By Angela Marshall
Although the most visibly inflamed by the issue, Farmingville is far from the only town grappling with a growing presence of illegal immigrants seeking work and a better way of life. The day laborer population is growing in Nassau County as well, and has strong holds on communities like Freeport and Franklin Square.
After a viewing of the documentary, titled "Farmingville," last Tuesday, a panel of experts talked about the key issues brought up in the film. At the crux of the debate is the question, Is day labor a new form of slave trade or the first step on the road toward a better life? The only thing those on both sides of the debate agree on is that the current immigration laws don't work.
Farmingville's struggle first made headlines a few years ago, when two day laborers were picked up and taken to an abandoned building, ostensibly to work, but were brutally attacked instead. The media swooped in again when the home of a Mexican family was firebombed while they were sleeping last July.
More than a thousand day laborers moved to Farmingville in the last two decades and began standing on street corners waiting for a "boss" to offer them a job for the day. Contractors, landscapers and other heavy-labor industries rely on day laborers and pay them off the books. Sometimes the most criminal employers don't pay them at all.
In the film, which was still a work in progress, day laborers described coming to America in order to support their families back home. One man told the story of how he came here when his son was still too young to speak, and how hard it is to hear the boy talking in the background now when he's on the phone with his wife. "My God, he's changed," he said. "But I haven't seen him."
Many residents of Farmingville see the day laborers as foreign invaders who have no right to be here. They are angered that the streets their taxes pay for are crowded with men, that the homes next door to them are crammed with 20 to 40 people, and nothing is being done to stop it. They are also angered at being called racists, they say, for simply wanting to live a normal suburban life.
The more radical of the Farmingville residents say the day-labor movement is part of a plot by Mexicans to take over the U.S. These residents have formed an organization called Sachem Quality of Life, which has been linked by day-labor proponents to hate groups from around the country.
A former head of the Sachem organization became enraged Tuesday night at the continued references by some panel members to it as a hate group. She jumped out of her seat and yelled, "We were citizens fighting for our rights," before storming out of the auditorium.
Other Farmingville residents voiced frustrations throughout the evening. Many had been interviewed for the documentary and were invited to the screening.
The filmmakers, Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini, followed the Farmingville story for nine months. Sandoval moved into the community for the duration of the filming. He said they tried to give people on all sides of the debate a voice in the film. "The issue is a very complex one," he continued. "It was an extraordinary experience."
Throughout the documentary, the filmmakers make a point of juxtapositioning heart-wrenching scenes of both perspectives. Early on, a pre-teen girls stands with a group of her friends and talks about how scary it is to be stared at by a bunch of men. In the next scene, a Hispanic man talks about how he and his fellow day laborers are treated like dogs by the Farmingville residents.
The film was paid for in part by a grant obtained with help from Molloy. Sister Dorothy Fitzgibbons O.P., who organized the evening, said she was pleased to be involved. "It fits in so well with our mission," she said.
The panel consisted of Nadia Marin-Molina, executive director of the Workplace Project, an organization that fights for improved work conditions for Hispanics on Long Island; Dario Simon-Calva, an undocumented worker; Paul Tonna, a Suffolk County legislator whose work is at the heart of the controversy; Patrick Young, chairman of the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, and James Staudenraus, eastern field director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The panel discussion was moderated by John K. Bingham, director of capital projects and law for the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rockville Centre.
