Dental hygienist: What is your dissertation going to be on?
Grad student: The cultural barriers to health care for Mexican-born migrant farm workers.
Dental hygienist: How about the cultural barriers to health care for German-American dental hygienists with $2,500 deductables, instead?
–Hunter College
Black customer: Hey, let me get that one. [Points at menu]Black employee: Which one?
Black customer: That one. [Points again]Black employee: Do you mean the smokehouse beef brisket?
Black customer: Yeah, the one in the picture.
Black employee, sighing: Black people!
Black customer: What? I’m not black. I’m Spanish!
Black employee: No you’re not. Prove it. Say something in Spanish.
Black customer: Como estas?
Black employee: See, you’re not Spanish.
Black customer: My name is Spanish.
–Quizno’s, 12th & Broadway
Guy: Hey! Where’s my Sudanese pussy from Chinatown?
–14th & University
Guy on cell: I’ll meet you at the corner by the store with Chinese writing…Hey, wait a minute. All the fucking signs around here have Chinese writing.
–Walker & Lafayette
Overheard by: Wolf
Guy on cell: So, if this is true, then Dracula’s native language would be Hungarian rather than Romanian. And I think that is important for my research.
–Anthology Film Archives, 2nd St & 2nd Ave
Overheard by: nosy cinephile
Teen girl: This bag is mad Aztec.
–13th & University
Co-Worker: So, did she mention anything about Mexicans?
–Office, W 36th St
Overheard by: Evan
Well-Traveled girl: Mexico is not a Third-World country. JFK is.
–Tea Lounge, Park Slope
Small child: Mommy, look! You can tell he’s Mexican by his eyes!
–Bodies exhibit, South Street Seaport
White girl, to Asian girl: So wait, is he just not Japanese or not interested?
–Walgreens, Union Square
Overheard by: Goldie
Businesswoman: Well you can’t kill a Vietnamese man because that would just cost too much.
–I Trulli restaurant, E 27th St
Hobo: You’re not Polish; you just think you’re Polish!
–Tompkins Square Park
Voice over intercom: Will the foreign exchange student please come to the cashier.
–Century 21
Sassy chick: I can’t believe she’s moving to fucking Cambodia to live with a fucking cricket-hunter she’s only known for two months!
–TGI Friday’s, 52nd & 7th
Overheard by: Shaina
Latino kid #1, taking out cigarette and lighter: Yo, stop a second!
Latino kid #2: Yo, if you can’t light it while you walkin’, you ain’t ghetto.
–10th & Ave A
Overheard by: Darry
Hispanic dude: Whoa, you better watch out. The cops will bust you for carrying an open container.
Hispanic chick: No they won’t. She’s white.
–N 1st & Bedford, Williamsburg
Overheard by: open container
Old Hispanic man: Happy Birthday!
Little Hispanic girl: It’s not my birthday!
Old Hispanic man: Yes it is! Now that we live here, today is everybody’s birthday!
Little Hispanic girl: No.
Old Hispanic man: Sí! Happy Birthday!
White girl, passing by: Oh, for Christ’s sake. Why can’t they go back where they came from?
–105th & Madison
Overheard by: Matthew K Johnson
Woman: Damn, that Mexican is hungry.
Mexican with 10 bags: I’m the delivery boy, you dumb fuck.
–100th & Broadway
Overheard by: robby b
White dude: I’m blacker than the fucking poops you shit, son!
–Ditmas Ave
Latina: Shit, where’d all these white people come from?
–Ludlow St
Overheard by: Caroline McGraw
Middle-aged Latino woman to younger black woman: Listen, I got rights, ok? I mean I’ll do the time for it, I don’t care. On this train you gotta give people respect, ’cause everyone’s a person. You give ’em respect, then you punch ’em.
–M train
Twentysomething girl on cell: Because I beat the crap out of him, that’s why I got fired.
–Continental Ave & Austin St, Forest Hills
Overheard by: Sean Finnerty
Latino: There’s a six hour minimum wait for a SUV.
Latina: What?
Latino: To get a SUV, it’s a six hour minimum wait.
Latina: What you mean, “a six hour minimum”?
Latino: If we want an SUV there is a six hour minimum wait!
Latina: So we can only rent it for six hours?
–JFK
Overheard by: Paul Ferris
