Communities have been screening Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness across the country, but a legal nonprofit brought the film close to home. LatinoJustice PRLDEF first screened the film at their Manhattan offices on Sept. 20 and at the Touro Law Center on Long Island on Oct. 3.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF is well aware of the climate for immigrants on Long Island and nationwide. After the murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero in Suffolk County, N.Y., LatinoJustice PRLDEF lawyers assisted the Ecuadorian consulate and Lucero family by advocating for increased hate crime charges against his attackers, said Associate General Counsel Jose Perez.Lawyers also heard from a number of Long Island Latino residents who had been similarly attacked, and the group filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. In addition, LatinoJustice later filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights following several other hate crime murders of Latinos in 2008: Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Penn. and Jose Sucuzhanay in Brooklyn, N.Y. On Sept. 14, the Justice Department suggested improvements to the way Suffolk County investigates hate crimes.
“Are we bound to repeat the mistakes that have been made? Are we going to begin a new cycle of anti-immigrant sentiment?” Perez asks. Instead, Perez hopes increased awareness on these issues will humanize newcomers to the U.S. to the general population. For Perez, these screenings and discussions provide an opportunity to discuss their work and the environments that foster anti-immigrant sentiment.
The Sept. 20 screening brought together Carlos Sandoval, producer and director of A Class Apart and Farmingville; attorneys from the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund; and supporters and friends of the organization. On Oct. 3, LatinoJustice PRLDEF lawyers Foster Maer and Perez spoke on a panel with Long Island Immigrant Alliance Executive Director Luis Valenzuela, who appears in the film. The event was free and open to the public. Several in the audience connected the film to historical and current events that targeted specific communities for their perceived race, namely racial profiling following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. “Let’s lift the blanket from over this hidden population and think, how can we best welcome and integrate them in our society?” Perez said. “Because that’s what America’s all about.”
The organization has been in the forefront of combating local and state anti-immigrant policies in places like Suffolk County, N.Y. Hazelton, Penn. and most recently in Alabama which has resulted in the epidemic of hate crimes perpetrated against Latinos, said Perez. Perez will be a panelist at the Oct. 24 screening of Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness at the Museum of Tolerance New York, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.
For more information on Latino Justice PRLDEF, visit LatinoJustice.org. For more information on the film, visit the Light in the Darkness page. You can also find a screening near you or host one in your town. Not In Our Town offers numerous resources to help make your screening successful.
Images: Above, LatinoJustice PRLDEF Associate General Counsel Jose Perez (right) introduces President and General Counsel Juan Cartagena at the September screening. Below, friends and supporters of LatinoJustice PRLDEF engage in discussion of film, Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness.
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