Guy Pissed Off With Immigrant Who Could Barely Speak English Left Speechless After Unexpected Incident In Class
You are probably familiar with the timeless phrase: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is a classic case of a guy who did just that, but had the fortune and honesty to recognise his mistake and learn a valuable lesson about friendship.
Twitter user Thomas Mcfall shared his heartwarming tale recently, and it has quickly gone viral as people were touched by the sincere and friendly actions of an ‘immigrant’ student, as well as Thomas’ capacity for honest and frank self-reflection.
We are all so busy these days, sometimes it’s easy to lose a little of our basic humanity and ability to connect with people. Thomas certainly experienced this, being constantly annoyed with the foreign guy sitting next to him in class at Youngstown State University, Ohio, only noticing the negatives and making no time to read between the lines. What happened next was somewhat fortunate on Thomas’ part, without a twist of fate he might never have realized what he was missing. But realize he did, and it makes for a lovely story!
Unfortunately however, the story seems not to have touched everyone. There have been some strange and disturbing reactions since it went viral. “The response has been mostly positive,” Thomas told Bored Panda. “However, I’ve been branded as a racist by a multitude of individuals. To me, that thought process is unjustified and insane. I’ve also received death threats. But nothing too surprising given the nature of the internet.”
Sadly, because of this, the story will end there. “He’s seen that I’ve been getting death threats due to my story and he doesn’t want to reveal any identifying information,” Thomas explained about his friend’s concerns. “That’s why a GoFundMe hasn’t been started.”
It’s not gonna stop the pair staying buddies though and for most sane and rational people, there are a lot of positive vibes to take away from the tale.
“We will absolutely stay friends. He’s great!”
Scroll down below to check out the story for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments!
Twitter user Thomas Mcfall recently shared a life lesson he didn’t expect to get, and it has quickly gone viral
People were touched and some even wanted to help Tom’s classmate
1.5Mviews
Share on Facebookthis is the content i am all about. breaking your preconceived notions of how we view the world as well as looking at why we never considered it before. Its never a black and white picture we are dealing with we just choose to let ourselves view it that way without looking into the details of why things are.
The motto of life should be "Give as much as you can and only take what you need" This guy form the ME, all he could give "was to keep the space" and all he needed to take was friendship.
i lived in central america for a few years and had to be completely silent for the first 6 months due to not knowing the language. i couldn't order food for myself, find things for myself, s**t, i couldn't do anything for myself. i felt completely out of my comfort zone ALL of the time. it really opened my eyes to immigrants in the usa. when i came home, i always tried to befriend immigrants because i know from personal experience how brave you have to be to do anything. can you imagine taking hard classes in college in a language you don't 100% understand? can you imagine getting lost in said school and not knowing how to ask for directions? or having to be alone all the time because you don't know anyone? it's scary for them, and a lot of americans are just straight up a******s to them. be compassionate, put yourself in their shoes. open your hearts to them a little :)
That's very nice of you. And all you say is true and on point. I'd just like to remind you that there are many immigrants who've been living there for long enough to be autonomous and confident. These people will want to be approached a bit differently. I'm saying so because I am one of these immigrants in Korea and I find it annoying when strangers approach me as if I were the oh, so lost and lonely little "American" (although I've never been to America). Not to mention hearing always the same exact reactions for nearly a decade now, and having the exact same responses likewise.
Load More Replies..."the last I wanna do is guy who barely speaks my language a high five" wtf? why? I mean, I'm glad it all worked out, but not sure why the guy was so nice to him, he sounds like a n*b-c**k. still, happy ending I guess.
Dude, I barely want to talk in the morning. It literally takes two cups of coffee before I can even function like a human being and not grunt lol! I'm glad he pulled his head out of his a*s though.
Load More Replies...My brother seems to attract all of the international students in his classes. He's befriended about eight Mexicans and he took them skiing for the first time and took them to our cottage and go canoeing for the first time, and made them pancakes with maple syrup. Every time we saw him, we'd ask about the latest stories about his Mexican friends and they are often quite priceless. Sadly, they were only there for one semester but now my brother has befriended two french students (from France) and like, three Brazilians. It's super sweet. :)
People from the Middle East and adjacent Asia are the most hospitable I have ever net. Example: Country it's the shortest wait time to hitchhike? Iraq. Yep, war-torn Iraq. They take care of strangers and see you as guests and potential friends. I've been humbled by their graciousness on many occasions. I'm glad to see the author experience a little bit of that.
wonderful story. very touching. the sad thing is many Americans, when they finally do decide to travel outside the US, they assume wherever they're going the people there will speak English. It's like many of us expect the world to bow down to use and think, "how dare you. I visit your country and you don't speak my language?" At the least you could learn to greet and say thank you.
