They need to go back to India

So I was standing in line at the pharmacy last night in Houston behind a young married couple who were paying for their items. The man asked the cashier, who was probably in her late fifties, if a rebate form was in the box of one of his items or if the pharmacy had the form. The cashier grew a bit impatient and shoved a book of coupons in front of the him and told him that he’d have to look for the form himself. He perused through the booklet and replied that there were no rebate forms. The cashier then called for the store manager to come to the front for customer assistance. My turn to checkout…

I presented my one item to her, and as she scanned it she mumbled what I thought was, “I need to go home.” “You need to go home?” I asked. “No, they need to go home,” she said a little louder. I looked behind me and noticed that the couple was only a few feet away from us waiting for the manager. “Are you tired of helping them?” I asked. The cashier stopped what she was doing and looked at me intently. In a serious manner and with what I suspected was an expectation of my agreement, she declared loudly, “They need to go back to India.” The couple, I believe, heard this. They were, indeed, foreigners with mild accents who spoke fine English and were dressed in t-shirts and jeans. I asked the cashier why they would “need to go back” to anyplace. I told her that, for all we know, they had as much of a right to be here at the pharmacy as the two of us. “No,” was all she said back to me. I then told her that I married a woman from Venezuela and that I didn’t want her to go back home. The cashier gave me a look of disgust, shook her head, and helped the next customer. I left the store. The manager hadn’t come to help yet.

I’m not sure that what I witnessed was racism. I’m not sure that what I witnessed was xenophobia. I am sure that what I witnessed was intolerance.