Alarmed by anti-immigrant leafleting outside black churches, ministers huddled with the mayor Thursday to chart a response.
That response appears aimed to go beyond responding to the suburban-organized group attacking immigrants, to wrestling with divisions existing within New Haven on the subject of new arrivals.
About 30 religious leaders gathered in a second-floor City Hall conference room Thursday morning at the invitation of Mayor John DeStefano and his point person on immigration issues, Kica Matos.
They were responding to leafletting last Sunday outside black churches by “The Community Watchdog Project.” The group is organized largely by white suburban opponents of the city’s immigrant-friendly ID program and other efforts to welcome undocumented immigrants; its leader is Dustin Gold of North Branford. (Gold has said he plans to move into New Haven to help organize a mayoral campaign by former Community Action Agency chief Darnell Goldson.)
Gold’s group enlisted Alan Felder, a black plumber from New Haven and outspoken immigration opponent, to help hand out the leaflets quoting black figures in history who opposed immigration involving other ethnic or racial groups, such as the Chinese. The protesters claimed that the current wave of mostly Latino immigrants steal jobs from black New Haveners.
Click here and here to read two front-page New Haven Register stories this past week that highlighted the group’s work.
The ministers read those articles, too. They weren’t happy about them. The group’s first decision was to arrange to meet with the editors at the New Haven Register, probably this coming Monday.
The assembled group included Father Jim Manship (pictured at the top of the story), who as leader of St. Rose of Lima Church is a leading figure helping Latino immigrants; Father Jose Champagne; Pastor Ted Brooks of Beulah Heights Church; Rabbi Daniel Greer; David Waren of the Anti-Defamation League; Apostle Eugene Brunson; and Rev. Bonita Grubbs. The group also included secular activsts involved in the issue, such as immigrant-rights activst John Lugo, Casa Otonal head Patricia McCann, and Community Mediation chief Charles PIllsbury.
Father Manship said he intends to be part of the meeting with the Register.
“It’s important to sit down with the press as community leaders, to express our unity regardless of our religious, denominational, ethnic backgrounds,” he said. “We’d like to share with the Register what the spirit of our conversation was this morning at this meeting, the depth of our resolve, and that responsible media coverage is important.”
By “responsible,” Manship means coverage that highlights the “unity” and “connectedness” of the city. “We need to call people’s attention to what we’re doing, how we live and work together as a community. We have a long history, sometimes good, sometimes bad — but we don’t do things by pitching one group of people against another. That doesn’t solve anything. History has showed that over and over again.”
“There are many reasons we are divided as a community. We need to put forward extra effort at developing positive relationships,” Bonita Grubbs said.
DeStefano said his role was to act as a convener of the meeting, not a leader of the group. He said he felt a need to bring people together to respond to concern in the community over the leafleting. He was pleased that a “very diverse group… responded strongly.”
The gathering agreed, first of all, that “hate talk and pitting one group versus one another — there’s no place for that here,” DeStefano said.
What also merged from the Thursday discussion, DeStefano said, was a sense that the problem extends beyond a small outside group expressing bigotry. It includes real divisions within different segments of the black community, within the Latino community, and between different ethnic and racial groups, about the impact of immigration.
Participants discussed the “need to recall the passage of other immigrants” in New Haven’s past and overcome negative stereotypes about a new generation of newcomers.
Melissa Bailey helped report this story.