It is impossible to measure the suffering of one against another. Comparing tragedies never helps make sense of them.
The story of Abelino Mazariego, though, should be told, and it must be compared to others in order to prevent it from happening again.
His is the story of human dignity ripped apart. On the evening of July 17, Mr. Mazariego sat on a park bench in Summit, New Jersey. He had just gotten off a day of work washing dishes for a local Indian restaurant when three teenagers approached him. One covered his face with a white cloth, another punched him in the face, and a third hit him again. Then the three fled without taking his money. There were over a dozen teenagers hanging out nearby. One even filmed the attack with his cell phone. None of them called the police. When he was finally taken to the hospital, a nurse finished up what the teenagers started, stealing $640 out of his pockets.
Mr. Mazariego died on July 20 of a brain hemorrhage, having never regained consciousness.
When I read about Abelino, I sat in disbelief. Another innocent man, an immigrant, murdered by a group of teenagers. It was less than two years ago that Marcelo Lucero lay bleeding in a Suffolk County street – stabbed to death by a group of seven teenagers who were out for an evening of “beaner hopping”—the “sport” of assaulting Latinos.
Just over two years ago, Luis E. Ramirez was beaten to death by a group of white male teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Reports of the attack describe it as racially-motivated and brutal. A report by CNN stated, “After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented worker with racial epithets, pummeled him to the ground and then kicked him in the head, court documents charge. He died in a hospital two days later.”
The articles dedicated to Abelino’s murder quote community members who say the attack was not motivated by race. Police say it was merely a botched robbery.
Despite what those living in Abelino’s quiet suburb have to say, there were reasons those teenagers targeted an immigrant working a low wage job. They knew no one would come to his aid. They knew he was likely carrying cash instead of checks and credit cards. They knew Abelino Mazariego was of so little consequence to the community that a nurse wouldn’t think twice about robbing him as he lay dying in a hospital bed.
Maybe these particular teenagers weren’t out to bash a Latino immigrant “for fun.” But that doesn’t mean their attack had nothing to do with pervasive anti-immigrant sentiments. Their crimes occurred during a time when immigrants, especially immigrants of color, are under full assault politically and in the media. The space for everyone from politicians to sheriffs to small-town teenagers to prey on immigrants is expansive and unchecked.
A wave of hate has swept over our country – not unlike previous shameful periods in American history. Ideological frameworks have been built up for decades to support it, whitewashed to hide their ugliness. Then, over time, furnished with terms like “wetback” “anchor babies” “illegal aliens” “invaders” “criminals.”
Words lifted up by sensational TV personalities, repeated until they became accepted. Frowned upon in public perhaps, but terms privately deemed accurate.
When I was fifteen I hung out with a guy who would later become a neo-Nazi. One afternoon after school, a bunch of friends were drinking beer at his house. He told us the real version of a story we’d heard before. He was in a car accident a year earlier and an elderly woman had died. He told us he was drunk and blew off a stop sign. Smashed into her car and killed her. He told us because of his age his record had just been wiped clean. Then he laughed hysterically.
I never spoke to him again, but that story haunted me. When a white supremacist leader showed up at our high school some time later, I heard that this boy was his first recruit. I wasn’t surprised. Together they recruited others to their neo-Nazi group, mostly kids without many friends, looking for a place to belong. There were other teenagers who tried to stop it, but most of us took the first opportunity to leave a place we felt was poisoned with hate and racism.
A few years later one of those recruits went on a shooting rampage, targeting African-Americans and Jews.
The community expressed horror and, of course, disbelief. All of this started in a quiet suburb much like Summit, New Jersey.
I’ve often revisited those years. Thought over and over again what I could have done differently. But realistically I was still just a kid myself. Parents, educators, faith leaders, and law enforcement turned a blind eye to what was happening in their own backyards.
That’s the real tragedy occurring not just in Summit, but in countless towns across the nation – collective, national denial.
Locking up a handful of teenagers won’t stop this from happening again. It’s time to take a long, hard look around our communities and confront the bigotry that teaches children to hate. And eventually to kill.