July 26, 2009
Friends,
Since the end of April, we began our distribution of lunch to daylaborers at the East Hampton RR station shape-up site. It has brought together a great group of people very concerned about the message that was being sent out from within our community to the entire immigrant community, especially Latino residents, and to the wider community who have heard about intense and shameful anti-immigrant attitudes and hate crimes happening across LI. Recently articles appeared in our weeklies about the young daylaborer arrested on a weapons charge, a switchblade knife found in his pocket when police arrived. Local Minutemen, Ricky King, with his 2 sidekicks, Paul Fortmuller and 2 Flag-Tom, called police on his cell, saying he felt threatened with the knife.
We know the kid was sitting on the split rail fence, when these very aggressive guys who had been picketing, coming right up to peoples faces for a close up photo, screaming deprecations at the daylaborers, came up and sat on either side of him and began to harass him with hostile questions, demanding to see his papers. He pulled out his knife and began cleaning his nails, his message clear: you had better think twice before attacking me. In his letter he says he could have easily taken the knife from the kid, but he was out not to neither defend himself or win a fight, but to inflict as much damage as possible upon an “illegal.” Under Steve Levy agreement, ICE now takes out of status people put in the county jail for detention until deported, It is no small disruption to people's lives to appease this sort of vengeance.
The articles in the 3 East Hampton papers on the kid arrested occasioned further letters to the editor to vent nativist spleen. They write about the “criminals, the illegals, taking our jobs,” claiming they were the real voice of our community, not the “open borders crowd, not the bleeding hearts, who coddle criminals.” In one letter to the ed, Ricky King, stated he “had closed down feeding the illegals at the 7-Eleven in Southampton” and would drive the criminal illegals out of East Hampton, just as was very effectively accomplished 4 years ago, when police began taking pictures of anyone who stopped to hire a daylaborer, declaring they would send pertinent information to State and Federal tax authorities. News of this successful tactic to rid a town of its despised spread like wildfire on anti-immigrant internet sites and in no time, just days, the Minis were taking up videoing and photographing daylabor shape-up sites all across the nation.
With little choice, we must speak up and take a stand in solidarity with the immigrants, for we have seen first hand and up close the hateful, vitriolic provocations of these aggressive Minis on numerous occasions, parcel with a hostile, racist ugliness seen all across LI and the country, from mob insults to assaults to murder. I repeat all this for those I've added to our list since the last newsletter, who might not know the origins of our lunch distribution to our neighbors at the LIRR station in East Hampton. The lunches continue daily, except Sundays. The men are very grateful during this extremely difficult time when there is little available work. Many do not find work for 2 to 3 weeks at a time and are in dire circumstances. One older middle-aged man thanked me and without any self-pity, told me that all he had to eat the previous day was a cup of coffee.
I mentioned last newsletter I would tell when we begin serving breakfast and am glad to announce it started. Thur. morning 30 egg sandwiches were given out by Paolo Agudelo, recent college graduate and immigrant rights activist, who will continue doing this once a week, but feels she can't do more days as she had thought and needs people to help on other days. If you would like to join bringing breakfast around 7am, your assistance will go far in growing immigrant solidarity. We can supply bread, loaves of French baguettes or sometimes bagels, to you if you need them or leave them in a bag at a convenient location to pick up. What is of singular importance to us is that the political message of our solidarity be clear and compelling during this most crucial time when our nation is finally taking up the promised and much talked about comprehensive immigration reform in Congress.
We know the voices of the neo-Know Nothings and nativists are loud, insistent and often cruel, with half truths, lies and often racist hate. Emboldened by right wing shock jocks on radio and cable TV, politically ambitious sycophants parrot intolerance and blame at a time of deeply felt economic stress, ratcheting up resentment that spills over into contempt and even violence. Just yesterday, Newt Gingrich, reiterated his proposal to deport the 12 million out-of-status immigrants to their country of origin, from where they could apply for a work permit after a requisite multi-year waiting period upon return, and for a significantly higher fee for a visa application of at least $5,000.
Torpedoes be damned, full speed ahead tearing apart families, breaking up marriages, yanking kids out of schools, giving-over children to friends or relatives, deracinating the elderly, derailing small businesses, shutting down family farms, closing hospitals, impoverishing entire neighborhoods, driving huge numbers of people underground, entangling more anxious lives in a skein of stress, worry and fear, greatly hampering our nascent economic recovery and further dislocating our economy with severe shock. As accustomed, Gingrich has not thought through his facile solution. It would be a Goyaesque nightmare rolling the landscape up into a firestorm of misery. For what? For some gleeful, delusional moment to the pitiless, vengeful, supremacist yahoos who believe such a rearguard catastrophe could somehow forestall the inevitable changing demographics of our growing diversity and expanding democracy?
