Lori Metoxen, 52, works as an administrator at Oneida Behavioral Health in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a treatment center for indigenous people suffering from addiction and mental illness. Metoxen says one beautiful summer day in 2017 she drove home from work with the windows down, the sunroof open, and her Oneida Nation license plate, available only to members of the tribe, proudly displayed on the back of her car. When she stopped at a traffic light in the part of western Green Bay that belongs to the Oneida Nation reservation, she noticed a car full of white, teenage girls in the lane beside hers.

Go back to Mexico, you scumbag sack of shit! one of the girls yelled at Metoxen.

Stunned, Metoxen remembers saying something like, What is your problem? to which the girl, after a string of profanities, replied, You heard me, go back to Mexico!

The angriness of their voices was shocking to me, Metoxen, a Native American who is not from Mexico, recounted to HuffPost. They really needed to make somebody feel bad. What was the fun in that?

After a few seconds, the light turned green and the white girls, all laughing, turned left. Metoxen drove straight, and as so often happens after incidents like these, she suddenly realized what she should have said.

You go back to where you came from! I belong here!