KTLA

Mother talks about being targeted in anti-Mexican rant at Disneyland

A mother who was the target of a woman’s anti-Mexican rant at a Disneyland bathroom recalls the startling confrontation as her toddler was with her.

The bathroom exchange happened on Dec. 5 when Eva Ramirez filmed the woman’s racist remarks after she reportedly heard the mother and son speaking Spanish in the bathroom.  

Ramirez was celebrating her 2-year-old son’s birthday at the park when the altercation allegedly started with a disagreement over a bathroom stall.

She and her son were in a Disney parking garage bathroom outside of the park’s front entrance when she suddenly became the target of the woman’s racist remarks.

“As we were walking into the restrooms, the stalls were empty and so I went ahead and used the big stall with my child and also with my stroller,” Ramirez said.

She heard two people outside the stall making rude comments but she was preoccupied with her son and didn’t realize they were actually directed towards her. 

“I’m having a conversation with my baby,” she recalled. “I’m letting him know what I’m doing. He’s learning to speak a lot more words.”

Ramirez was speaking Spanish to her son, part of her efforts to make him bilingual. When she exits the stall, a woman standing nearby suddenly starts yelling at her.

“The woman in the gray t-shirt started screaming at me and she started telling me to speak English in her country and that it was her country and ‘Please get out of her country,’” Ramirez recalled. “What I said to her was, ‘I was born here.’”

Ramirez said the racist tirade went on for about a minute. When her son started to cry, that’s when she knew the woman had gone too far. So she pulled out her phone and began recording her. 

In the video, Ramirez is heard saying, “I’m at Disneyland and this person just heard me speaking Spanish and she said, ‘Great, you’re a f—–g Mexican, right?’ Repeat what you just said.” 

Ramirez asks the woman, “You have a problem with people that speak Spanish in your country, right?” 

“Yeah, but it’s America,” the unidentified woman responds. “You don’t speak Spanish in America. It’s an English-speaking country.”  

Ramirez responds saying, “Your comment is racist and it has nothing to do with using the restroom.”

“I don’t care,” said the unidentified woman. “I hate Mexicans, it’s true. There it is.”

The woman then comments on Ramirez using a handicapped bathroom stall despite having a baby and a stroller with her. At the time, the unidentified woman was accompanying another woman in a wheelchair.

“Is it a problem for you both that I speak Spanish?” Ramirez asks the duo.

The woman responds, “It’s offensive that you use that bathroom when she’s in a wheelchair,” as she gestures to the other member of her party.

On Sunday, a group of protesters gathered outside of the unidentified woman’s Apple Valley home. 

A protester, Alex Enamorado, who is also a well-known street vendor activist in San Bernardino County, was arrested outside the home.

It’s unclear how Enamorado learned of the Disneyland exchange and found the woman’s address. Police have not yet said what charges the activist was arrested on.

KTLA’s Shelby Nelson visited the home and attempted to speak with the unidentified woman but no one answered the door.

“You still have the people who think this is okay,” Ramirez said. “And they continue to do this despite being recorded. I don’t think anyone should tolerate it and most definitely not around your children because I feel that we can lead by example. If I had ignored her, my son would have felt like that’s okay and so what I’m doing now is teaching him that this is not tolerated wherever you are.”

Ramirez said she filed a complaint with Disneyland employees, asking them to not let the woman inside the park, but security refused the request “because it was only a verbal confrontation.”

KTLA has reached out to Disneyland officials for a comment and was deferred to the Anaheim Police Department.