Thread: Rift Over Illegal Immigration Leads to Talk of Secession

Rift Over Illegal Immigration Leads to Talk of Secession


By PAUL VITELLO
Published: December 16, 2006
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y., Dec. 14 — Assuming a new name has often been part of the immigration experience. Now this Long Island hamlet, bruised for a decade by its reputation as a place where illegal immigrant day laborers crowd into rooming houses, is considering a name change of its own.

Farmingville, or at least the more affluent half of it, where few if any of the new immigrants live, would have itself be known instead as the village of Oak Hills.

Some people here acknowledge this is a kind of white flight by incorporation — a maneuver pioneered 20 years ago when an enclave within the increasingly Hispanic community of Central Islip, in Suffolk County, broke off to become the village of Islandia.

But many of the homeowners here who have signed a secession petition in recent days say that they are not leaving Farmingville — Farmingville has left them.

Now known as an illegal immigrants’ haven, the community has been the scene of frequent demonstrations by residents, and by groups that come periodically to taunt the day laborers. On CNN, Lou Dobbs marks Farmingville with pushpins regularly on the map of his continuing crusade against illegal immigration.

And then there is the movie. A documentary based on a 2000 attack in which two men beat two Mexican day laborers almost to death evinced a complex portrait of the community but left the overriding impression that Farmingville is a place without pity. The film, which won a Sundance Film Festival prize, is titled simply — and many here think unfairly — “Farmingville.”

“It seems like every time something is said about Farmingville, it’s a negative rather than a positive,” said Del DeMarino, 63, a resident since 1972 who is the chief organizer of the Committee for an Incorporated Village. “It’s just not possible to change that now.”

Demographers say the majority of immigrants are now settling in suburbia, where frustration with perceived federal inaction against illegal newcomers has led to a variety of ad-hoc local initiatives. In Suffolk County, for example, there have been crackdowns on overcrowded rooming houses in Farmingville and other areas, and laws passed against employment of illegal immigrants, neither of which has had much effect.

Unable to build fences like the 700-mile one proposed for the Mexican border, a handful of unincorporated communities like Farmingville are seizing on self-rule as a tool of self-preservation — or, as some see it, self-segregation.

“We know what they’re talking about when they say they want to separate from ‘Farmingville’ — they mean the Mexicans,” said William White, a local resident who opposes the name change.

Mr. DeMarino, a salesman for a shipping company and a Republican active in local politics, said immigration was not his only motivation.

There are fingers of other ZIP codes and hamlets that lie across parts of Farmingville, and the new village would incorporate them, he said, “giving us one identity.” There is also a state road improvement project about to begin, and an incorporated village may be able to wield more influence over it than an unincorporated area.

But as he steered his Jeep through streets of widely spaced homes, elaborately decorated for Christmas, on the wealthier side of Farmingville that would become Oak Hills, Mr. DeMarino acknowledged that it was mainly the “stigma thing.”

“See that house?” he said, pointing to a two-story colonial-style home with a broad lawn. “That house has been on the market for eight months. He dropped the price three times. Nice house. But if you are trying to sell a house in Farmingville, you have a problem.”

Asked if that might have more to do with the slowing real estate market, Mr. DeMarino said Farmingville’s notoriety compounded the problem.

Hard by the Long Island Expressway, Farmingville is an unincorporated area in the Town of Brookhaven. According to the 2000 census, 8 percent of its 16,000 residents were Hispanic, up from 3 percent in 1990.

In what passes for downtown, a stretch of broad boulevard dividing the east and west sides of Farmingville, the storefronts feature an unusual number of Laundromats within a few short blocks (three), money-order vendors specializing in international transfers and inexpensive, footlocker-size luggage (two), and window advertisements in Spanish (innumerable).

Miriam Valenciano, who owns a small house behind the downtown district, was skeptical when told about the proposed name change. “You mean we’ll have an upper-class Farmingville and a lower-class Farmingville,” she said. “That’s what it sounds like to me. I think it’s a little derogatory.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/nyreg ... r=homepage

I guess this is where reap what you sow comes into play.

So true