Who Is to Blame for Marcelo Lucero's Murder?

By Marcelo Ballvé, New America Media. Posted December 2, 2008.

While the speakers, some wearing pins reading "I am Marcelo Lucero," launched these critiques, many legislators looked the other way. Brian Beedenbender and Jack Eddington, both enthusiastic backers of Levy's campaign against illegal immigration, stared at the screens of their laptops.

In between the advocates' speeches, other speakers touched on more routine Suffolk issues like the budget woes of the county's planetarium and science museum.

Some in Suffolk may yearn for normality, but their county has forever become emblematic of a problem with national reach: the tension between the suburban myth of white-picket fences and orderly lawns and the realities of immigration. As job-seeking immigrants increasingly move from urban areas to outlying communities, suburbs must choose whether they will embrace diversity or scapegoat foreigners.

It's no secret many Suffolk residents moved from more urbanized areas to put some distance between themselves and what they perceive as the chaotic diversity of New York City and its immediate surroundings, said Patrick Young, program director of the Central American Refugee Center (Carecen), who also spoke at the session. Suburbia's irrational distrust and fear of minorities can manifest as anti-immigrant sentiment.

"It has become an acceptable part of the culture of this area, and this is a culture that's pandered to by these politicians and stirred up by them," he said.

Not all Suffolk legislators agree on immigration. Some lawmakers (including two Latinos and a Republican) have made efforts to reach out to the Latino community and taken a stand against Levy's aggressive immigration positions.

For his part, in a televised speech the same night of the Nov. 18 legislative session, Levy apologized for his initial reaction minimizing the hate crime's importance (he had said that if it had happened elsewhere, Lucero's murder would have been "a one-day story," a comment that enraged many Latinos and activists). Levy, son of a Jewish father, also compared Lucero's killing to Kristallnacht in 1938, when Nazis in Germany destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues. Lucero's murder occurred on the eve of Kristallnacht's 70-year anniversary.

But Levy denied there was a link between Lucero's death and his attitude toward illegal immigration. "Advocates for those here illegally should not disparage those opposed to the illegal immigration policy as being bigoted or intolerant," he said.

The next day, though, Levy seemed to forget his serious tone and again was flippant regarding Lucero's murder. According to Newsday, he was speaking to a gathering of business people and jokingly compared his difficulties handling the Lucero case to a colonoscopy.

In the past, Levy has cited the dream of a suburban lifestyle to justify his beliefs on immigration. “People who play by the rules work hard to achieve the suburban dream of the white picket fence,” he said in 2007 to The New York Times. “Whether you are black or white or Hispanic, if you live in the suburbs, you do not want to live across the street from a house where 60 men live. You do not want trucks riding up and down the block at 5 a.m., picking up workers.” With such statements Levy is advancing a polarizing vision, said immigrant advocates.

It's the same rhetoric the teenagers who killed Lucero have been hearing since they were old enough to understand it, said Carcen’s Young, who added, "this constant branding of people as illegal is the most dehumanizing thing."

At the street corner in the tidy, seaside village of Patchogue where Lucero died, an improvised shrine has been set up, with flowers, candles, and photos. A line of orange spray-paint left by police still marks the path the mortally wounded Lucero followed before falling. A sign written in black marker reads: "God Loves All People, and All People Should Love One Another."

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