Embassy files protest over “No Mexicans” sign in Uruguayan bar
Mexico decries “deplorable racist attitude,” while owners claim phrase is from a movie
The Mexican embassy in Uruguay on Monday strongly criticized what it described as the “shameful and deplorable racist attitude” of a poster in a Montevideo bar that read: “No dogs or Mexicans allowed.” The sign, according to the owners of the Coffee Shop bar, made reference to a line delivered in a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, in which American actor Samuel L. Jackson appears.
Via a statement sent to the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry, and to which news agency EFE has had access, the Mexican embassy said that it considered the Uruguayan establishment to have displayed a “racist, discriminatory and xenophobic” attitude, adding that it “condemns and strictly rejects the public display of a poster that is offensive to, and discriminates against, Mexican nationals.”
It called for the “respect and solidarity that has always prevailed between Mexico and Uruguay,” and called for the country’s Foreign Ministry to demand that the business “immediately and definitively stop fomenting insulting attitudes that are contrary to the values and principals of Uruguayan society.”
For their part, the owners of the business explained on Saturday, via their Facebook page, that the whole incident was a “big misunderstanding.”
“In this case in particular, the phrase is taken from the Quentin Tarantino movie The Hateful Eight, which takes place in the middle of the 19th century,” they explained. “We understand that it could have been accidentally insulting, which is why it is necessary for us to make clear that we would never make such a statement seriously.”
They added that “absolutely no one has ever been discriminated against in our establishment.” According to the local media outlet Montevideo Portal, city authorities in Montevideo opened up an investigation into the café and sent notice to the National Human Rights Institution and the Ombudsman in the Uruguayan capital.
English version by Simon Hunter.