BUT you did figure it out and it made you a better human and your showing others so your awesome.
This is the kind of learning you're SUPPOSED to do in college! Not just the book/lecture/lab stuff, but breaking out of your comfort zone to expand your personal world! Congrats to Tom for realizing that he needed to be more open to people!
SOOOOO, Tom is a f*****g a*****e unless you are doing something nice for him.
Yeah, sounds like an immature college kid. Too bad there's no possible way for him to grow out of it!
Load More Replies...I get the point of the story but I don't get why he's so annoyed in particular about the language barrier.
It takes effort to understand and talk to someone when your means of communication are not conventional. That can be annoying. But maybe this experience might lead him into taking interest into a learning a foreign language. You never know.
Load More Replies...A great life lesson is - always be on the look out for a life lesson. That lesson may come from confronting our own ignorance's
This happens in Asian countries too. People with broken English or no English proficiency are always considered as lower class citizens of their own countries by those who belogns to so called higher class people with good English skills. It's so pathetic.
I sat next to a French African woman during my first semester of college in English Comp. She was probably one of the smartest people in class and got great grades despite English being her second language. I was glad to sit next to her. We always helped each other. We made a great team. I wish I would have ended up in other classes with her, but it hasn't happened that way so far.
Unless you are 100% First Nation, every single American is the descendant of an immigrant or slave. We ALL have ancestors who were new, different, frightened, learning the language and the customs of this land. We survived with the help and support of some, and in spite of the hostility and hatred of others.
Fabulous story! I re-wrote it as a cartoon: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bhs_3q1hFkt/
This is an amazing thing and very big improvement made by the author of the tweets. Serioulsy, better done later than never :)
This is so cool! I appreciate the way this Middle Eastern man handled his situation. Poor guy has a family back home, and in another country. At least Thomas had the decency to admit it. I know that a lot of other people wouldn't be so kind. God, I hate that people will judge you for speaking another language that YOU BARELY KNOW. My spanish professor and friend speaks English slightly flawed, and she is one of the most brilliant women I know.
I worked at Meijer, a large grocery/household/clothing store. Employee who was quickest and most accurate with stocking new deliveries spoke very little English, could not comprehend written English very well. When the store manager asked him, through a coworker translator, his secret for his accuracy, he looked at the manager as if the supervisor was daft. "I don't have to know what the words _mean_! I look for items on the shelf that resemble what I'm putting away. Then I just match the numbers on the barcodes with the numbers on the shelf tag." His comfort with numbers overcame his difficulty with language.
I would like to help Tom out if he needs anything. Welcome to America, my friend.
We human beings like to think we are special. And we human beings who happen to be born into certain races, genders, cultures or countries (through absolutely no effort of our own) like to think that we are the most special among the special. This wonderful post reminds us that if we stop paying attention, if we stop learning...we can lose our humanity, and we are not special at all.
congratulations for now beeing a little less of an a*****e. this should be normal and not applauded
I have to say when I started reading the story I immediately thought "oh, he's saving his seat for him each day" -- so yeah, I kind of agree with you.
Load More Replies...Ability for personal growth, Thomas McFall....you haz it. This is what matters right now. Being a douche is basic human instinct sometimes....being self aware enough to realize you're being one, LEARN from it, and try to do better? That's how we evolve.
Thank you or sharing that story. Things are never quite what they seem and greater tolerance is something we could all do with. We live in Spain and try to learn Spanish. We are the immigrants here. Thankfully most people are happy we make the effort at all.
This is great:) I work at a church that serves people of many backgrounds. I only speak English. I took Spanish in High school, but have lost a lot of the language. I often have people come in apologizing for their "bad English" as they try to communicate with me. I constantly remind them that this is their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc language while I am still working on learning my 2nd language. They have no reason to be sorry for trying their best to communicate with someone that has no clue how to speak their language. I love that they are doing what they can to learn the language of the area they now live in. Can't ask for more than the effort they already put into it. Love that this guy was able to open his eyes and gain a new friend. It only takes a bit of understanding and patience.
I use to work in retail at a fabric store. That means there are a lot more personal interactions between staff and customers. Any time I had a customer who spoke poor English I would try to put them at easy by saying, "You're doing fine. It's hard learn a new language" or "You're speaking English better than I can speak your language". I was patient with them, even using resorting to drawing pictures to figure out what was needed. And because pretty much every place else in the world uses the metric system, I had an app on my phone to convert their measurements into our standard measurement. As a shift manager, I would not let my staff get away with dissing people because of poor English. It takes a level of bravery to go out in a world that you don't speak the language.