Whatever extent is our activism, we must become even more watchful in our commitment to defend the liberty, in which we are told, our nation was conceived, protecting the legacy of sacrifice by our immigrant forebears; if we are to safeguard our immigrant nation’s future; if we are to remain the land of opportunity, if we are to keep faith with our own history, national and personal. It has now become even more essential to speak up and speak out and speak love for all our brothers and sisters all over this land, to coin a lyric. There soon will never be another time (I can't get away from these songs.)
Thanks for your continued support.
Michael O'Neill
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July 1, 2009
Friends,
I thought it would be helpful to begin sending an irregular small newsletter on how things are going bringing food to the jornaleros , the day laborers, at the East Hampton RR Station. I'll send to all involved, including those who have given material, moral support and food for this undertaking showing publicly our solidarity.
Let me repeat that it is quite ok if you cannot bring food on a day you have taken. I can have that day covered, with another person or myself, if you email or phone me a couple of days ahead, if possible. In addition to the bagels from East Hampton Bagels on North Main St., I have come into a lot of loaves of good artisan bread for sandwich making, all different shapes, styles and kinds of day old breads. The problem is that our small freezer section in the frig is solid packed full. I can get the bread to you, if you can keep 4 or 5 loaves in your freezer, or a dozen bagels. Bread freezes & refreezes well.
Imke Littman, of Springs, brought cheese, ham, and bologna on Italian bread with mustard and tomatoes. Only 5 guys were at the station; she had 3 & ½ loaves left over, but they were perfectly good the next day because she had taken out the tomatoes, which she put in one of those zipper closed plastic baggies, so the bread wasn’t soggy at all. The point I want to make is that you might think how best to keep the casserole or stew or any dish so that the leftover can be used again, or for your own family’s dinner.
If you don’t want or can’t keep in the freezer for your next delivery of food, give me a ring & I will try to get it to the person delivering the next day. One difficulty I should mention is that I wrecked my car & am not sure yet I will buy another, depending on how it goes sharing one vehicle on two schedules.
One of the cab drivers at the RR station is vociferous that bringing food there is ruining East Hampton, that the "illegals" throw ½ eaten food on the ground (untrue) that has brought rats; and they’ve broken the toilet or continually block it up with paper towels to persecute the cab drivers and chase away their fares. He blames them for the marked downturn in business, because people are afraid of the “Mexicans.” He threatens to knock the food to the ground, call the cops, call the MTA brass, but he will get us out of there, for sure, he swears.
He is much hot air, thus far, but if he bothers you, threatens you, screams at you, interferes in any way, please email me, giving me the details. If necessary, we will get a restraining order, if he escalates to crossing a certain line; so we want to keep track of his outbursts to detail & back up our claims of harassment or interference.
It would be good to send a running narrative of your day's experiences as well. Besides the count of people, your recipes, tell what time you got there, how long you stayed, food leftover or ran short. But it isn’t necessary; I don’t want it to be onerous or a chore that weighs upon you. You might want to tell us a little about conversations or anything you want. For instance, Walter had two non-Latino fellows in a truck, stop and ask for a bowl of chili.
It looks like we might be starting breakfast very soon, scrambled eggs on a roll. I’ll tell you more when it begins. Remember that the most important goal is showing solidarity, esp to all of our neighbors, so that they need not remain silent or fearful of the pitifully few and dwindling chorus of right wing screechers who shout racist invective, like swine, hund and make untrue claims to foster hatred. The American Patriot Party (better known as the Know Nothings) has used fear, bullying and violence since 1846 and are well practiced posing as patriots who defend American labor against invaders, immigrants, four’ners and whose only concern is the American workingman and preserving the American way of life against those who would tear it down..
The racism, the violence, the hate is just the good ole boys letting off a little steam according to their narrative that first gathered momentum in 1860 and which has continued to this day. Nativists made deep and lasting inroads in the American Labor movement, which also has continued to this day. Yet the most radical and democratic unions from the Wobblies to the AFL were staunch supporters of immigrant rights, immigration and organizers of immigrants, who became their most committed members and that too continues to this day with most of American labor.
The cat’s meow would be to recruit 31 people so one person has but one day a month to deliver lunch. We’re growing weekly. Perhaps you might forward this to someone you might like to invite to join us. If you like, you can join us on Thursday night at Bay Burger for their jam session, a beer or great ice cream.
Thank you, EHIS, congratulations for our success, for doing something so easily. Most of all, thanks for continuing showing many demoralized immigrants that they are not hated or held in contempt by everyone, not by a long shot, because these hard working and good people have made us a stronger and better community.
Michael O'Neill
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Long Island Immigrant Solidarity, Box 633 Wainscott, NY 11975 , SagHarborMo@gmail.com
