Racial tension historically had divided the African-American community of the north and white communities in the southern part of Staten Island.
As a national debate erupted over Arizona’s controversial immigration law, a simmering anti-Mexican sentiment appeared to explode in Staten Island’s Mexican enclave, Port Richmond.
Ten of the 21 Staten Island cases investigated as hate crimes during 2010 involve attacks on Mexicans in the neighborhood. Most victims report being robbed, beaten and peppered with ethnic slurs. Diversity among the assailants involved in those assaults and an economic motive as consistent as the victims’ ethnicities, however, further complicate the already murky definition of a hate crime.
This cover shows in one face, as an allegory to the borough’s diverse composition, but the brown part is severely beaten.