You didn't like someone because they didn't speak English? how racist can you actually get? If you didn't see what he had done you still wouldn't like him for no good reason.
One of my college classmates that I will always remember fondly is a guy that was a Chinese immigrant. He and I had a Spanish class together and we did a lot of work together. He was such a nice guy. He was learning both Spanish and English and was better at Spanish than I was. I really liked him and hope he is doing well. I haven't seen him in over ten years. I could barely understand his English, but I did understand that he was nice.
People keep responding to my comment but yet I can’t see it, does that mean it’s not relevant 😂😂😂
Well, if it makes you feel any better, when you are an American studying in Paris, Florence, or the like, the local kids will just shun you. It's hard to get a "Buon giorno," out of them, much less conversation that will help you proceed in your studies.
I am an Indian and I work for a contact center who helps English people (Generally UK based customers). I have come across people who judge me on my English speaking and typing capabilities... but they do not appreciate my efforts to help them in their language and at times we even get commented racially. I don't understand the logic as we are all humans and are working for each other...
Wow. I guess I’m lucky. I’ve never judged someone’s lack of English skills because I grew up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in Philadelphia where a variety of languages were spoken. Many adults spoke in broken English or had no English at all and relied on the kids to translate. I’m 52 and third generation American. I cannot believe how utterly intolerant Americans STILL are. My great-grand parents, whom I never met, emigrated to America for a better life. They were treated like the current immigrants are treated. We are all children of immigrants. When are all of the self-centered, self-absorbed intolerant morons in America going to figure that out? We are all children of immigrants.
Thomas gives Me hope for the future of the USA that the "racist conditioning" forced on Us all IS evolving with self-reflection and choosing who you want to be over who you're told to be by the barbarian agenda.
Glad that Thomas finally clued into what his seat mate was doing and why.
One thing to remember: People who speak broken English already speak a whole 'nother language fluently....
Thank you for sharing this. It's amazing how something so simple has given many, many people a pause for thought. And in a really good way.
Real Americans ! Not the poorly representative morons created by the billionaires media b******t machine..........
downvote me all you want but I do not think this guy really realises what he's been doing. Fact is, he was not just "busy with himself" - he was looking down on an immigrant for not perfectly speaking his language. I just don't see any remorse, he didn't say "sorry for thinking you were worth less than me due to your limited language skills", he excuses it with having been "preoccupied".. and I wonder how many languages that dude actually speaks or tried to acquire. I speak 5 languages fluently, 3 I can understand and read and I can cough up a few sentences in scottish gaelic, but send me to Sweden and I'll sound like a proper idiot with my very basic swedish
congratulations for now beeing a little less of an a*****e. this should be normal and not applauded at
My job for decades was listening to and deciding on the validity of claims made by immigrants. I worked through plenty of broken English with and without translators. This story is nice but I can tell you that just because someone is an immigrant with broken English does not make them a great person. There have been many horrible people sitting across from me. Many horrible criminals, even. Yet I'm nice to every one of them, even the criminals, unless they get ugly with me. They sometimes do. It's not always desk-guarding and high fives.
Why would this be fake? It's a sweet story but it's not attention-grabbing enough to be faked. You need to have a lot more faith in people.
Load More Replies...this is the content i am all about. breaking your preconceived notions of how we view the world as well as looking at why we never considered it before. Its never a black and white picture we are dealing with we just choose to let ourselves view it that way without looking into the details of why things are.
The motto of life should be "Give as much as you can and only take what you need" This guy form the ME, all he could give "was to keep the space" and all he needed to take was friendship.
i lived in central america for a few years and had to be completely silent for the first 6 months due to not knowing the language. i couldn't order food for myself, find things for myself, s**t, i couldn't do anything for myself. i felt completely out of my comfort zone ALL of the time. it really opened my eyes to immigrants in the usa. when i came home, i always tried to befriend immigrants because i know from personal experience how brave you have to be to do anything. can you imagine taking hard classes in college in a language you don't 100% understand? can you imagine getting lost in said school and not knowing how to ask for directions? or having to be alone all the time because you don't know anyone? it's scary for them, and a lot of americans are just straight up a******s to them. be compassionate, put yourself in their shoes. open your hearts to them a little :)
That's very nice of you. And all you say is true and on point. I'd just like to remind you that there are many immigrants who've been living there for long enough to be autonomous and confident. These people will want to be approached a bit differently. I'm saying so because I am one of these immigrants in Korea and I find it annoying when strangers approach me as if I were the oh, so lost and lonely little "American" (although I've never been to America). Not to mention hearing always the same exact reactions for nearly a decade now, and having the exact same responses likewise.
