The Mexican embassy in Uruguay has called the exhibition of an advertising poster for a bar in Montevideo displaying the phrase “no dogs or Mexicans allowed” as a “deplorable and racist attitude”.
The sign, according to the owners of the Coffee Shop bar, referred to an expression in the movie by American director Quentin Tarantino, “The Hateful Eight”, specifically a scene starring American actor Samuel L. Jackson.
Through a statement sent to the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry and to which Efe news agency had access, the Mexican embassy said that it considers a “lamentable and deplorable racist, discriminatory and xenophobic attitude” that of the Uruguayan bar.
Likewise, it indicated that it “strongly rejects the exhibition on the public street of a sign that offends and discriminates against Mexican nationals.”
In that sense, it appealed to the “respect and solidarity that has always prevailed between Mexico and Uruguay” and urged the Foreign Ministry of Uruguay to demand that the business stop “immediately and definitively fomenting denigrating attitudes contrary to the values and principles of Uruguayan society. ”
Meanwhile, the owners of the establishment explained this Saturday, through its Facebook page, that it was a “big misunderstanding,” and mentioned the phrase in the Tarantino movie.
“In this particular case, the phrase is taken from the film ‘The Hateful Eight’ by Quentin Tarantino, which takes place in the mid-nineteenth century,” they said in the letter.
“We understand that it may have been accidentally insulting, so we need to make it clear that we would never make this kind of statement seriously,” they said.
Thus, they reiterated that “absolutely nobody has been discriminated against in our establishment ever”.
According to the local media Montevideo Portal, the Intendencia of Montevideo initiated a file Monday to Pocitos and notified the case to the National Institution of Human Rights and to the Defender of the Neighbor of the Uruguayan capital.