LAS VEGAS — A Las Vegas woman and her mom say a man in a parking lot starting insulting them because they were speaking Spanish.
It happened in the parking lot of the Smith's grocery store in Southern Highlands. The mother and daughter say they were walking through the lot when a man overheard them speaking Spanish.
That's when the daughter decided to get out her phone and start recording the encounter. At one point the woman calls him a racist and the man replies, "Yes, I am. Very much so."
Then, after she talks to her mom again in Spanish, the man mimics the woman before saying "Maybe I should go back to where I came from, Ohio, because they don't let you people there."
The woman behind the camera shared her video on Facebook. She didn't want to go on camera because she was still shaken up, but wanted to share her video to show what happened to her wasn't acceptable.
While the encounter was alarming, it's certainly not isolated. Jose Macias with Make the Road Nevada says many Hispanic-Americans and Spanish speakers, as well as other minority groups, have repeatedly faced similar situations.
"This has definitely been rising since Trump became president," Macias says. "Hate towards immigrants, to people that speak Spanish has been rising up."
As for the woman behind the cameras, shoppers KTNV spoke with in the same parking lot hope she'll remember some different messages instead when she comes back to shop.
"We have enough hatred. We need love and kindness," one shopper said. "We're all good people in this community and we're going to help each other."
