“She called me a f****** Mexican, told me I shouldn’t even be here,” Bernardo said about one recent incident with a customer.
It was not the first time this year that Bernardo and her family have been the target of racial abuse. In another incident, her husband was accosted at a store.
“To be honest, I feel fear but I just rely on God,” Bernardo said.
Despite growing anxiety over anti-immigrant sentiment in America, Bernardo remains hopeful for her children’s future. All three are American citizens and Dayton is the only home they know, but the family has recently questioned whether or not they should return to Mexico.
They aren’t alone. Jazline Gomez, President of the Dayton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, is a first generation Mexican-American who has built a successful portfolio of businesses that spans multiple counties. She said that concerns have been rising this year.
“We received a death threat around late January,” Gomez said. “We’ve also received hate messages.”
Gomez explained that many Latino-owned businesses are currently between a rock and a hard place. If they show support for their community, they might become targets themselves. But if they don’t, they risk losing the support of the very people they serve and represent.
“There’s fear. Fear of going into the wrong crowd and having someone attack a family,” Gomez said. “I know personally that there have been issues at school. Right now, if you look like a minority you are going to receive some kind of backlash no matter who you are or where you are in life.”
In recent months, she has heard these concerns at her businesses firsthand. Fear is spreading through the Latino community, with rumors of the presence of immigration officers driving customers away.
“In several counties we have heard about growing hostility, discrimination and open insults,” Gomez said. “We have had a couple business owners mention a decrease in people going into their shops out of fear as well as having to think carefully about what they post on social media out of fear of online backlash.”
According to Gomez, ICE is frequently used by individuals to threaten Latino businesses and events.
“That’s what they always say: ‘We’re going to call ICE on you guys’,” Gomez said.
As head of the Chamber, Gomez leads a team that represents a large amount of Latino-owned businesses.
“Some of the conversations we have had with other organizations have definitely been emotional because we can’t ignore it. We’ve seen families torn apart, even friendships,” Gomez said.
It isn’t just immigrants or first-generation Americans who have found themselves in the crosshairs. The announcement and subsequent uproar over Bad Bunny’s upcoming Superbowl performance highlights the discrimination faced by Puerto Ricans, with calls for Bad Bunny to be deported flooding social media. They are words that Christina Méndez, the chamber’s Executive Director, has faced herself.
“Being Puerto Rican, we know we are going to experience it regardless. We learn how to deal with covert racism in our day-to-day lives because people are not educated about the history of Puerto Rico, our people, how long we have been a part of this country and the contributions we have made to American society,” Méndez said.
The daughter of a Puerto Rican father and African-American mother, Méndez knows all too well what that kind of discrimination looks like.
“I think it’s more elevated now that society is making a big deal over Bad Bunny. It’s heightened because of immigration, the political climate, and everything that is happening,” Méndez said. “Everything is heightened right now so you’re experiencing racism 20 times more than what the regular levels of it would be.”
Hate crime statistics from the FBI showed anti-Hispanic hate crimes experienced second largest rise among any ethnic group after the Black community from 2015 to 2024. And according to the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights non-profit organization, anti-Latino and anti-immigrant violence is on the rise.
Like Bad Bunny, Méndez is a US citizen. Puerto Rico has been a part of the US for over a hundred years, with the Jones Act of 1917 making Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens. Méndez believes her own personal experience of this discrimination has gotten worse since taking on the directorship of the Chamber.
“I’ve seen a slowdown of non-Hispanic organizations wanting to work with us because I think people fear what working with a Latino organization will say about them. I think everyone is scared and wants to walk the line,” Méndez said.
This has left some Latino and minority businesses cut off from key partners at a time when they are more needed than ever.
“I think economic growth will come to a halt because this nation was built on the backs of immigrants,” Méndez said. “Continuing to perpetuate racism means putting a halt to America progressing as a country. Additionally, within the construct of white supremacy and a patriarchal society, humanity and empathy will be sucked out of this country.”
It is that lack of empathy that troubles Bernardo most.
“Everyone has good and bad days. But you should try to control yourself. Having empathy for others can make everything better,” Bernardo said.
Like many, Mendez and Gomez believe the current climate offers an opportunity for Latinos and other minority groups to come together. It is also, they hope, a chance for people to educate themselves.
“We are such a diverse nation and Bad Bunny’s performance is exposing how much people don’t know about their neighbors,” Méndez said. “What is radical help is when someone makes a generalization about any group correcting them and not letting those comments fly.”
She urged people to make friends with people of other races, regardless of where they come from. Failing to come together, Méndez believes, has the potential to create a dark future where no one prospers.
“Without empathy and cultural competency, everyone will be at war with one another. We’ll be a dystopia and America’s worst case scenario will be our lived reality if we continue to backslide instead of moving forward,” Méndez said.
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