Aryans Skin Heads

[grimm]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Jul 22 2005, 02:36 PM
HAMILTON, Ohio Jul 16, 2005 — It started with the spray-painted, misspelled "Rapest" on the house of a Hispanic man accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old white girl. Then the house went up in flames in a suspected arson.

Confrontations, name-calling and threats against Hispanics followed. Men roamed the streets wearing pillowcases with eye holes, and Ku Klux Klansmen in hoods and robes showed up to pass out pamphlets. There were rumors of assaults and beatings.

Now this small Ohio river city's booming Hispanic population is cowed, the streets in their neighborhoods nearly deserted.

Outside the office of the Living Water Ministry, which two months ago drew hundreds of people to its first Cinco de Mayo festival, there is still a smell of charred wood from the June 21 fire that gutted the house next door and caused damage to the outside of the ministry's office.

"Before, the street would be covered with people, people out all over the place," said Sasha Amen, community outreach coordinator for Living Water. "There's a lot of fear now. People are shutting themselves in their homes."

Hamilton has been a hotbed for Hispanic growth in a state that has lagged behind much of the nation in Hispanic population. The number of Hispanics here jumped fivefold in the 1990s, to 1,566, and is now estimated at 4,000 or more in a city of some 61,000.

For the most part, the immigrants had settled in without much controversy in Hamilton, whose mayor in the 1990s was of Cuban descent. But life here was transformed on June 19, when a 9-year-old Caucasian girl was raped, allegedly by a Hispanic man who has apparently fled the city.

"Yes, there is fear," said Ramona Ramirez, who owns a corner deli-supermarket where she says business is off and her bread delivery man is now afraid to come. "They are attacking all the Hispanics, and it is only one person. We don't know what will happen."

Lupe Galvan, a Mexican-born woman who has been here five years, said some neighbors are talking about moving away.

once again, my hometown.