‘Speak English. You’re in America’: Woman Berates Latina Shoppers at Kentucky Mall

A woman at a Louisville, Kentucky shopping mall berated two Latina customers in a racist rant Tuesday, telling them to speak English and “go back where they belong.”

“Go back to wherever the f— you come from, lady,” the woman, who is white, said to one of the Latina shoppers at JCPenney when she joined the other at the register with a last-minute purchase, NBC News reported. Another customer captured the incident on video and shared it in a Facebook post. The video has since been deleted from her Facebook page.

“Hey, tell them to go back where they belong. They can’t act like the hero. They come here to live, then act like everybody else,” the JCPenney shopper said. “Get in the back of the line like everybody else does, and be somebody. That’s the way I look at it. You’re nobodies. Just because you come from another country, it don’t make you nobody. You’re nobody as far as I’m concerned. You’re probably on welfare. The taxpayers probably paid for all that stuff.”

“It’s OK, speak English. You’re in America. If you don’t know it, learn it,” she said when one of the Latina women began to respond.

JCPenney released a statement asking for help identifying the Latina women and offering to reimburse them for their purchase. Jefferson Mall in Louisville said it is also working with the department store to identify the woman who made the racist remarks in order to ban her from the mall permanently, according to NBC News.

[NBC]