Suffolk Closeup

Hate was spilling out of the Suffolk Legislature's meeting room into the lobby in Riverhead last week. Many white residents of Farmingville were there to push for a bill introduced by Legislator Joseph Caracappa to have Suffolk County sue the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service because of what he claims has been a "spate" of crimes by undocumented Latino immigrants in Farmingville.

In recent years, these Latino day laborers have been gathering in groups on Farmingville street corners waiting for contractors to drive up and hire them for day construction jobs.

Mr. Caracappa's bill was ultimately defeated.

Police Statistics

Contradicting Mr. Caracappa's claim about crime, Suffolk Police Commissioner John Gallagher and Philip Robilotto, the chief of the department, appeared before the Legislature with arrest figures.

"We do not have," said Mr. Gallagher, "a crime wave in Farmingville." Further, the vast majority of those arrested, he said, were United States citizens.

But that information didn't matter to the white Farmingville residents or Mr. Caracappa. Some of the residents in the lobby held U.S. flags and signs like "Illegal Aliens Are Ruining Our Nation." Angrily, they said the Latino workers were raping women, committing burglaries and other crimes, and that they should all be deported to where they came from.

"Should Be Applauded"

Three Latinos, meanwhile, were holding up a banner on the other side of the lobby: "We Are Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free. Let Us Work!"

The Rev. Allan Byron Ramirez, pastor of the Brookville Reformed Church, observing the scene in the lobby, commented, "You can sense the atmosphere of hate."

"This immigrant community is looking for the essence of what this country is about," said Mr. Ramirez. "They should be applauded for going out on to the streets at 6 in the morning to look to work all day for $60 or $70. That's the ideal held up for all of us in this country - to work hard, to work to succeed."

Mr. Ramirez, in clerical garb, told of his family coming to the United States from Ecuador in 1966 when he was 11.

American Dreams

"My parents held two factory jobs, worked 16 hours a day, to support my eight brothers and sisters and me," he said. The graduate of Western Theological Seminary and pastor of the Brookville Reformed Church for 18 years said that is what these Latino day laborers also want - to work hard and "see their children educated," to create a "better life."

But on Thursday in Riverhead, hate was what they were receiving. "It's the same kind of hate that was directed against African-Americans a few decades ago and Jews before that," said Mr. Ramirez. "This is no different."

With Mr. Ramirez, I walked over to talk to one of the day laborers, Rogelio, 28, from Hidalgo, Mexico. He was fearful about giving his last name.

Nation Of Hope

"I feel discrimination and I ask why, why? Why are they spreading this hate?" asked Rogelio. "Why do they accuse us of criminal behavior when all we do is work, work, work? I don't have the time to commit crimes."

"The United States of America," said Mr. Ramirez, "is more than just a geographical place. This is a nation that gives people hope. You can't build walls and stop people from going to a place of hope."

I had not seen Ken Lederer for years. He's very much a Suffolk person, growing up in Huntington and graduating from Huntington High School with my wife. He is now executive director of the Central American Refugee Center in Brentwood.

Called "Extremist"

Mr. Caracappa's bill is "basically about people not recognizing the changing face of Long Island and Suffolk County," said Mr. Lederer. Moreover, it's a measure "encouraging vigilantism," he said, looking at a clutch of white Farmingville residents, fury in their eyes, acting out across the lobby.

More and more minority group members now live in Suffolk and the white Farmingville residents at the meeting "just won't come to grips" with this, said Mr. Lederer. It's a "very extremist" group that refuses "to sit down and develop an accord. It does not want to see an alternative to the workers having to be out in the open. This way, they can continue to point fingers at them, continue to attack them."

Attack Pressed

Inside the legislative hearing room, the attack was being pressed. Mr. Caracappa was holding up photocopies of two Suffolk Police Department wanted posters for Latino workers and then reading them out loud. This was indicative of how these "illegal aliens commit crimes," he said.

"STOP THE HATE," said the little signs lifted by immigrant workers in the audience as Mr. Caracappa, of Selden, spoke.

Legislator George O. Guldi of Westhampton Beach spoke against the Caracappa bill. Besides being "ridiculous" legally, said Mr. Guldi, an attorney, it is just more "ignorance leading to fear leading to hatred. The reality is that we have one community and we all live in it together regardless of when we got here - whether we are immigrants of one week or three generations. We have to learn to live together." Amen.