Allan Appel Photo
Organizers Zuniga and Ortiz.
They will be wearing white shirts and carrying American flags. They will number between 600 and a thousand people, and among them will be not only Latinos but members of a dozen organizations including Baptist churches and the NAACP. And their message to the mayor will be: Reach out to us all with respect and justice or step aside.
Those were some previews of a march being planned for Saturday at eleven a.m. in downtown East Haven. Its aim is to keep up the pressure on Mayor Joe Maturo in the wake of a wide-ranging federal investigation charging the town’s cops with harassing, brutalizing, falsely arresting, and otherwise targeting Latinos, then covering it up.
Since then, East Haven top cop Leonard Gallo has resigned and four cops have been arrested in the continuing probe. The mayor exacerbated the tensions with controversial remarks about tacos.
The march is being coordinated by a new organization, Communidad de Inmigrantes de East Haven, or the Immigrant Community of East Haven, which formed three weeks ago in response to these events.
Organizers gathered across the border in New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood Wednesday night to plan the march. They met at the offices of JUNTA for Progressive Action on Grand Avenue.
“Mayor Maturo still has not reached out. Immigrant residents want to send a message [through the march],” said JUNTA’s interim director Latrina Kelly said. “They want to feel welcome in their own town, by him and the whole town.”
Present at the meeting were Communidad’s leader, Herman Zuniga; Secretary Milena Quinto, and Treasurer Maly Ortiz.
The meeting drew activists from both East Haven and New Haven. (Click here for a story about the ties between the two communities.) Attendees included John Lugo from Unidad Latina en Accion, Joelle Fishman of the Peoples Center, Jeffrey Penettiere of People Against Police Brutality, Tomas Reyes, former president of the New Haven Board of Aldermen and currently president of the statewide Hispanic Democratic Caucus, and Werner Oyanadel, the acting director of the state’s Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission.
Quinto, who has lived in East Haven for 20 years, said the new Communidad organization has about 120 members. There is no fee to join. While all members are now Latino, anyone can join. “We need to have justice for people suffering for three or four years,” Quinto said.
“This happens not just to us. Black communities haven’t been able to move in. It’s not just us,” Zuniga said.
Zuniga, a carpenter who lived in East Haven for 17 years, said his group originally looked for an institutional allly in town.No good candidates appeared.
That was one reason why the group was meeting at JUNTA in Fair Haven. He acknowledged that there would be no Communidad de Inmigrantes of East Haven had not Fair Haven Ecuadorians and other Latinos allied with Father Jim Manship and St. Rose of Lima Church not forced the issue that ultimately led to the federal investigation.
Zuniga said East Haven Latinos now need to develop their own organization and homegrown voice to tackle issues like insurance, housing, and education.
Organizers said buses will leave from Fair Haven Saturday to rallying point at the McDonald’s at 687 Main St. in East Haven. For details call 203 – 848-0347 or 860 – 240-8500.