Editor’s note: Part three of five.
Que Pasa, Long Island?
Listen to Episode Three of the podcast here.
Episode 3: Combining Forces: How Housing Discrimination and Rights of Day Laborers Converged
In this episode, we hear the story of how Farmingdale officials and some of their constituents were growing increasingly hostile to day laborers in the village. The mostly immigrant workers had been congregating at a day-laborer pick-up site close to the housing complex at 150 Secatogue Ave. Many Latin American immigrants lived at 150 Secatogue, although most of the people who lived there were not day laborers. Nevertheless, the building’s residents were still ostracized by other Farmingdale locals. We hear from several local immigrant rights and worker organizers who were involved in an array of campaigns on Long Island defending the rights of day laborers to congregate safely in neighborhoods where often local white residents did not want them. It was almost inevitable that the immigrant worker struggle soon merged with the housing discrimination case, just as the local, racist backlash against the Secatogue Nine was bubbling over in online chats and public meetings.
