Day laborers struggle after racist evictions

In the early hours of June 20, while several dozen tenants of a tiny bungalow at 33 Woodmont Avenue in Farmingville, N.Y., on Long Island, were still sleeping, Brookhaven town authorities raided the dwelling and evicted them from their home.

June 26 protest.

Town authorities claimed concern for the terrible living conditions the workers, most of whom are Mexican, faced. But this expulsion was a racist political attack meant to drive Latinos out of Long Island.

The raid showed the government’s contempt for the thousands of Latino day laborers, the jornaleros who work for low wages under brutal conditions in the landscaping, construction and restaurant industries across the region.

Among Latino immigrants and their supporters, the response was immediate. Local organizers from Centro de Apoyo de Farmingville, United Day Laborers, of Long Island, the Freeport Worklink Center, in Nassau, the Workplace Project, Jobs with Justice and several churches and community groups marched and rallied on June 26 to fight the evictions and defend the rights of the jornaleros.

Suffolk County Supervisor Steve Levy warned that another 123 homes in Farm ingville face similar raids. He refused to meet with members of Centro de Apoyo, the immigrant support committee in Farmingville, or any of the Long Island org ani zations in support of the day laborers.

“I will not meet with them on this matter,” he said. “I’m not one who’s going to be intimidated by their antics or marches. Bring it on.” (New York Times, June 26)

Levy played to his racist constituency by calling the organizers of the march and rally in support of immigrant rights “a lunatic fringe.” (Newsday, June 28)

Farmingville is a village where racists have organized vicious attacks on undocumented Latino workers in the past. The virulence of the local reactionaries is even the subject of a documentary called “Farmingville.”

Two years ago, the racist Sachem Quality of Life group organized a sparsely attended conference against Latino immigrants and day laborers. The racists invited Glenn Spencer, leader of the vigilante American Patrol, and members of the Minutemen to participate.

And it was in Farmingville where, in 2000, racists kidnapped two Mexican jornaleros from their home, took them to an unoccupied building and viciously beat them.

It was in Farmingville that, one summer night in 2003, a gang of local teenagers firebombed a house in which a Mexican family was asleep in their beds. The family escaped with their lives.

‘Housing is a right!’

“We were evicted without notice,” said Benito Martinez, one of the residents thrown out into the street June 20. “Others from my house were out working, or standing on the corners, seeking work. They weren’t allowed back to collect their clothing.”

Benitez added. “We have to speak up, we have to work together to fight these evictions.”

The Rev. Allan Ramirez from the Brook ville Church in nearby Nassau County held up a small dog. “If 30 dogs were found living in this house, the county or town would have found homes for them! But these Latino immigrants were treated worse than dogs!

“They were thrown out into the street, here at ground zero, around the corner from the very place that racists burned one family out and almost killed two other Mexican day laborers five years ago.”

Ramirez told Workers World that the police and the Suffolk County government were conducting an “ethnic cleansing campaign against Latino immigrants, trying to drive these people out of the county.”

Nadia Marin Molina, director of the Workplace Project, the main group organizing jornaleros on Long Island, told Workers World that the issue of the day laborers in Farmingville points to the crisis in housing throughout the region.

Recently, the Workplace Project was called to defend Latino tenants facing eviction from an apartment in Farming dale, in Nassau County. That building houses 150 immigrant families.

Latino jornaleros in other parts of Long Island are often homeless. They face arrest for loitering.

In Suffolk, County Supervisor Levy tried to deputize the police force to arrest undocumented workers. Protests made Levy retreat from this threat. But Marin Molina said that if homeless workers are arrested for loitering, they will be turned over to the Immigration and Natural i zation Service for incarceration and deportation.

“The jornaleros are the most exploited workers in the U.S. At this moment their demand is housing, and housing is an issue for everyone. This is an issue many people can organize around, because housing is a right—here in Farmingville and across the country.”