In this week’s Forefront story, Sarah Kate Kramer explores the problematic immigration policies in the New Haven suburb of East Haven. Below, we have photos from the businesses, run by Ecuadorian immigrants, that over the past 20 years have helped reinvigorate commerce along the town’s main commercial strip. Images also show scenes from protests that erupted earlier this year, after East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo made his now-infamous “taco” comment.
All photos by Sarah Kate Kramer.
Gallery: The Taco Mayor
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Shops catering to immigrants have brought life back to previously moribund New Haven storefronts.
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Between 2000 and 2010, the Latino population of East Haven jumped from 4.4 percent of the town to 10.3 percent, most of it Ecuadorian.
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Tiles in the office of Alberto Bustos’ income tax filing business on Grand Avenue. When he moved in 20 years ago, Bustos said the street was “dead.”
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The Community of Immigrants of East Haven hope to open a citywide conversation about civil rights.
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John Jairo Lugo, a Colombian immigrant in his forties who has lived in New Haven since 1991, was one of the people who recognized the need for the city’s immigrants to speak up.
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The majority of East Haven residents identify as white. The recent influx of Latinos has inspired a kind of politicized racism not unlike that seen in Arizona and Alabama.
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