Esteban Guzman was doing yard work with his mother when a woman approached them and began yelling racial slurs.
The 27-year-old, who is a part-time landscaper, was working in a backyard in Running Springs, Calif., on Saturday when the incident occurred.
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In an interview with NBC News, Guzman explained that the racist rant was first directed toward his mother and he stepped in to defend her.
The unidentified woman told his mother to “go back to Mexico,” Guzman recounted.
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In the video, recorded by Guzman’s mother, the landscaper is heard asking the woman: “Why do you hate us?”
“Because you’re Mexicans,” she responds. “Yeah, rapists. Drug dealers, rapists and animals.”
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She backs up her rant by explaining that U.S. President Donald Trump agrees with her.
“Even the president of the United States says you’re a rapist.”
Guzman attempts to explain that he and his mother are “honest people” who were minding their own business, but the woman keeps going.
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In an interview with CNN, Guzman said he was born and raised in California and is a U.S. citizen. But he added that Trump’s remarks toward Mexicans have empowered others to be openly hateful.
“I feel like people are a little more entitled to say, ‘Hey … go back to Mexico,'” he said.
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What really got to Guzman this time, he explained in a Facebook post, is that the remarks were first targeted at his mother.
“I can take all the racial slurs they can throw at me,” he said. “However, when they start yelling at my mother, that’s another story. We are honest, hardworking and respectful people.”
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Previous Trump remarks
Many of the views expressed in the woman’s rant have been said by Trump himself.
In a June 2015 speech as a presidential candidate, Trump said some Mexican immigrants are “rapists.”
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“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best,” he said at the New York speech.
“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.”