Load More Replies..."the last I wanna do is guy who barely speaks my language a high five" wtf? why? I mean, I'm glad it all worked out, but not sure why the guy was so nice to him, he sounds like a n*b-c**k. still, happy ending I guess.
Dude, I barely want to talk in the morning. It literally takes two cups of coffee before I can even function like a human being and not grunt lol! I'm glad he pulled his head out of his a*s though.
Load More Replies...My brother seems to attract all of the international students in his classes. He's befriended about eight Mexicans and he took them skiing for the first time and took them to our cottage and go canoeing for the first time, and made them pancakes with maple syrup. Every time we saw him, we'd ask about the latest stories about his Mexican friends and they are often quite priceless. Sadly, they were only there for one semester but now my brother has befriended two french students (from France) and like, three Brazilians. It's super sweet. :)
People from the Middle East and adjacent Asia are the most hospitable I have ever net. Example: Country it's the shortest wait time to hitchhike? Iraq. Yep, war-torn Iraq. They take care of strangers and see you as guests and potential friends. I've been humbled by their graciousness on many occasions. I'm glad to see the author experience a little bit of that.
wonderful story. very touching. the sad thing is many Americans, when they finally do decide to travel outside the US, they assume wherever they're going the people there will speak English. It's like many of us expect the world to bow down to use and think, "how dare you. I visit your country and you don't speak my language?" At the least you could learn to greet and say thank you.
BUT you did figure it out and it made you a better human and your showing others so your awesome.
This is the kind of learning you're SUPPOSED to do in college! Not just the book/lecture/lab stuff, but breaking out of your comfort zone to expand your personal world! Congrats to Tom for realizing that he needed to be more open to people!
SOOOOO, Tom is a f*****g a*****e unless you are doing something nice for him.
Yeah, sounds like an immature college kid. Too bad there's no possible way for him to grow out of it!
Load More Replies...I get the point of the story but I don't get why he's so annoyed in particular about the language barrier.
It takes effort to understand and talk to someone when your means of communication are not conventional. That can be annoying. But maybe this experience might lead him into taking interest into a learning a foreign language. You never know.
Load More Replies...A great life lesson is - always be on the look out for a life lesson. That lesson may come from confronting our own ignorance's
This happens in Asian countries too. People with broken English or no English proficiency are always considered as lower class citizens of their own countries by those who belogns to so called higher class people with good English skills. It's so pathetic.
I sat next to a French African woman during my first semester of college in English Comp. She was probably one of the smartest people in class and got great grades despite English being her second language. I was glad to sit next to her. We always helped each other. We made a great team. I wish I would have ended up in other classes with her, but it hasn't happened that way so far.
Unless you are 100% First Nation, every single American is the descendant of an immigrant or slave. We ALL have ancestors who were new, different, frightened, learning the language and the customs of this land. We survived with the help and support of some, and in spite of the hostility and hatred of others.
Fabulous story! I re-wrote it as a cartoon: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bhs_3q1hFkt/
This is an amazing thing and very big improvement made by the author of the tweets. Serioulsy, better done later than never :)
This is so cool! I appreciate the way this Middle Eastern man handled his situation. Poor guy has a family back home, and in another country. At least Thomas had the decency to admit it. I know that a lot of other people wouldn't be so kind. God, I hate that people will judge you for speaking another language that YOU BARELY KNOW. My spanish professor and friend speaks English slightly flawed, and she is one of the most brilliant women I know.
I worked at Meijer, a large grocery/household/clothing store. Employee who was quickest and most accurate with stocking new deliveries spoke very little English, could not comprehend written English very well. When the store manager asked him, through a coworker translator, his secret for his accuracy, he looked at the manager as if the supervisor was daft. "I don't have to know what the words _mean_! I look for items on the shelf that resemble what I'm putting away. Then I just match the numbers on the barcodes with the numbers on the shelf tag." His comfort with numbers overcame his difficulty with language.
I would like to help Tom out if he needs anything. Welcome to America, my friend.
We human beings like to think we are special. And we human beings who happen to be born into certain races, genders, cultures or countries (through absolutely no effort of our own) like to think that we are the most special among the special. This wonderful post reminds us that if we stop paying attention, if we stop learning...we can lose our humanity, and we are not special at all.
congratulations for now beeing a little less of an a*****e. this should be normal and not applauded
I have to say when I started reading the story I immediately thought "oh, he's saving his seat for him each day" -- so yeah, I kind of agree with you.
