Nancy Navarro, of the Montgomery County Council in Maryland, is asking Latino immigrants with a Spanish accent to “wear it with pride and move on” after two people mocked her accent during a virtual public hearing this week.
Navarro, a Venezuelan immigrant and the only woman on the council, spoke on Tuesday about issues regarding the county’s unequal access to Covid-19 vaccinations for Latin and black communities, when two people could be heard mocking the way she uttered certain words, according to WZDC, the local TV news station of NBC’s sister network, Telemundo in Washington, DC
“I love how her accent comes out and pronounces the words as she thinks they are pronounced. Like, it says ‘represents’ and ‘hologram’, ”said a woman.
“I heard ‘hologram’ and found it quite interesting,” said a man while laughing.
“So cute,” the woman replied.
“I was completely in shock,” Navarro told WZDC in Spanish. “We still have that kind of situation where people really think it’s completely acceptable and that it’s actually a laughing matter to make fun of someone else’s accent.”
Authorities identified the woman who made the comments as a council employee and the man as a contractor for the non-profit organization Montgomery Community Media, which provides technical support to the county.
In a letter to Navarro, Montgomery Community Media CEO Nannette Hobson called the contractor’s behavior “unacceptable”.
“Participants in conversations like these intend to make the subject of comments seem less, while normalizing language and behaviors of intolerance,” she wrote.
Hobson said measures against the contractor “were and will be taken,” but did not detail what those actions were.
The Montgomery County Human Resources Office and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission are investigating the incident, officials told Telemundo.
“We are aware of and investigating this incident,” county spokesman Barry Hudson said in a statement to WZDC. “As it is a personal matter, there will be no further comments at this time.”
The council’s vice president, Gabe Albornoz, a longtime resident of Montgomery County and the son of Latin immigrants, said he “felt terrible” after what happened to Navarro.
“Nancy is not just a colleague, she is also a great friend. She has been a hero to our community,” he told WZDC in Spanish. “She doesn’t deserve what happened.”
Latin community leaders in Maryland, like Mario Alvarado Villa, said they were outraged by the incident.
“If that happens to Nancy Navarro, who is our highest representative in Montgomery County, imagine what will happen to other immigrants,” Alvarado Villa, president of the local non-profit organization INCAEF, told WZDC in Spanish.
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