The mayor assembled Irish, Jewish, black, Lithuanian and Ecuadorian leaders (among others) to the Green Thursday afternoon to speak out against what he called a hate group’s divisive fuss over the flying over the Mexican flag on the Green.
The flap started last weekend. The city held a “family day” to celebrate and promote its immigrant-friendly municipal ID card. A dozen out-of-town opponents of the card, organized by a group called the Community Watchdog Project (CWP), rallied outside. (Click here to read about that event.)
The protesters discovered that the city was flying the Mexican flag below the American flag on the pole on the Green. That outraged them. CWP founder Dustin Gold subsequently sent an email to supporters decrying the sight of the Mexican flag.
The city raised the flag to commemorate Mexican Independent Day. It has for decades regularly flown the flags of Italy, Ireland, and other nations on the Green to mark dates important to local ethnic communities.
“On Saturday, CWP members arrived at City Hall around 8:45 am. To their surprise the POW flag, that usually flies below the American flag on the New Haven Green flagpole, was replaced with a Mexican flag,” Gold wrote to his list of supporters.
“We are calling on all Veterans, soldiers, and patriotic Americans to call our Governor, Mayor, Attorney General, and Congressman to share your disgust with this treasonous act.”
Following that email, hostile emails and phone calls from around the country came in to City Hall.
Mayor John DeStefano read aloud some of those messages to the ethnic group leaders and to reporters assembled on the Green Thursday afternoon. (Click on the play arrow to the video to watch highlights.)
A sample email:
“Subject: Burn the Mexican flag, don’t fly it
“Mayor,
“You need to get your head out of your proverbial rectal area and become an American and represent Americans.
“Get rid of any flag, the Mexican flag and fly it in mexico if you like so much. It’s not our flag and we’re sick of paying for illegal aliens and all their babies and having their kids overrun our schools and downgrade our country.
“Kick them out and you go with them.”
Among the people joining DeStefano to decry the campaign and to support flying the Mexican flag were representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, the Knights of St. Patrick, the new Ecuadorian consulate in town (pictured: Troya Patricio and Raul Erazo), and Lithuanian, Puerto Rican, Italian, Polish, and Peruvian organizations.
DeStefano said that for decades, at least, the city has flown the flags of nations whose descendants in town wanted to mark important holidays — the flags of Ireland, Italy, Poland, etc. This is the first time he knows of that people have raised a fuss.
“This Mexican flag is doing nothing different than other flags representing people who live in this community have done,” DeStefano said. “I’s important when hate language like this occurs to call it out and point it out and point out where it’s coming from, in this case the Community Watchdog Project.”
In a phone interview, CWP’s Dustin Gold defended the effort.
He claimed he has no problem with the Mexican flag flying on the Green as long as it’s on a pole separate from the American flag. Putting them together violates federal flag-flying guidelines, he claimed.
Asked why he hasn’t objected to other nations’ flags, he said he hadn’t noticed the problem until Saturday’s rally. He also raised concerns about the POW flag being removed to make way for the Mexican flag.
“If there’s a flag up there for another country,” such as on Columbus Day, he promised, “we’ll be complaining.”
Gold has launched a Facebook group criticizing the city for pulling funding from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade this year. Near the top of the group page he ties in DeStefano’s support for more recent immigrant communities in town: “The illegal immigrant loving DeStefano says next year he will not pay for the police over-time.. Which will end the 3rd largest St Patrick’s day parade in New England! We need to end this!”
Two men active in trying to save the parade — parade Chairman Jim McGovern and Brian Enright, the grand marshal (pictured) — were among the officials present at DeStefano’s event Thursday afternoon on the Green. They said they hadn’t heard of Gold’s group.
“That group is not affiliated with us. It has nothing to do with us,” McGovern said. “If they really want to save the parade, they should contact me.” Here’s the group’s website.