East Haven Latinos Want to Work with the Community

In the wake of the arrest of four East Haven policemen earlier last week and a  that, in the interests of the town’s Latin residents, he might go home that day and eat a taco, Daisy Cruz says business is down at La Bamba on East Haven’s Main Street. There, she works one of her three jobs.  

“People are scared,” she said shortly after she arrived late Saturday morning to open the bar and restaurant with her husband Frank. 

Like many Latinos in East Haven, Frank, who works at Branford Landing in Branford, is native to Ecuador.  Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Daisy has always been a full U.S. citizen. Still, her allegations of racial profiling—these are incidents she said she successfully fought in court—were echoed that day among the section of Main Street where the largely Ecuadorian population works and lives.

“And Ecuadorians don’t eat tacos,” Cruz observed with a smile.

What Ecuadorians do eat was on generous display a very short distance down the street at the Gutiz Bakery.  There, business was brisk, with Latino families seated at its tables as customers continued to come through the door. This was in sharp contrast to the section behind the counter where the three-year-old bakery sells its empanadas, which was nearly empty. 

The savory empanada, which is a rough equivalent to the Mexican taco, differs from the Colombian empanada because, owner Pedro Gutierrez explained, Ecuadorians use a tangy hot sauce. 

“The mayor didn’t say anything about our community,” said Gutierrez when asked about the mayor's remark.  "The mayor has no contact with our community,” he said, adding that he recalled April Capone, Maturo's predecessor, visiting his shop twice. 

“’I want to work with the community,’” he said the previous top officeholder in East Haven had told him.

Gutierrez, suggested that the Latinos and the rest of East Haven begin a dialogue. “If we speak, we start to understand each other.  Maybe we have to go over, too. It’s not easy to do.  They’re [people at Town Hall] are busy.”

Working with the Town

At La Bamba, Cruz was blunt.  “The way [Mayor Maturo] talked, we didn’t appreciate it. He should do something better that. We come to the United States to work only. We don’t want trouble. There are people who make mistakes,” she acknowledged. Yet, she pointed out, there are people who misbehave throughout East Haven. “Everybody’s not the same." 

She said that the Latinos in East Haven vist the Santa Maria Maddalena Society, which includes St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church in New Haven, because they do not feel they have a church to attend in the town where they live.

“How I can say?” said Lisa Torres, an Ecuadorian native who six months ago opened a clothing store  “M&R Variedades Latina LLC” in East Haven.  She said she had moved to East Haven from New York.   “He doesn’t understand the importance of  . . .  what the Spanish think is not important to him,” she said, summing up as her reaction to the mayor’s remark.

nd so the remarks--a mixture of hurt, indigation and a view of last week's events as an opportunity for dialogue--went on a Saturday morning along Main Street. There, in a section with a high concentration of Latin residents,  Branford residents Marcia Chacon and her husband Wilfredo, own what they call “My Country Store.”  Among the many products the Ecuadorian natives  sell there  are Diet Coke, Snapple and also Latin American flours and rice.

The store advertises a global ATM. 

Wilfredo makes two trips a week into New York as a deliveryman, and the Ecuadorian proudly displays his collection of license plates, among them a 1945 plate from Connecticut, on a back wall.

Saying Hello

Somewhat unexpected among the slow rhythm of the early weekend day was the appearance of two non-Latinos in the neighborhood who declined to give their names. The two said they wanted no fanfare, but they remarked that they were walking along that section of Main Street for the very first time just to say hello. 

They said they were asking the Latinos they met what they, as East Haven residents, could do to help defuse the situation between the town and its Latino residents that the past week's events have thrown into bold relief. 

“Someone has to cross the line,” one of the men said.