Description
La verdadera historia del asesinato de un inmigrante que transformó un acogedor pueblo de Long Island en la zona cero de la guerra contra la inmigración.
En noviembre de 2008, Marcelo Lucero, un inmigrante Ecuatoriano de treinta y siete años, fue atacado y asesinado por un grupo de adolecentes cuando caminaba por las calles de Patchogue. Los atacantes iban a “cazar beaners” —término despectivo para Latinos— algo que formaba parte de su diversión habitual. Mientras el país lucha contra el creciente número de inmigrantes indocumentados y los políticos avanzan su carrera canalizando y propagando el odio al inmigrante, los latinos se han convertido en el blanco de múltiples ataques de odio.
Lucero, un humilde trabajador de una tintorería, se convirtió en otra víctima de esta fiebre anti-inmigratoria. Tras su muerte, Patchogue, un tranquilo y casi desconocido suburbio Estadounidense, se convirtió en la zona cero en la guerra contra la inmigración y Lucero en un símbolo de todo lo que no funciona en nuestro sistema migratorio: menos visas para viajar a Estados Unidos, fronteras porosas, pocos buenos trabajos y un grave aumento de la intolerancia y el racismo.
Basado en entrevistas de primera mano, Mirta Ojito— periodista que compartióun Pulitzer de equipo en The New York Times— ha elaborado un profundo retrato de una comunidad que intenta enfrentarse al odio y al miedo que yace bajo su idílica imagen. Con el compromiso de contar todos los lados de esta historia, Ojito ofrece una apasionante narración y una visión aguda e indispensable sobre uno de los problemas más acuciantes en los Estados Unidos de hoy.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
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.
“Ojito has done truth an invaluable service. Extraordinary.”—Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“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.
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