Load More Replies...Ability for personal growth, Thomas McFall....you haz it. This is what matters right now. Being a douche is basic human instinct sometimes....being self aware enough to realize you're being one, LEARN from it, and try to do better? That's how we evolve.
Thank you or sharing that story. Things are never quite what they seem and greater tolerance is something we could all do with. We live in Spain and try to learn Spanish. We are the immigrants here. Thankfully most people are happy we make the effort at all.
This is great:) I work at a church that serves people of many backgrounds. I only speak English. I took Spanish in High school, but have lost a lot of the language. I often have people come in apologizing for their "bad English" as they try to communicate with me. I constantly remind them that this is their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc language while I am still working on learning my 2nd language. They have no reason to be sorry for trying their best to communicate with someone that has no clue how to speak their language. I love that they are doing what they can to learn the language of the area they now live in. Can't ask for more than the effort they already put into it. Love that this guy was able to open his eyes and gain a new friend. It only takes a bit of understanding and patience.
I use to work in retail at a fabric store. That means there are a lot more personal interactions between staff and customers. Any time I had a customer who spoke poor English I would try to put them at easy by saying, "You're doing fine. It's hard learn a new language" or "You're speaking English better than I can speak your language". I was patient with them, even using resorting to drawing pictures to figure out what was needed. And because pretty much every place else in the world uses the metric system, I had an app on my phone to convert their measurements into our standard measurement. As a shift manager, I would not let my staff get away with dissing people because of poor English. It takes a level of bravery to go out in a world that you don't speak the language.
You didn't like someone because they didn't speak English? how racist can you actually get? If you didn't see what he had done you still wouldn't like him for no good reason.
One of my college classmates that I will always remember fondly is a guy that was a Chinese immigrant. He and I had a Spanish class together and we did a lot of work together. He was such a nice guy. He was learning both Spanish and English and was better at Spanish than I was. I really liked him and hope he is doing well. I haven't seen him in over ten years. I could barely understand his English, but I did understand that he was nice.
People keep responding to my comment but yet I can’t see it, does that mean it’s not relevant 😂😂😂
Well, if it makes you feel any better, when you are an American studying in Paris, Florence, or the like, the local kids will just shun you. It's hard to get a "Buon giorno," out of them, much less conversation that will help you proceed in your studies.
I am an Indian and I work for a contact center who helps English people (Generally UK based customers). I have come across people who judge me on my English speaking and typing capabilities... but they do not appreciate my efforts to help them in their language and at times we even get commented racially. I don't understand the logic as we are all humans and are working for each other...
Wow. I guess I’m lucky. I’ve never judged someone’s lack of English skills because I grew up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in Philadelphia where a variety of languages were spoken. Many adults spoke in broken English or had no English at all and relied on the kids to translate. I’m 52 and third generation American. I cannot believe how utterly intolerant Americans STILL are. My great-grand parents, whom I never met, emigrated to America for a better life. They were treated like the current immigrants are treated. We are all children of immigrants. When are all of the self-centered, self-absorbed intolerant morons in America going to figure that out? We are all children of immigrants.
Thomas gives Me hope for the future of the USA that the "racist conditioning" forced on Us all IS evolving with self-reflection and choosing who you want to be over who you're told to be by the barbarian agenda.
Glad that Thomas finally clued into what his seat mate was doing and why.
One thing to remember: People who speak broken English already speak a whole 'nother language fluently....
Thank you for sharing this. It's amazing how something so simple has given many, many people a pause for thought. And in a really good way.
Real Americans ! Not the poorly representative morons created by the billionaires media b******t machine..........
downvote me all you want but I do not think this guy really realises what he's been doing. Fact is, he was not just "busy with himself" - he was looking down on an immigrant for not perfectly speaking his language. I just don't see any remorse, he didn't say "sorry for thinking you were worth less than me due to your limited language skills", he excuses it with having been "preoccupied".. and I wonder how many languages that dude actually speaks or tried to acquire. I speak 5 languages fluently, 3 I can understand and read and I can cough up a few sentences in scottish gaelic, but send me to Sweden and I'll sound like a proper idiot with my very basic swedish
congratulations for now beeing a little less of an a*****e. this should be normal and not applauded at
My job for decades was listening to and deciding on the validity of claims made by immigrants. I worked through plenty of broken English with and without translators. This story is nice but I can tell you that just because someone is an immigrant with broken English does not make them a great person. There have been many horrible people sitting across from me. Many horrible criminals, even. Yet I'm nice to every one of them, even the criminals, unless they get ugly with me. They sometimes do. It's not always desk-guarding and high fives.
Why would this be fake? It's a sweet story but it's not attention-grabbing enough to be faked. You need to have a lot more faith in people.
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