This is a follow-up to what I shared a few days ago about our visit to the Sagrada Família, an experience that left an unexpected wound, especially for our 16-year-old daughter Faith.
We’ve now received a response from the Basilica. While we appreciate that the concern was reviewed, the incident was described as a misunderstanding. That word, though perhaps meant to bring closure, brought renewed pain.
My daughter still clearly remembers the female guard’s words: “Open your bags. I don’t trust Filipinos.” It wasn’t the inspection that hurt, it was the judgment in those words. And being told it was “just a misunderstanding” made her feel as if her voice didn’t matter, as if what she felt wasn’t real.
As a father, that’s difficult to accept.
But we are not sharing this out of anger. We hold the Sagrada Família and what it represents in high regard. Rather, we share this with hope, hope that by speaking up with humility and honesty, no other child or family will have to carry home this kind of memory from a place meant to uplift the soul.
Faith teaches us to forgive, but it also calls us to stand for truth. And the truth is… words matter. Dismissing them may be easier, but it doesn’t help heal!
***
Ed’s note: Mr. Garcia was referring to a racism incident his daughter and his wife experienced during a visit to the Sagrada Familia, an iconic basilica and a recognized heritage site in Barcelona, Spain.
Mr. Garcia described the incident as “deeply upsetting”, particularly after a female guard ordered his daughter and his wife to open their bags, saying “I don’t trust Filipinos.”
The businessman has repeatedly tried to reach the UNESCO and Spanish cultural authorities about the incident “not out of anger, but in the hope that this will never happen again. Not to any Filipino, not to anyone.”
