Dylan Grall, 23, Assaults Hebrew Speakers, Thinking They Were Speaking Spanish

It's hard to believe that, in this century, race-based hate crimes would still be a problem in the United States. But that's exactly what a recent incident in Wisconsin has brought attention to, as a man committed a hate crime against two supposedly Spanish-speaking men. Dylan Grall, a 23-year-old Janesville native, was going about his day on Sunday when he heard two men speaking Spanish. Dylan Grall then confronted the two men, aged 22 and 23, demanding "they speak English." This confrontation ultimately spiraled into a situation "where the victims were both struck in the face."

While Dylan Grall, who has since been charged with battery and two counts of Hate Crime, thought he was assaulting two Spanish-speaking young men, the victims were actually speaking Hebrew. He told authorities that he did tell the men to stop speaking Spanish and start speaking English, but denies every assaulting the victims. An eyewitness who saw the racist encounter go down confirmed that the two were attacked and that the men were speaking Hebrew. According to the official criminal complaint, one of the two victims had his eye "nearly swollen shut" while the other victim fell to the ground.

Taking into account that the Hispanic population makes up 16.3 percent of the American population, making it America's largest ethnic minority, the inherent prejudice on the part of Dylan Grall is undeniable. What's more, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 12 percent of U.S. residents, as of 2009, speaks Spanish at home and the 2011 American Community Survey by the Pew Research Center has found that Spanish is the most spoken non-English language spoken in the United States. These quantitative values aren't only related to Hispanics and Latinos; 2.8 million non-Hispanics speak Spanish at home. And while Dylan Grall could benefit from a lesson in the differences between the Hebrew and Spanish language, what the assailant truly needs to comprehend is that the language an individual speaks is not reason enough for violence or criticism.