Jayson Sarmiento-Ramon

Enid Brain

English 11000

11 November 2025

Discrimination against the Latin American Speakers in New York City’s service industry

New York City is full of restaurants and other industries that make up the service industry. Demographically, the city also has a rich Latin community throughout all five boroughs. These two are related because this specific community makes up a substantial amount of the service industry in New York City. Unfortunately, the truth of being a Latin American service industry worker is one plagued by low wages and unstable hours, but there is another less mainstream con of being a Latin American worker in the service industry: experiencing accent discrimination. When Latin Americans speak English with an accent, that accent is sometimes looked down upon in the eyes of both employers and customers. This linguistic bias negatively affects the chances of a Latin American in many ways, such as lowering the chances of them being hired for not speaking standard English. Ultimately, in New York City’s service industry, the accents of Latin Americans or their speaking Spanish are used as a basis for discrimination, and this bias is unfortunately allowed to happen because of conservative ideologies of language, weak enforcement of laws made to protect people from accent discrimination, and economic pressures felt by Latin American workers.  

There exist legal protections for immigrants that prohibit discrimination based on language, although they are subjective, which creates problems for the employees. The EEOC, which stands for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, enforces anti-discrimination laws in the United States. Under Title XII, the formal law that enforces anti-discrimination laws in the workplace has a part that focuses on national origin discrimination. This type of discrimination is characterized by discrimination against a language, showing that the law protects against language discrimination, which falls under national origin discrimination. Also, employers are not allowed to not employ someone because of their accent, unless their accent severely inhibits their ability to do the described job (US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). EEOC. Thus, there are existing protections to protect immigrants and others from accent discrimination. However, there is a serious flaw with this law: the law is subjective. This allows companies and hirers to technically be allowed to fire someone because of their accent, even if their accent is minimal, due to the reasoning that they deem the accent to be too thick. The NYC Commission on Human Rights more specifically protects immigrants explicitly on the basis of their accents, which they too derive as a form of national origin discrimination. The NYC Commission on Human Rights additionally takes it a step further by not just being against accent discrimination, but also being against discrimination based on the speaking of a different language other than English, which, in theory, should protect immigrants who do not speak English even more than the federal law (NYC Commission on Human Rights). NYC GOV. However, it is important to know that while these protections exist on the city level, they have many of the same enforcement problems that enforcing the corresponding federal law has. There are accent-based decisions, such as job assignments or firing, that could very much be legal discrimination but would be argued by the employer to be a simple decision that is not based on accents but on other factors. Employers, then, are favored by the laws created. Although the case could be made that making accent laws too strict would make employees unfirable by employers, which would present a big problem, I think the law has to be clearer and not so subjective. Ultimately, these immigrants in the service industry in NYC are people whose livelihoods are at stake, and employers have too much power in the current system due to the subjectivity of the law.

Accent discrimination is rooted in deeper ideologies tied to one’s speaking capabilities, as perceived by the greater population. Whether we like it or not, there are perceived notions people have of us, depending on how we speak. Likewise, we have perceived notions of other people depending on how they speak, which may be done consciously or unconsciously. Regardless, it is important to accept that these notions exist and thus also affect other things, such as employment, especially for immigrants who do not speak English with a standard accent. Employers are known to use customer preference as a justification for their detrimental decisions against employees with accents, which is technically protected by the law. However, employers are hiding, whether on purpose or not, their bias for supposedly accent-less people as compared to people who speak with accents. The way immigrants with accents speak is ultimately seen as less professional by employers and potentially by customers because of existing notions tied to the way one speaks, which can be observed through accents, as argued by employers in some cases.  Even if immigrants speak in a way that you can clearly understand what they are saying, just by virtue of the different accent, they are already disadvantage. (Green, 164-66). JSTOR Source. Although discrimination against immigrants with accents when speaking English can be done unconsciously, it is still a form of discrimination, and the law should be working to protect these immigrants, not go against them. 

Accent discrimination happens in New York City in the service industry and is experienced by many ethnicities, such as Latinos or Latinas. In 2018, a male customer at a Fresh Kitchen franchise was being extremely discriminatory toward workers who were speaking Spanish with customers and each other. The male was white and also remarked that the workers are immigrants who live off the welfare he pays. He made it clear that speaking English is the minimum they can do, and that speaking Spanish should not be allowed. The manager of the Fresh Kitchen said that what initiated the white man’s rant was when a customer ahead of him began ordering in Spanish. When confronting the man, he said he was highly educated and that she should go back to her country, when she was born and raised in New York City. How ridiculous! He then threatened to call ICE to report the employees. 

CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Rant against Spanish-speaking restaurant workers goes viral

The video really shows just how much service industry employees in NYC who do not speak English and who are of Latin descent go through in dealing with discrimination. At the root, the accent discrimination for Latin immigrants who speak English comes from the hatred of non-English speaking Latin immigrants, which is why this example is powerful and adds context for future, specific accent discrimination examples. In another example, at a Goodwill on West 25th Street, they were kicked out for not speaking English but for speaking Spanish. The victim, Bruna Miguel, is of Honduran descent and does not speak too much English. Although this was the case, she still tried her best to speak English. She asked an employee in her non-standard English to show her a wallet that she wanted to buy, but when she began speaking Spanish in front of the employee to her friend, the employee demanded that she stop speaking Spanish. The employee then said that Bruna had to leave if she kept speaking Spanish. When the employee called her manager over, Bruna tried to explain the situation to him, but it was difficult due to her limited English-speaking abilities and accent. The manager, however, ignored her complaint and demanded that she leave the store, to which she did so against her will. Even with her limited English and accent when speaking English, she still tried to explain herself one last time before she was removed from the store by two guards who were ordered to do so by the manager. 

Goodwill Incident Article 

The Goodwill on West 25th St

The situation is alarming because it shows that even when Latin American immigrants try to speak English, simply because of their accent, they are harassed. She was close to being a buying customer, as evidenced by her asking for help with the wallet. However, the employee and the manager did not care. The golden rule of the retail industry is that the customer is always right, and another important rule is that employees must do what is in their power to make sure a sale goes through. The store employee and manager broke these rules because the woman spoke Spanish, and English with an accent. This shows that discrimination is experienced in the service industry not just by employees, but also by potential consumers, highlighting that accent discrimination in the NYC service industry is a real problem that needs urgent addressing.