Four women were filmed harassing a street vendor outside of San Diego State University’s Viejas arena. The incident sparked debate amongst social media users and Hispanic-led organizations, questioning the presence of white privilege within the university and what kind of precedent this behavior established. Delta Gamma Sorority at SDSU released a statement condemning such behaviour.

On February 13th, 2023, a video posted on TikTok by “enamoradoalex_” gained attention after it showed four women harassing a street vendor named Andres Arguelles Alvarez near San Diego State University’s Viejas arena. 

This altercation was sparked due to the women’s anger over Arguelles Alvarez’s hotdogs pricing.

The post tagging SDSU’s social media accounts and YogaSix, in which one of the women filmed in the video works, concluded with “let’s find (the four women) and hold them accountable.”

After this incident, Edin Alex Enamorado — the TikToker who posted the original video sat down with Arguelles Alvarez to discuss what happened. 

According to Arguelles Alvarez, he had refused to lower his price when asked by the four women, which led to them touching, eating, and throwing his food.

This mistreatment of Arguelles Alvarez led many people to express their support for him and street vendors in general.

Hispanic-led organizations at SDSU, such as Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán (MEChA) and Latinx Student Union, issued statements condemning their behavior and referencing it as “white privilege” in an Instagram post that has since been deleted.

As more people become aware of this incident at San Diego State University, with over 200k views on TikTok alone, more are voicing their opinions surrounding white privilege and its systemic issues that still exist today.

It also tagged SDSU’s social media accounts and YogaSix, where one of the women filmed in the video worked at.

The initial altercation occurred after the street vendor named Arguelles Alvarez refused to lower the price of his hotdogs when asked by the four women. 

Angered by this, they began touching, eating, and throwing his food, which led to an outpour of support for Arguelles Alvarez and street vendors as a whole.

Hispanic-led organizations were quick to act as part of this protest against white privilege. MEChA de SDSU and Latinx Student Union both issued statements condemning the four women’s behavior. 

The statement read, “Attending an institution does not make anyone better than the community members outside of SDSU. How do we know this behavior won’t be directed towards students of color? What kind of precedent does this establish for our university environment?”

It was revealed shortly after that that Enamorado had falsely alleged them to be members of Delta Gamma Sorority at SDSU; this prompted Delta Gamma to switch their Instagram account to private to protect their members who had been misidentified and released a statement saying that none of those involved were actual sorority members. 

Their statement declared such behavior as unacceptable and encouraged progress in making their community safe and welcoming for all.