Pervez Tawfik and his young family had just landed at LAX, nearing the end of a long week of travel, when one of his fellow passengers began accusing them of racist comments.
Tawfik, a well-known photographer, documented the encounter on a United Airlines shuttle bus.
“Your family is from India,” the woman told him. “You have no respect. You have no rules. Do you think you can push everyone, push, push? That’s what you think you are.”
In an interview with KTLA’s John Fenoglio, Tawfik said the woman seen in the video was on the plane and at one point started asking her 11-year-old son if he was from India.
“She looked at our sons, two young boys, ages 4 and 8, and started telling them to shut up, shut up, and she got really angry when I said that. I told them not to stand up and talk to my sons.’ My sons do that,” Tawfik explains.
Later, on the bus, Tawfik said the situation escalated.
“You guys are a mess,” the woman said to Tawfik, holding up her middle fingers.
“Are Indians crazy?” Tawfik replies.
“You guys are disgusting,” the woman said.
Tawfik says he and his family have never experienced such treatment.
“At that time, my hands were shaking. I was very upset, but I just sat on the floor,” says the photographer.
Tawfik believes the woman had been drinking during and after the flight.
“You’re racist against me,” the woman also says in the video. “I am American.”
“So are we,” Tawfik replied.
“You’re not American,” she says.
In an interview with KTLA, Tawfik said this again: Because I was born here and she was naturalized here. Our sons are American. we are proud of our country. ”
He also said he was disturbed that only one bystander spoke up for the family before a United employee arrived and asked the woman to get off the bus.
“The lesson for us is, if you see someone saying something, try to stop them. Do your best because you could be next. And in that moment, everyone I want them to be in my corner,” Tawfik says.
KTLA reached out to United Airlines for comment on the incident, but did not immediately receive a response.
