Spanish speakers asked to move to the
back
of the bus
A Shasta
College student says she and another woman were asked to move to the back of a
college bus by a driver who said he didn’t want to listen to the two of them
speaking Spanish.
Shasta
College officials Friday said they are investigating the allegation.
Marybel
Torres, 27, of Los Molinos said she was taking a trip from Red Bluff to Fresno
as part of a school activity when the college bus driver told her and another
woman she was sitting with to stop speaking Spanish or move to the back of the
bus.
“He said,
‘Do you girls mind? If you want to continue speaking Spanish would you mind
going to the back of the bus?’” Torres said.
“I was just
speechless. He laughed and said to the teachers, ‘No offense, no offense.’ I
couldn’t believe that this person could ask me to do something in this way,”
Torres said.
She said
that she and the other woman, who also is Hispanic, did not get up and move from
their seats. She said she was sitting two seats behind the bus driver, who said
he was distracted. She did not speak again during the ride from Merced to
Fresno, she said.
She was part
of a group of students in the Puente program, which tries to get students to
attend four-year universities. Like Torres, most of the students in the program
are Hispanic, she said.
Torres said
she filed a written formal complaint with school officials. She said she felt
school officials were not taking the incident seriously.
But college
President Gary Lewis said Friday he was concerned that the bus driver appeared
to be discriminating against the women because they were either Hispanic or
speaking Spanish.
“We take
that extremely seriously,” Lewis said.
He said a
group of some 30 students from Redding and about the same number from Red Bluff
were on their way to a Puente motivational conference at Fresno State University
on Oct. 29. They had stopped to tour the University of California-Merced campus
and were getting back on the bus when the driver asked the two women to stop
speaking Spanish near him, Torres said.
“It’s very
troubling to me to hear about this, and we’re not going to let it have a
negative impact on it,” Lewis said of the Puente program.
Lewis said
he could not release the driver’s name because the incident is a personnel issue
but said he is a longtime Shasta College employee. College officials are
investigating the incident and haven’t taken any disciplinary measures against
the driver.
He said one
student filed a formal complaint Monday, and another student complained, but not
in writing. Lewis said he has also received feedback from some instructors who
were on the bus.
Karen Kemp,
33, of Red Bluff said she overheard the bus driver when he spoke to Torres.
“When he
said that I was appalled,” Kemp said. “It really affected me. It affected me
more for Marybel.”
The bus
driver wrote a letter of apology that was read to the students in class this
week by the college’s director of transportation, Lewis said.
Torres said
that she didn’t feel the letter was sincere and that the bus incident wasn’t the
first time she felt discriminated against.
“There are
double standards at the college, and it’s evident that they just want to cover
it up,” Torres said.
Lewis said
the college will continue to investigate the problem and address it.
“It goes
against everything we believe in,” he said.