Isabella Gamboa

I was on the bus heading home from work, somewhere between Roma Sur and Del Valle, when a man got on—tall, dark-skinned, wearing a clean white shirt and carrying a reusable shopping bag. He sat near the front.

A few minutes later, a woman standing beside him suddenly raised her voice. Not loud, but sharp enough to cut through the quiet. She said he was making her uncomfortable. That he had looked at her "strangely."

The man didn’t argue. He just turned his face toward the window, like he’d heard it all before. The driver stopped the bus and asked him to get off. Not the woman. Him.

I sat frozen. I wanted to say something. But I didn’t. And that’s what stayed with me.

I’m 42 years old. Born in Puebla, living in Mexico City for the past nineteen years. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, but for some reason, that day it felt worse. Maybe because it was so casual. So quick. No one shouted. No one called him anything outright. But still—he was made to leave.

When the doors closed behind him, the woman smiled faintly, like she’d done everyone a favor.

A young man sitting across from me muttered, “He didn’t do anything,” but kept his eyes on his phone.

I got off two stops later, walked to the supermarket, bought things I didn’t really need—just to move, to shake it off. But in the produce aisle, it hit me again. That look the man gave the window. Not shocked. Not angry. Just tired.

We like to believe racism here is subtle. That it’s something from the U.S., or Europe. But it lives here too—in how we speak, who we fear, who we ask to leave the bus.

Sometimes I wonder if the silence is worse than the slurs. Because at least with a slur, you know where someone stands. But silence? That can come from anyone. Even me.