BELCHERTOWN — Five days after receiving a racist, threatening note demanding that they leave town because of their Puerto Rican heritage, the co-owners of Gil’s Auto Repair and Performance Inc. said Wednesday the business isn’t going anywhere.
“This is a hate crime, and I’m not gonna leave it like this,” said Zulimar Despiau, who owns the new business on Federal Street with her husband, Gilberto Rivas. The couple relocated the shop from Amherst and opened about a week ago.
Last Friday, staff members at the auto garage came in at 8 a.m. to find a note posted on their door. The one-page letter calls Despiau and Rivas dehumanizing terms and tells them to “go back to your ghetto,” referring to Springfield and Holyoke. The author concludes the three-paragraph letter with a threat to visit the business if they do not leave Belchertown. It is signed “Your White Superiors.”
“Saying you’re coming back, I feel like that’s a threat,” Despiau said. “It was scary a little bit.”
Rivas arrived an hour later and sent a photo to Despiau. The first thing she did was call the police.
The Belchertown Police Department could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, but Despiau said officers are investigating security footage from their neighboring businesses at Pelham Auto Service and across Route 9.
The couple has lived their entire life in western Massachusetts, but this is the first time Despiau has ever experienced this level of discrimination.
“That’s why we were like, what did we do? What comes next? How does it work?” she said. “Hate like that? Never. Discrimination? Maybe, but even they were nice about it. It wasn’t like this.”
Despiau and Rivas signed the lease to move their auto garage from Amherst to 1317 Federal St. in November. It took a couple months for Rivas to fix and paint the bigger space the way he wanted it. Many of their former customers from Amherst followed them to the new location, and business has been busy.
“All my customers from Amherst, and I also have few of them here, they’re great,” Rivas said. “They kept me here. They wanted me to stay. (But) we’re not too far from Amherst actually.”
Besides this incident, Belchertown residents have been supportive, Despiau said. The couple was overwhelmed Wednesday with emails, phone calls and messages from concerned local residents. A pile of cookies, chocolates, and cards gathered at the counter of Rivas’s desk, all donated from residents wishing to send their sympathy.
“I was reading one of the letters, and I started crying,” Despiau said.
Despiau said that Gil’s Auto Repair and Performance will remain in Belchertown, and she will not give into any threats.
“We are not going nowhere,” Despiau said.