DURANT, Okla. – A man launched a racist tirade at a Mexican-American woman in an Oklahoma Goodwill store, and she responded by turning on her phone’s camera.
It happened while Maty Roberts, her daughter, and her daughter’s boyfriend were at the Goodwill in Durant, Oklahoma.
Roberts said the man first directed his verbal assault on her daughter.
“Like, ‘I hate wetbacks, why don’t you go back to Mexico, speak English,'” Roberts told KFOR.
She was outraged and confronted the man with her phone camera rolling. “Yeah,” he answers. “Wetbacks, wetbacks, ’cause you’re an immigrant.”
“Sir, are you the one who hates wetbacks?” she’s heard asking on the video. “I am an American citizen.”
“Yeah,” he answers. “Wetbacks, wetbacks, ’cause you’re an immigrant.”
Roberts said she was shocked.
“You only see this on television, that happens somewhere else in a different state, bigger cities. Not here in Durant,” she said.
The video goes on to show him taunting her.
“No speak English, I no speak English. No comprende,” he is seen saying. “Lousy speaking immigrant.”
Roberts was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. in 1979. Then in 2008, she finally was granted citizenship.
Roberts said she was never so disrespected in Mexico or the U.S.
“I came here legally and I pay my taxes,” she said.
When police arrived at the Goodwill, the man refused to hand over his I.D. Roberts continued to record the exchange he had with the officer.
“We speak English. English only,” he said before closing the car door.
Roberts said she knows his arrest will not change the way he thinks, but she wants an apology. While she acknowledges the attack on her racial background, she doesn’t want to be political. Instead, she condemns anyone who is a bully.
“Hopefully by seeing this video and by the comments, they understand that it’s not acceptable,” Roberts said. “It’s not acceptable.”
