Junta for Progressive Action
by Brian G. LaRue - November 4, 2004
Drive down Grand Avenue in Fair Haven, look at the signs in Spanish: This is a bustling Latino neighborhood--many native born, but many recently arrived immigrants. However, the immigrant community has discovered that numbers don't necessarily equal safety. On Oct. 19, Antonio Sevilla, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in New Haven for 17 years, was fatally stabbed near the corner of Grand and Blatchley Avenues. On Oct. 22, Anselmo Peniza, another Mexican immigrant, was shot in the chest near the corner of Grand and Lloyd, the victim of what police believe to be a botched street robbery.
Local activists say that these two acts of violence are part of a larger trend. "My sense is that this has been happening for some time now," says Kica Matos, who heads the Latino organization JUNTA for Progressive Action. She cited an attack in which yet another Mexican immigrant--whom she did not name--was killed in Fair Haven last month. And there are other cases Matos says she has heard about in which immigrants have been targeted: muggings, incidents of verbal harassment. One attempted robbery Matos cited was aborted, she says, when she and her JUNTA colleagues witnessed it and intervened, right on the Grand Ave. sidewalk, at the bus stop by Fair Haven Middle School.
But Matos admits that it's hard to tell if violence against immigrants is escalating, or if it's simply becoming more visible. "It's a very silent population," she says. "There's a fear that if they report the crimes, they'll be deported." It's that fear, Matos and others say, that gets immigrants--new or undocumented immigrants in particular--singled out for harassment, robbery and scams.
John Lugo, who works at Latinos United in Action and at Community Mediations, Inc., also says immigrants are targeted. He relates the case of a group of Guatemalan immigrants living on Poplar St. being repeatedly harassed on the street by a group of youths.
"If they don't get assaulted," Lugo explains, "[the kids] scream things at them...or run after them. They don't know what [the kids] will do if they catch up with them." The Guatemalans had become afraid to walk down the street after dark, Lugo says. On the evening of Oct. 23, Lugo walked with them down Poplar to demonstrate they needn't be afraid. While walking, they were pelted with eggs.
"I know cases like that happen all the time," he says. Lugo told of a Mexican immigrant who, on Blatchley Ave. near the end of last year, confronted a man trying to break into his car. During the ensuing altercation, the would-be robber broke the man's leg, causing him to miss six months of work.
Like Matos, Lugo is wary of drawing unwarranted conclusions. He doesn't know if such cases of violence against immigrants are connected, and he fears that without better communication between police and city residents, the truth will not come to light.
"I don't know who are 'they,'" the guilty parties, Lugo says. "New immigrants often don't trust authorities."
Matos says there have been efforts to improve communication between the citizens and police of Fair Haven. She says a group of community organizations--legal advocates, neighborhood churches and immigrants' rights groups--convened a year ago and will meet again during the first week of November. She mentions an ongoing community campaign to assure immigrants that law enforcement cares about their well-being, not just their immigration status. And she says immigrant groups have met with police to stem alleged racial profiling in Fair Haven. But it will take more than a meeting or two to change the way police and immigrants view one another.
"On the one hand, there's all this violence," she says. "On the other hand is that when people see police cruisers in their neighborhood, they're pulling people over."
Lugo, too, notes this paradox: Police are needed to curb the violence but many resident don't trust the police.
"There is not community policing in Fair Haven" is how Lugo puts it.
Chief of Police Francisco Ortiz met with Fair Haven community leaders last spring to discuss community policing; in the wake of Peniza's shooting and Sevilla's stabbing, another meeting has been promised. Department spokeswoman Bonnie Winchester says the chief has "chosen not to speak with the press on this issue. The department is dealing directly with the community."
But the skepticism remains. "If the police do not respond," Lugo says, "we're going to do a march."
A march could be a positive sign: It would signal that, whether or not anti-immigrant violence is on the rise, the immigrants' willingness to speak out is.