Edinburgh Fringe performer 'disheartened' by racist abuse while promoting his show

Julian Hernandez, a Cuban-American clown, who plays a character based on his own grandfather in his show Wisard, said people had mocked his character's Cuban accent and asked him “why are you here?" while he was out flyering.

Meanwhile, a theatre company performing a show about the immigrant crisis in America told how they have faced online anti-immigrant hate.

Peregrinations, which is performing at Assembly Roxy, received a string of abusive messages from UK-based far right groups in response to their social media posts.

Mr Hernandez, from New York, said he was also pushed while walking down the street in Edinburgh with an Indian friend and told how “something had to be done” about immigrants in Scotland by a man on a bus.

He said: “This is exactly the sort of issue I’m trying to tackle in my show and it’s disheartening to see a city as liberal as Edinburgh fall prey to the same sentiments flooding America.

“While flyering for my show in costume, I've been met with some hatred. Whether it's because I'm self identifying as Cuban/Latino, or it's just the idea of foreigners in this country at all.

“Some people have mocked the character's accent, or ridiculed me for wanting to return to Cuba. On the Royal Mile, some people have even expressed that I shouldn't be there at all.”

Mr Hernandez, who is performing at Just The Tonic’s Caves venue, said he and his friend had been walking home on South Bridge when they passed a group of young, white men.

“One of them aggressively shoulder checked and pushed me,” he said. “I turned back to ask why he did that, and he got more aggressive with me and my friend. We were walking down South Bridge having done nothing other than being two brown people in Scotland.”

He said a Scottish man on the bus had talked to him about religion and about migrants who had arrived in the UK on small boats.

“He said ‘something had to be done’ about migrants in Scotland,” said Mr Hernandez. “These are words I hear in the US constantly, anti-immigration sentiments, physical acts of violence. It has been shocking, but it’s what I’ve come to know in the US.”

He said the experience had made him rethink how he promoted his show.

“It has made me think about how I’ve been flyering, but I’m not going to be afraid of these people,” he said.

“Rather than speaking immediately, I’ve just been playing a tune on my flute and then once people stop to speak and seem interested, then I feel like I can open up.”

Mr Hernandez said he would not be deterred from returning to the Fringe.

“I’m disheartened, but I’m not disenchanted, because that would feel like I’ve lost the battle,” he said. “This is my first Fringe and it doesn’t dissuade me from coming back, I have met some wonderful people too.”

Alley Scott, producer of Peregrinations, said the cast had been “sanguine” about the abuse they had faced online.

She said: “We didn’t think it was what we would encounter here. Many of the performers are immigrants themselves, so they are not strangers to this kind of abuse and vitriol.”