Farmingville

PBS is showing the 2004 eponymous documentary about the tensions in the Long Island town of Farmingville. In the 1990s some 1,500 Latino, mostly Mexican, immigrants settled in this surburban community of 15,000 residents. Trying to make ends meet on low wages and in order to have money to send back to their families, they saved money by living by several dozens to a house. Employed mostly as day laborers they congregated around street corners waiting to be picked up.
Residents begun to express fear to pass these men on the streets, complained of noise of trucks coming by their neighborhoods to pick up/drop off employees. Tensions escalated quickly with anti-immigrant protests in the streets, driven by a new local organization, the Sachem Quality of Life. SQL represents the patriotic, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen appalled the the police or INS did nothing to solve 'the problem'.
On Sept 17th, 2000, 2 day laborers were beaten by a couple of neo-nazis. This spurred more local organization in defense of immigrants, including the Brookhaven Citizens for Peaceful Solutions. In addition, the Latino Day-laborer community organized itself, forming Human Solidarity.
In early 2001, the Suffolk County Legislature, trying to find a reasonable solution approves a bill to establish a hiring site, some location that would harbor day-laborers looking for jobs so they wouldn't be crowding around 7/11. Later County Executive Robert Gaffney vetoed the bill, forcing the County Legislature to reconsider the bill. A veto override fails, the hiring site bill is killed, and the community is left with no concrete solution. That is, other than "deport 'em all".
The documentary is quite fair and balanced [sorry FOX], including private interviews with SQL members, anti-hate and pro-immigration organizors, day-laborers, and legislators. Most dramatic is the footage of the legislative sessions and the emotional interventions by the community members; footage on the streets of Farmingville, of day-laborers faced with angry protestors bearing signs and taking pictures of them and of potential employers to supply the INS; footage of some day-laborers trying to get their boss to pay them several thousand in backpay; and footage of the SQL "Conference of Truth", held in August of 2001, that brought several anti-immigrant figures from around the States, including Barbara Cox, former VP-candidate along with Pat Buchanan, and Glenn Spencer, member of American Patrol.
One of the most thought provoking issue is the accusation of racism thrown at the SQL and community members. Many people seemed shocked at the accusation, claiming they are merely concerned about their community and upholding the law. These concerns would be the same if they were Swedish, one woman says. The former leader of SQL explains she came to understand the racism-card is used rhetorically to undermine what they are trying to say. One almost believes them. But hearing some of them describing how they're afraid of sending their children to the store, or how women are sexually solicited by the crowds of men, the underlying fear of the different becomes more apparent. Hearing the things yelled out by picketeers makes it evident. Learning about their uncompromising strategy and their association with national anti-immigration organizations [whose spokespeople are real wack-jobs, talking about a Mexican invastion of the US and a US-Mexican consipiracy against the USAmerican people], it becomes clear SQL was not interested in solving the problem of crowding in houses or street corners and restoring the dream community, but in driving these people out and using it as an example.
See the PBS website for local times or if you want to by the documentary.