In Connecticut, East Haven Is Unlikely Site of Latino Expo

Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. of East Haven, Conn., at the first Latino Expo held in the town.

By NOAH ROSENBERG

EAST HAVEN, Conn. — Visitors to the high school here this weekend were treated to a carnival of Latino exuberance before they finally stumbled upon the outliers. They walked through a shiny corridor where D.J.’s blasted Ricky Martin and reggaeton music, past a boisterous chef shimmying and shaking his hips as he cooked, and past a gaggle of teenage girls posing in their quinceañera dresses.

Only then, around a cafeteria corner and comfortably out of view from the piña colada station, would visitors at this year’s Latino Expo be greeted by the unexpected: two uniformed men sitting beneath a blue banner emblazoned with “East Haven Police” in large yellow letters. Nearby, the town’s mayor, Joseph Maturo Jr., bounced among vendors, a blue plastic lei dangling from his neck.

Under typical circumstances, in a typical town, a mayor could glad-hand visitors and his police department could set up a recruiting booth at a local event without raising eyebrows or suspicions.

But circumstances in East Haven have been far from typical since the town and its embattled police force became the subject of a federal investigation that led to the arrest of four officers in January.

The Justice Department cited faulty police practices in East Haven and said a culture of racial profiling and intimidation deprived Hispanics and other minority groups of their rights. The East Haven police chief, Leonard Gallo, retired shortly after the arrests of the officers.

The day the indictments were unsealed, Mayor Maturo sarcastically told a television reporter that he might reach out to the Hispanic community by eating tacos; that comment prompted an advocacy group to deliver 400 tacos to the East Haven Town Hall.

But in this New Haven suburb, which has a population of about 29,000, residents say the growth of the Hispanic population resulted in racial and cultural friction long before the police force was upended.

So the mere location of the Latino Expo — police recruiting booth notwithstanding — had become something of a political football in recent weeks.

Debra Gould created the expo 11 years ago and had most recently held it in Hartford, at the Connecticut Expo Center, which closed in September. She was running out of options when an opportunity arose in East Haven.

“And I chuckled and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to bring 10,000 Hispanics to East Haven?’ ” Ms. Gould, 59, recalled. “It’s like a joke, but it’s real — maybe that’s what should happen to East Haven.”

Ms. Gould said she got in touch with the town’s economic development director, telling him, “You guys need a crash course in cultural competency, and I’m just the person to teach it.”

The weekend expo, the 12th over all and first in East Haven, featured live music, bilingual readings for children, and about 50 vendors, including local businesses and stations devoted to voter registration, eye screenings and information for immigrant students.

Ms. Gould lamented that only about five of the vendors were from East Haven. She said she believed that a local immigrant leader had organized a boycott. Still, the expo will return to East Haven in 2013, she said.

The location of the expo proved irresistible for many area residents, including Millie Karakish, who heard about it on the local news and brought her daughter and grandson along for the spectacle on Saturday.

“I’m thinking, ‘Wow — East Haven, of all places to have a Latin expo, I have to come see this!’ ” said Ms. Karakish, 48, who is from Puerto Rico.

Inside, “Mayor Joe,” as Mr. Maturo introduced himself to attendees, sought to cast the town in a different light. He posed for photographs and tried out a little elementary Spanish on attendees.

The situation in town has improved since the arrests, the mayor said, referring to the Police Department’s new chief and a new set of regulations created in response to the Justice Department’s findings.

“It’s time we all move forward,” he said.

So, there sat Deputy Police Chief John Mannion and Officer David Emerman, the only fluent Spanish-speaker on the force, flanked by posters proclaiming the benefits of becoming an East Haven officer, including the $50,382 starting salary.

Deputy Chief Mannion admitted that Saturday had been relatively slow at their booth.

Toward the closing hour of the event on Saturday, he had instructed three or four people on how to get the police officer application form.

The main purpose of the police presence at the expo, he emphasized, was outreach, with “some recruiting on the side.”

“It’s a huge blow,” the deputy chief said of the allegations against the Police Department. “But we’ll get through it.”

Nonetheless, some East Haven residents remained skeptical of the police. Asked for her thoughts on the police presence at the Latino Expo, Elena Ortuno, 63, breathed the words “Oh my God.”

She said the Hispanic community of East Haven felt “less safe — they’re not happy,” after the officers’ arrests. “People who don’t have papers are very scared,” she added.

But over on Main Street, at My Country Store, Marcia Chacón, an owner, said a sense of calm was beginning to return to the Latino community of East Haven.

“Little by little, it’s coming back,” Ms. Chacón, 40, said in Spanish.

She recalled being terrified when police officers entered her store in February 2009 and arrested a local pastor who was filming their behavior — an episode that brought the issue of harassment into public view.

“The police created terror in East Haven,” Ms. Chacón said. “Now there’s a confidence in them.”

NYT