In the family photo shown on the television news, Luis Ramirez lies in a hospital bed, beaten and swollen and waiting to die.
His family says they want the people who beat him to death to see what they have done.
I do, too.
I also want the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania to see the results of the hostile life environment that exists in our region for Latinos, in this case Mexicans.
Witnesses have told police that they heard the teenagers who are suspects in beating the 25-year-old father of three children scream about teaching Mexicans a lesson.
One witness, a retired Philadelphia police officer, said she heard one suspect threaten all Mexicans in the small Schuylkill County town of Shenandoah with the same fate unless they left town.
A friend of Ramirez said she heard a suspect scream “Go back to Mexico.”
Ramirez’s fiancée and the mother of their children said she regularly heard teenagers call Ramirez a “spic” or a “wetback” when they were out together with their children.
Yet some people who really should know better do not see the homicide as a hate crime.
If this is just another night out on the town, just another brawl in a one-time coal town with a history full of fights, Shenandoah is finished. If this is just another unexpected consequence of violence, the American Dream built by immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland and other foreign lands where coal miners were recruited is dead.
From all appearances, the death of Luis Ramirez is indeed a hate crime, a vicious and horrible attack on all that passes for liberty in this land of the free.
A law enforcement officer involved in the case told me yesterday that although investigators do not believe that any of the suspects intended to kill or even seriously injure Ramirez, the consequences for those suspects will likely be severe.
He said manslaughter charges are expected to be filed against three of six teenage suspects.
All suspects are white.
Ramirez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was brown.
Racial differences are obvious and must not be overlooked. Race and ethnicity have always mattered in the culture of the coal region. Rivalry easily turned to hatred, bigotry, discrimination and oppression. Violence often followed.
Shenandoah Mayor Joseph O’Neill is quoted in this morning’s Hazleton Standard- Speaker as saying he believes the beating is an “isolated incident.”
“I don’t believe it was any major thing against Hispanics,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill, who said he hoped “it was an accident,” ought to wise up and take a look at his own family tree and his own ethnic group’s roots in the coal fields before dismissing deadly prejudice as happenstance.
Family members don’t have to bury Ramirez for him to disappear. In the minds of some people, he’s already gone. That needs to change.
If Ramirez’s brutal death is not something major against “Hispanics,” I don’t know what it will take short of mass internment of anybody with a Latino name to make people understand that a purge is underway.
Fueled by elected officials like Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, the demonization of Latinos has increased nationwide. The rage and ruthlessness that exploded Saturday night is directly related to the undocumented immigrant hysteria that is sweeping the land.
Too many callers to “Corbett” yesterday expressed more outrage at Ramirez’s being in the country “illegally” than at those who beat him to death. One woman called Ramirez a “pathetic invader.” Others instructed me to “get a life” and “move on.”
People die every day, one person emailed. Another demanded equal outrage for the damage the “invasion” of “aliens” and “illegals” is doing to the United States. I don’t expect these enlightened social critics to contribute to any survival fund for Ramirez’s fiancée and their three small children, who are 3, 2 and 11 months.
Rather than getting over it, I plan to get deeper into it.
A local church reportedly is picking up the tab to ship Ramirez’s body back to Mexico.
The law enforcement official said yesterday that Ramirez’s mother wanted to come to Shenandoah to claim her son’s body but that federal officials will not allow her into the country.
Sue Henry
