Yoon Su-jin traveled from South Korea to Jalisco to experience the World Cup. While she was recording her celebration after her national team’s victory, Ulises Bernal, president of the College of Topographic and Geomatic Engineers of Jalisco, made a slant-eye gesture behind her, laughed, and kept looking at the screen as if nothing had happened. The video went viral, and Bernal will be removed from his position.
Some of Yoon’s followers apologized to her: “Not all Mexicans are like that”. But others came out to defend the gesture: “That’s how we are in Mexico, we laugh at everything” or “people today label anything as racism”.
An unacceptable act of racism or a cultural difference that is being misunderstood? Where is the line?