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- Title
AN ESSAY EXAMINING THE MURDER OF LUIS RAMÍREZ AND THE EMERGENCE OF HATE CRIMES AGAINST LATINO IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES.
- Authors
López, María Pabón
- Abstract
The July 2008 killing of twenty-five-year-old Mexican immigrant Luis Ramírez in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, was brutal and tragic. By their nature, all homicides are senseless and raise many questions. However, this one--clearly motivated by hatred of the victim as a Latino--leads to questions about the message sent by the perpetrators to Latino immigrants. U.S. civil rights advocacy groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund ("MALDEF") have sounded the alarm that this murder was not an isolated incident and that there is an emerging trend of hate crimes directed towards Latino immigrants. Subsequent hate crimes against Latino immigrants, especially the murders of Marcelo Lucero in November of 2008 and of José Osvaldo Sucuzhañay the following month, both killed in New York, support this view. Although the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009 was a significant step towards the prevention of hate crimes nationwide, more action is needed to protect Latino immigrants in particular. Current anti-immigrant sentiment, fueled since 9-11 by the media and worsened by the arid economic climate in which immigrants are believed to be taking away work from U.S. residents, has led to xenophobia and nativism. These attitudes send a dangerous message of exclusion that needs to be countered with education. If not, then more fatal hate crimes like the murders of Luis Ramírez, Marcelo Lucero and José Osvaldo Sucuzhañay will continue to occur.
- Subjects
UNITED States; RAMIREZ, Luis; MEXICAN American Legal Defense &; Educational Fund; HATE crimes; HISPANIC Americans; SHEPARD, Matthew, 1976-1998; BYRD, James, Jr., 1949-1998; HATE crime laws
- Publication
Arizona State Law Journal, 2012, Vol 44, Issue 1, p155
- ISSN
0164-4297
- Publication type
Article