About Me
The Hartford Courant's editorial board doesn't mince words on Mr. "I Might Have Tacos": "Mayor Joseph Maturo is an idiot."
For those who are wondering why the East Haven Police Department is out of control, one possible answer is that Mayor Joseph Maturo is an idiot.
What other possible explanation is there for Mr. Maturo’s comments Tuesday night following the arrest of four East Haven police officers for violating, often brutally, the civil rights of Latinos? A New York television reporter asked Mr. Maturo what he was doing for the Latino community. (See the interview, by all means, at http://www.courant.com.) A moderately sentient public official in such a circumstance might say that he planned to meet with leaders of the community to apologize for the officers’ behavior and ask them to join him in making changes to prevent such unacceptable conduct.
Mr. Maturo responded by saying that he that he might go home and have tacos for dinner. He then rambled on with marginal coherence about other ethnic groups, mentioning his own Italian heritage (“I might have spaghetti”). We would bet that Italian Americans who’ve seen the video cringed.
In case you missed the video, here it is over here. (Thanks Matt)
Demography 101 for Republican Candidates Numbers from 2010 US Census Data
Later this afternoon, Paul Lagunes and I are going to present the paper we co-authored with Ruth Ditlmann, “Documenting the Undocumented: A Review of the United States’ First Municipal ID Program” at the CUNY Graduate Center Conference on Immigration.
Here’s our abstract:
There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and yet, for several years, the federal government has failed to pass a comprehensive immigration reform. This has led cities across the country to enact policies that either try to repel or integrate the undocumented in their midst. With the issuance of the Elm City Resident Card, New Haven, CT, sought to promote the assimilation of its migrants by becoming the first city in the country to provide them with a government-backed ID. This article uses qualitative and empirical strategies, including a rigorous field experiment, to test the policy’s effectiveness in one significant dimension. We found that Hispanics/Latinos are carded more frequently in common commercial interactions than Whites/Anglos. This shows that Hispanics/Latinos, regardless of their citizenship status, are in greater need of documentation. We also found that, because of weaknesses in the card’s design, New Haven’s ID was not always perceived as legitimate. When a Hispanic/Latino presented the Elm City Resident Card to a cashier, the municipal identification fared only as well as the non-government-backed ID it was tested against. Thus we conclude that the Elm City Resident Card’s marginal utility as a form of documentation is currently negligible.
If you’re interested in reading more, click here to download the paper. We would appreciate your feedback or ideas!
