, so you need to speak English!”
The first video begins as the angry bigot is caught mid-rant against restaurant manager Sergio Budal as Castillo, a hostess at Tampico, struggles to get a good angle on the situation. Jill is seated in a booth, while Budal stands just behind her. Jill’s white-haired dining partner, whom we’ll call Quiet Kyle, is standing in front of Jill at the start of the video, doing a whole lot of nothing.
A seated customer in the foreground of the video is clearly listening to the altercation, but he doesn’t speak up until Jill takes things to the next level, after Budal politely tries to calm her down.
“I’m sorry about you, ma’am, and … I’m okay, but—”
“Well, I’m sorry about you, too,” Jill interrupts. “Get the fuck out of my country.” Jill points at Budal for emphasis.
The restaurant erupts in a chorus of wows as Quiet Kyle offers a soft and unconvincing “Hey” before taking his seat in the booth and watching the show.
Budar tells Jill that he’s a U.S. citizen; she responds that she doesn’t think that he is. Budar chuckles and tells Jill that means her issue must be with how he looks: “So you see, that’s the problem. That’s in you. That’s in your mind.”
Jill repeatedly barks that she doesn’t “have any problem with the way [he] look[s]”, so Budar asks her what her problem is, reminding her that he’s a U.S. citizen. As a front-of-house employee approaches and begins politely shushing everyone, Quiet Kyle leaps up again. He tries to silence Jill by whispering at her while gently grabbing her face, which, in the history of everything, has never worked on anybody. Jill smacks his hand away, telling Quiet Kyle to shut up before returning to Budar to repeat her declaration of monolingual martial law, saying, “I don’t have any problem with the way you look, but you’re in America, you need to speak English.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Budar replies in English, visibly exasperated with her hateful nonsense.
Just then, a bearded man clad in camo, identified as the restaurant’s chef, steps up and calls Jill out and tells her to leave: “If you’re gonna be racist here, you’re gonna leave.”
“I AM NOT RACIST,” Jill shouts racistly.
“No, that’s racist,” the chef says. “These people take care of me, and you better get out of here or he’s gonna call the deputy. So don’t do that here.”
”I lived in California for 20 years,” Jill loudly reminds the chef. Quiet Kyle suddenly orders Jill to shut up again.
“Don’t talk to these people like this, they’re good people. Don’t do that. You can leave,” the chef says.
The first video comes to an end (and the second video begins) just as Jill reminds the entire restaurant that she called the Golden State home for two decades. “I lived in California for 20 years,” Jill shouts (again).
“I don’t care where you lived. You don’t talk to these people like that, not here you don’t,” the bearded guy says. “These people take care of us.”
This rebuke silences Jill for a moment, and Quiet Kyle, who is behaving as though he may be a Tampico regular, takes advantage of the lull and apologizes for his dining companion’s blatant bigotry, while Budar has moved on to getting Jill out of the building. “I’m sorry. She was just a friend, I’m sorry I brought her here,” Quiet Kyle pleads.
Budar responds, “Let me do this. I’m going to pay for what you got, okay? So can you please exit the restaurant, please?”
Jill: “No, I’m not gonna exit.”
Budar: “I’ll take care of that, I’ll take care of everything, all you got, okay. Please, if you guys can leave, and you can feel better, in a better place.”
Quiet Kyle grabs his coat and begs Jill to come with him, as the front-of-house employee starts clearing the table. Jill stands up, mostly full margarita mug in hand; even as Budar and Quiet Kyle snatch it out of her hands, Jill tries to justify her outburst with events from her past, making at least one woman groan. “So I got raped, I got raped by illegal aliens who can’t speak English, and you want me to be nice to you?” Jill tries to lunge at Budal, but Quiet Kyle stops her. “Jill!” Quiet Kyle pushes her towards the door. “Oh my, my, my.”
“Fucking rapist.” Jill throws a napkin at Budal, who stands still, but waves his hand at onlookers. “Do you see?” Budal says, desperately.
Quiet Kyle apologizes to the restaurant patrons as he continues to shuffle Jill out the door, as she continues screaming about being “raped by illegal aliens” and calling Budar a “fucking rapist.”
As Jill finally approaches the exit, two unseen women chime in.
Woman 1: “White men rape women too.”
Woman 2: “Also, a lot more.”
Woman 1: “All men do.”
The video ends there, as Castillo makes it behind the host stand. In her Facebook post, Irma Deleon explained that her daughter was scared at the time.
My daughter captured this situation while working. My poor baby was frightened but cannot believe this continues to happen. We should be united as a country but there is much hate. We are all human trying to help each other out. I will pray for this woman to be a better person, but you can only educate the ignorant. First they must listen.
The story went viral, and was quickly picked up by U.S. Latino news org Latino Rebels, whose founder, Julio Ricardo Varela, tracked down Tampico’s general manager Sergio Budar in about a day. In a conversation on Monday, Budar confirmed that he was speaking with two of the owners of the three-location chain in Spanish before Jill came to their table and went full xenophobe. He said nothing like this has ever happened to him before, though he’d seen such things on social media, and they thought she was joking at first.
How am I supposed to get out of your country when this is my country too? I am a citizen too. I really, I can tell you, I feel sorry for her.
Budar said he was angry, but “it wasn’t worth it” to let the situation go any further. He wasn’t sure if Jill came in intoxicated, as she’d only had one margarita at the restaurant before the mostly full one the staff seized. Budar also said the restaurant was flooded with sympathetic members of the community on Sunday, the day after the video was published.
Varela asked Budar what it’s like to operate Mexican restaurants in West Virginia, and he conceded that “there’s not a lot of Hispanics” in the area, before revealing that he only joined the company about a month before the incident.
When asked for his final takeaway on this, Budar encouraged people who encounter bigots to “act differently,” so they can “keep their dignity.” ”Don’t say a thing to them. I know it’s hard. It’s not easy.”
It sure isn’t. But it shouldn’t be so hard. Budar’s advice is sadly crucial as incidents like these continue to increase. While viral video-captures of blatant bigotry aren’t tracked, it’s undeniable that hate crimes are happening with much greater frequency.
Local CBS affiliate WOWK reports that Jill is now banned from the restaurant.
