American Girl employee at flagship NYC store claims he was fired for speaking Spanish on the job
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
A Latino employee at the flagship American Girl store in Manhattan says he was admonished by his manager for speaking Spanish with coworkers behind the scenes, being informed the upscale doll emporium was “English-only.”
When Miguel Bautista pushed back on the supposed policy, he claims he was told it was “not up for debate,” and subsequently mocked by the store manager – in Spanish – for being gay.
In an eye-popping lawsuit filed this week in state court and obtained by The Independent, Bautista alleges the manager instructed him to “stop being mariconcito,” a highly offensive slur for a member of the LGBTQ community. But after Bautista complained to Human Resources, he contends he was fired for speaking out.
A workplace rule requiring workers to speak English at all times contravenes Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with only a small handful of narrow exceptions that must be “justified by business necessity,” according to the US Department of Labor. Specific carve-outs include communications with customers, coworkers or higher-ups who only speak English; emergency situations during which a common language must be spoken for safety’s sake; and to enable an English-speaking supervisor to assess the performance of an employee interacting with English-speaking customers.
Spokespeople for American Girl, parent company Mattel, and the manager in question, who is not named as a defendant in Bautista’s lawsuit, did not respond on Wednesday to requests for comment.
Batista, who was born in Ecuador, was hired in November 2021 as a server at American Girl Place in Rockefeller Center, where young patrons and their parents can dine at the in-store cafe with their dolls.
Roughly a year later, Bautista was preparing drinks in the cafe’s kitchen when the store manager walked in and overheard him speaking Spanish with a pair of Latino colleagues, according to his complaint. She then “questioned Mr. Bautista as to why he was speaking Spanish and stated to [him] and his co-workers that this was ‘an English only’ work environment,” telling all three that “they were not allowed to speak Spanish at the workplace in the future,” the complaint alleges.
Bautista’s complaint says he and the others had been “discussing work-related issues,” and “was not communicating with customers, or forcing customers to speak Spanish.” He argued that such a policy was discriminatory, and asked why chatting privately in Spanish was against the rules, according to the complaint.
“In response, [the manager] mocked [Bautista’s] accent,” and reiterated her demand that he speak English exclusively, the complaint says.
However, the complaint goes on, the manager felt free to break her own supposed policy, using Spanish words to deride Bautista over his sexual preference.
Later that month, Bautista was carrying a tray into the dining room when the manager walked by and, according to the complaint, “started mimicking [his] hand gestures and style of walking.”
She told him that he “need[ed] to stop being mariconcito,” and insisted he “be more of a ‘man,’ or, ‘hombre,’ and to stop being so effeminate when he walked,” the complaint continues. It says the comments reduced Bautista to tears, and he went to compose himself in a break room. There, his coworkers suggested he tell HR about the manager, who, according to the complaint, had previously insulted Bautista by “speaking in a feminine manner and walking in a feminine manner” when interacting with him.
The manager then walked in and asked Bautista to take a walk with her, telling him that she was “very sorry for what she said,” and that “she knew it was wrong,” the complaint says. By way of explanation, the manager told Bautista that she “also made gay jokes” to another LGBTQ employee, and that he hadn’t had an issue with it, the complaint states. Bautista replied that he was “proud of being gay,” to which the manager asked if he was going to report her to HR, according to the complaint. It says he told her that he planned on filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and possibly HR, as well.
That’s when Bautista began to experience “a series of retaliatory actions against him” at work, the complaint states.
For starters, he was no longer assigned to work in the “VIP” party room, where the complaint says he had previously earned up to $500 in tips over the course of a single shift.
Bautista was also accused of “stealing” chicken wings from the kitchen, when, in actuality, a coworker had given him the wings, according to the complaint. He claims he was not allowed to take a break to call his mother after learning she had been diagnosed with cancer, and that he was wrongly accused of vaping in a back hallway. When he asked to see the security video his bosses said proved he had been vaping, he was denied access, according to the complaint.
On December 9, 2024, two weeks after the vaping allegation, Bautista was fired, the complaint says. It says American Girl “lied in their termination letter, stating that [Bautista] admitted he was vaping in the back hallway.” Yet, it argues, Bautista never did anything of the sort, insisting he had been putting on lip gloss.
“Defendants then attempted to state that [Bautista] had resigned from his position,” the complaint states.
Other Spanish-speaking workers have brought similar cases against their employers over prohibitions on conversing in their native tongues. In 2019, a line cook at a high-end California restaurant claimed she was fired for briefly speaking Spanish with a Spanish-speaking server who had stopped into the kitchen to check on the status of a dish. That same year, a Spanish-speaking Chipotle employee in Los Angeles sued after she was allegedly fired for complaining about an English-only policy she said only applied to her. In Texas, two Latina customer service reps at an insurance company claimed they were hired specifically to assist Spanish-speaking clients, then fired for speaking Spanish to each other in the office.
Bautista is now demanding to be reinstated by American Girl, as well as lost wages, compensatory damages, punitive damages and statutory damages, plus attorneys’ fees.
