Shipping Weight:
.318|Dimensions:
5.49 x .69 x 8.5 inches
Share
Description
“Ojito has done truth an invaluable service. Extraordinary.”—Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2014 International Latino Awards Finalist
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist uncovers the true story of an immigrant's murder that turned a quaint village on the Long Island shore into ground zero in the war on immigration
In November 2008, 37-year-old Marcelo Lucero, an unassuming worker at a dry cleaner’s and an undocumented Ecuadorean immigrant, was attacked and murdered by a group of teenagers as he walked the streets of the Long Island village of Patchogue accompanied by a childhood friend. The attackers were out “hunting for beaners.” Some of the kids later confessed that chasing, harassing, and assaulting defenseless “beaners”—their slur for Latinos—was part of their weekly entertainment. In recent years, Latinos have become the target of hate crimes as the nation wrestles with swelling numbers of undocumented immigrants. Public figures fan the flames and advance their careers by spewing anti-immigration rhetoric.
In death, Lucero became a symbol of everything that was wrong with our broken immigration system: fewer opportunities to obtain travel visas to the United States, porous borders, a growing dependency on cheap labor, and the rise of bigotry.
Drawing on firsthand interviews and on-the-ground reporting, journalist Mirta Ojito has crafted an unflinching portrait of one community struggling to reconcile the hate and fear underlying the idyllic veneer of their all-American town. With a strong commitment to telling all sides of the story, Ojito unravels the engrossing narrative with objectivity and insight, providing an invaluable look at one of America’s most pressing issues.
“Reminds us how we might think of each other and how we treat all of our neighbors, whether or not they look like us. This is our human story.”—Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore
About the Author
Mirta Ojito was born in Havana, Cuba, and came to the United States in 1980 in the Mariel boatlift. She has received the American Society of Newspaper Editors' Award for best foreign reporting, and she shared the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, for her contribution to the series "How Race Is Lived in America." Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century from The New York Times, edited by Anthony Lewis. Ojito has taught journalism at New York University, Columbia University, and the University of Miami. She writes for The New York Times from Miami.
Please use your Email instead of your Username to login.
Caution: Deleting Your Account will permanently remove all associated data, which cannot be recovered.
Your cart's total less than the Gift Card value. If you checkout now, the remaining amount will elapse as Gift Cards are for one time use only. Continue Shopping to fully consume your Gift Card.
The Transaction was unsuccessfull. Please try again.