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As a result of this interchange, the Committee Against Bigotry has gotten interested in the violence against Mexican day laborers. One of the most concerned members is Dora Berksteiner, an African-American native of Staten Island who lives in Port Richmond. She admits to being shocked at the situation in her own neighborhood--"I had no idea until I heard Terry talk about it!" Berksteiner sees the day laborers as victims of anti-immigrant prejudice, who are doubly at risk because most are undocumented and thus fear going to the authorities. She has vowed to confront the problem head on. "If you see Mexicans being attacked not by whites but by African Americans, you realize bigotry is much bigger than what we believe."

City Limits Magazine


May 2004:
What's Hate Got to Do With it?

At a recent meeting of the committee, not all members were on Berksteiner's page. An elderly African-American man used an unconsciously violent metaphor as he suggested that Mexicans "cut" into Americans' livelihoods. "Why should we give up jobs to someone who works for less than what we will?" he asked rhetorically. "They cut the wages down--that is what's got people riled up. I'm for helping people. But not people who are going to cut us. Just leave each other alone. Don't bother anybody."

"You don't even know when you're bothering somebody!" retorted Berksteiner. "When you say somebody's taking jobs, all the facts are not in! We have to educate ourselves!"

Berksteiner began her own education by dropping by the Centro storefront one evening after work. There, she inspected Mexican men's scars while listening, through a translator, to their stories of being attacked. Now she wants to organize patrols of black community leaders who will walk the streets at night, sending a message to their youth that "this behavior won't be tolerated."

And Berksteiner is intrigued by youth organizing being done by Troia and the Anti-Violence Committee, w