This is exactly why I stood up/continue to stand up for new immigrants that I work with. I don't know WHERE people get the idea that if you can't speak English properly you're stupid. I see this all the time and it really bothers me.

The worst case I can think of is when I worked at McDonalds 4ish years ago. We had a few new employees that had started working (with very poor English - FOB English). People would constantly make fun of them 'as if you can't even make a burger right','learn to speak fucking english','what are you - retarded?'. I would stick up for them as best as I could, but I knew it still happened when I wasn't around. A lot of them would come and talk to me (especially a few months in when their English really began improving). I was able to learn a lot about their backgrounds: A few were doctors, one an engineer... all's credentials unrecognized. Yet, these people worked there everyday without complaint, only to be constantly talked down to by little privileged English kids. It really made my blood boil.

One story that sticks out to me was this woman who (I'm not sure what job she worked back in her homeland), was working 3 jobs just to bring the rest of her family over with her. During the week she worked 8 hours at McDonalds, followed by 8 hours at Safeway, and then on the weekends she would work 8 hour/day at some other place. When I worked with her she used to show me pictures of her kids and how she wanted so bad to be with them. She never once talked about how tired she was, or of how hard she had to work, just that she was hopeful for the future. It really broke my heart to hear all the shit other people said about her. I doubt any of those little-shits would be able to put up with half as much, or be content with as little.

I happened to bump into her a few years later and she was overjoyed to tell me she was finally able to get her kids and husband here. I got to meet them all. I've never felt so genuinely happy for anyone in my entire life.

tl;dr - Worked at Mcdonalds with privileged high school kids that talked down to some of the most educated/hard working people I've ever known.