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Gisele Fetterman verbal assault
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Gisele Barreto Fetterman, Latina Second Lady of Pennsylvania, Verbally Assaulted by Racist White Woman


Gisele Barreto Fetterman is the wife of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and a formerly undocumented immigrant from Brazil. She recently posted about a racist encounter she had on Sunday at a grocery store near her home outside of Pittsburgh. The 38-year-old activist and philanthropist posted a video on Twitter of a white woman calling her the n-word after, saying she ran back to her car in tears.

“I ran to the local grocery store and was met by and verbally assaulted by this woman who repeatedly told me I do not belong here,” she wrote on Twitter. “This behavior and this hatred are taught. If you know her, if she is your neighbor or relative, please, please teach her love instead.”

In the video you can hear the woman yelling at Barreto Fetterman saying, “You’re a n*gg**” after she’d apparently followed her back to her car to continue assaulting her.

Bigotry and racism have been documented now more than ever as people record these encounters on their phones. From Latino street vendors being attacked for the sake of social media notoriety to countless white women assaulting Latinos and Latinas in public spaces, this is unfortunately not uncommon. Latinx victims of hate crimes rose over 21 percent in 2018,  according to the FBI  annual Hate Crime Statistics report. They found that there were 671 victims in anti-Latino incidents in 2018, compared with 552 the year before.


Fetterman told The Washington Post that she called her trooper escort after the confrontation and sent a photo of the other woman’s license plate. The woman has yet to be identified though she told The Post state troopers are now investigating.

“She said, ‘There’s that n-word that Fetterman married. You don’t belong here. No one wants you here. You don’t belong here,’” Fetterman told The Post. “The fact that she was so comfortable and bold to just do it to my face with an audience … that was really scary.”

She told CNN the incident reminded her of the uncertainty she felt during the decade she and her family lived undocumented and in fear of deportation. “Even though I’m 38, I’m second lady and I have a family and a career, I was immediately again, a scared a 9-year-old undocumented little girl in that grocery line,” she told CNN.

View this post on Instagram

Out of profound gratitude for my adopted country, I can only say that I would like in this land to live and die, and while I live to help other people as much as possible, believing that only in service to other people can I possibly express my gratitude for all that America has done for me. Peter Marshall said it but he took it out of my heart. ❤️🇺🇸 De profunda gratidão pelo meu país adotivo, posso apenas dizer que gostaria que em esta terra vivesse e morresse, e enquanto vivo para ajudar outras pessoas o máximo possível, acreditando que apenas a serviço de outras pessoas posso expressar minha gratidão por tudo o que a América fez por mim. Peter Marshall disse isso, mas tirou do meu coração. ❤️🇺🇸💥

A post shared by Gisele Barreto Fetterman (@gfett) on

“She didn’t hide from it,”  Barreto Fetterman said. “I think people are more comfortable now being so bold in their bigotry or their hatred.”