literary criticism Julia Ojeda has reported on her social networks that she has been discriminated against at a linguistic level in a furniture store in Palma de Mallorca. Through her X account, formerly Twitter, the researcher has assured that she has been expelled by the owner of the premises because she herself refused to communicate with him in Spanish. According to Ojeda herself, she will report what happened to the authorities.
“I have just suffered a linguistic attack in the Hipermueble store in Palma”the affected person stated in her statement. Julia entered the business and a misunderstanding occurred with the owner based on the linguistic aspect. “He expelled me from his business after I refused to switch to Spanish while I was the customer”assures Ojeda. In turn, the owner would have taken out “the entire repertoire” and addressed her with the following words: “We are in Spain, you are not Catalan, you are Spanish, what does it say on your ID…”.
“The most compassionate one offered me a glass of water in Spanish”
Presumably, the workers would not have strongly agreed with the store owner’s decision, since this “it made me scream” and the others would have felt ashamed, according to the member of the Alhora political committee. In turn, one of the workers, “the most compassionate one, he offered me a glass of water”although he communicated with her in Spanish, he emphasizes.
Business owner offers a different version
He Mallorca Diary has been able to contact the manager of the store where this event took place. Her version seems to be somewhat different, since this client would have been kindly asked to switch to the Spanish language in order to start a conversation. “According to her testimony, the young woman had approached the business to pick up an item and, at the time of communicating with the staff, “she was asked if she would not mind speaking in Spanish”, since some of the staff does not know how to speak Catalan and the person in charge of the store understands it “if they speak to me more slowly””the newspaper wrote.
Julia Ojeda would have “refused to speak in Spanish, he started yelling at us and telling us that he was going to report us”all with a threatening tone. Therefore, the response of the local members was to tell him “that we refused to let him use his voices”. In this sense, the owner, in order to understand her, would have told her the following: “Either you talk to me a little slower or you talk to me in Spanish, and she’s acting crazy”.
“I don’t speak Catalan, my parents are Andalusian and I studied in Granada
This was the last straw for Ojeda and she left the store. After that, the owner’s testimony continues highlighting another client who approached him telling him that “If you have any problem, call me. I feel bad that because of some radicals they call all Mallorcans the same thing”.
At no time is the name of the owner of Hipermueble revealed, but what is known is that “I don’t speak Catalan, my parents are Andalusian, I have studied in Granada and I have worked in Andalusia. I have been on the island for 11 years, I can speak to you in English, Spanish, German, but I don’t know Mallorcan”. He does not use it nor does he speak it frequently, but he did study Mallorcan for several years, although that means that “When someone speaks to me very quickly I don’t understand it”. Finally, he has denied any type of linguistic discrimination and has assured that at no time did he make offensive comments to him.