An employee at a South San Jose, Calif., gas station was fired after ranting against a customer who was speaking Spanish in the store and demanding the customer prove she was a U.S. citizen.
According to ABC 7, San Jose resident Grecya Moran was speaking Spanish with an employee who, she said, had greeted her initially in Spanish. The two carried on a conversation in Spanish until another employee demanded that the two speak English, the outlet reported Tuesday.
In the video, Moran can be heard telling the employee, who is white, that she is allowed to speak Spanish before the employee asks for proof that Moran is a U.S. citizen.{mosads}
“You can do whatever you want because you’re not a United States citizen of the United States,” the employee says, to which Moran replied “I was born here.”
Moran filmed the confrontation while holding her 18-month-old son, the outlet reported.
“I even went up to her and I apologized,” Moran told ABC 7. “I said, ‘Excuse me, I’m sorry. All she was saying is — she was greeting me in Spanish. How my day’s going.’ And she said, ‘I don’t care, you talk in English because this is America.'”
Moran told the outlet that the employee, who is not named, became more agitated.
“She started saying something about, ‘Trump needs to hurry up and build the wall.’ That’s when I was like oh my God, she’s being serious,” Moran told ABC. “I just got my phone, started videotaping her.”
Several videos of the altercation were posted on Moran’s Facebook page.
The manager of the gas station told the local news outlet the employee was fired the day of the incident. According to the manager, she was employed at the station for a couple of months prior to the incident.
According to the outlet, the manager would not comment on the confrontation, instead directing ABC 7 to a company called Vintners Distributors.
Moran said she filed a report with the San Jose Police. The department told ABC 7 it was still processing the report, but confirmed Moran reported the incident as a possible hate crime.