The latest in a series of attacks on U.S. immigrant communities took place in our own backyard: Staten Island, NY.
On Sunday night, an unidentified man repeatedly slammed his pick-up truck into the storefronts of three Mexican-owned businesses on Port Richmond Avenue, located on the North Shore. While police have not officially ruled this as a hate crime, an anonymous Port Richmond resident summed up the feelings of many Island immigrants and community members in response to these events: �I think he just doesn�t like Mexican people.�
The immense growth of Staten Island�s Mexican community has transformed its main thoroughfare into a center of Latino-owned and frequented restaurants, grocery stores and retail shops. As Rev. Terry Troia, Executive Director of Port Richmond-based Project Hospitality told the New York Times today, �This commercial strip had a 40 percent vacancy rate 10 to 15 years ago, and today it�s filled.�
This new burst of economic activity proves what we already know about immigrants: that they fuel the local and national economy.
Although it�s just a ferry-ride away from Manhattan, Staten Island is not all that dissimilar from many of the NYIC�s destinations on this road trip. White communities across the U.S. are also experiencing tensions as a result of growing immigrant populations. These tensions provide fertile ground for the poisonous rhetoric of the immigration debate and have led to an accelerating wave of violence against immigrants and those who �appear� to be Latino, as we saw in the killing of Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, PA.
While the U.S. government stalls to complete inaction on comprehensive immigration reform, and economic fears grow, this misplaced frustration and hatred may fuel more attacks on these communities.
Elected officials like City Councilmember Michael McMahon, whose district includes Port Richmond, should respond to this incident as a hate crime, especially considering that he is the likely Democratic nominee for Staten Island�s only seat in the House.
Meanwhile, the local community and business groups are taking proactive steps to bring more security to Port Richmond. Gonzalo Mercado of El Centro del Inmigrante, a member group of the NYIC, plans to meet with business owners to discuss setting up a neighborhood watch program, or other responses to local anti-immigrant violence.
Finally, as a Staten Island resident, this case is particularly worrisome for me. Three close friends of mine own a Mexican deli and grocery store, located in another Staten Island neighborhood, where increasing numbers of Mexicans live among working class whites. We can only hope that this is simply an isolated case, and does not represent the start of an increasing trend of violence against Staten Island�s immigrant communities. But it will not remain isolated if the proper political action is not taken to reprimand such hateful violence. It shouldn�t be too difficult to find a red pick-up truck with a dented back-end. As one respondent commented on this blog, �If this had happened to two pizzerias and an Irish bar, this truck [and its owner] would have been found already.�
By Joe Taranto
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