Editor, Daily Nexus,

February is the month of Black history, a month when we must all, as a society, recognize any prejudices that we might have against others. Saturday evening at about 6, my roommate and I went to try the food at AppeThai. My roommate and I are transferring Latinas (one of us is also black) from the Los Angeles area. Our experience here at UCSB has not been very pleasant. We have constantly received very odd looks but we try to give people the benefit of the doubt. But Saturday we experienced the most dreadful situation of discrimination. We were ignored, overlooked and made to feel like our money was not worth the same value as others’. The employees at AppeThai did not bring us water, they placed us beside the bathroom when there were plenty of empty seats, made us wait about 25 minutes and no one asked if we were fine or told us that there was a delay with our order. Other people came in after us and were served when we had not even been served our appetizers yet. We were so outraged that we paid for our drinks and asked to speak to the manager who then insulted us by stating that we were not in a fast food restaurant, like we had no idea where we had walked into.

It saddens me to have this experience here in Santa Barbara. We have traveled throughout the world to places like Germany, France, Netherlands, England and many other countries. We have never been treated so poorly nor have we experienced such outright discrimination. It must be brought to the attention of others that discrimination and prejudices should not be tolerated.

YESENIA CURIEL

SHANTEL MARTINEZ