And the Hispanic Club Shall Lead Them

In the New York metro area, “Greenwich” is a synonym for well-to-do white suburbia, but lately even Greenwich is dealing with its minority populations—well, everyone but the minorities. According to The New York Times, an influx of service workers from Central and South America in the last decade has doubled the number of Hispanic kids attending the Connecticut town’s high school, causing jousting between Anglos and Latinos. “You'll hear a white kid say to a Latino kid, 'Hey, when's your father coming over to mow the lawn?'” a student told the Times. “And the hard part is, it's true. It's a true statement. But nobody wants to admit it.”

After a fight broke out in the cafeteria recently, GHS principal Alan Capasso recruited student volunteers to hold homeroom discussions about how to clear the air, the article says. Posters and a class on stereotyping and racial sensitivity have also been deployed. Divisions still remain, says one of the volunteers, but friction has subsided.

One group slow to address the cafeteria fight were Hispanics themselves. The controversy highlighted a heretofore unaddressed feature of the town's Hispanic community: the lack of community. “Immigrants come to Greenwich from dozens of different Spanish-speaking countries; some leave everything behind in search of a better life, while others are transferred here by their international employers. The group is too diverse to have spokesmen,” Greenwich Latinos told the local newspaper, Greenwich Time. In the breach, the high school’s Hispanic club, Vision, became the ad hoc HQ for the community. Thanks to schoolyard fisticuffs, the high school may be the place to look for tomorrow's leaders.