The focus of this five-part series is on an important housing discrimination case that unfolded in the early 2000s, culminating ten years ago – in 2014 - in an important victory for the tenants involved in the case. Latino immigrant residents, under the Fair Housing Act of 2006, successfully fought back an organized attempt by a developer and local officials to displace them from their homes in a residential housing complex in Farmingdale, New York.

In the series, we explore several aspects of the case and how it developed over time, from a community organizing perspective to the legal strategy employed by the members of the Hofstra Law clinic who argued the case. In the process, we demonstrate how these experiences are not exclusive to this one particular community on Long Island.

Ultimately, our objective in telling this complex story is to shed light on one aspect of the immigrant experience, particularly for Latinos in the U.S. Many of these immigrants migrated here after fleeing traumatic experiences back home. They took this extraordinary risk with the hopes of building new communities here in the U.S., in the best interest of their families. And in demonstrating how the Latino immigrant community has had to endure difficult, often traumatic circumstances here in the U.S., we hope to contextualize the anti-immigrant discourse that seems to make headlines almost daily. 

Learn more at qpli.hofstra.edu

This five-part podcast is the product of a multi-disciplinary collaboration between the National Center for Suburban Studies, the Law Reform Advocacy Clinic at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, and the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication’s online hyper-local news site, The Long Island Advocate.