It has been at least 10 days since Mexican Luis Eduardo Ramirez died after a beating dealt by some high school students in Shenandoah and the Attorney office has made no statements, no one has been arrested, and no charges have been yet leveled.

Not even the authorities consider it to be a hate crime.  No matter the accounts of eye witnesses both Hispanic and non-Hispanic that heard when the attackers shouting racist epithets against their victim, “stupid Mexican”, “Mexican, Mexican, Mexican…”

“Get out of Shenandoah or you shall be the next one going down”, heard a retired Philadelphia policewoman that lives close to the crime scene.  That was what the young attackers were screaming at a friend of the victim when he attempted to assist him.

This crime evidences the existing racial tensions in that town, as acknowledged by the Police. “Filthy Mexican”, “go back to your land”…the victim’s American fiancée Crystal Dillman recalls people harrasing Ramirez on the street.

The crime took place in our neighborhood, only two hours away from Philadelphia, in Shenandoah, and its repercussions are national.

It is easy to understand why.  Only a week ago AL DÍA featured a story on blueberry harvesters in Hammonton NJ, the majority of them Mexican and from Central America. The story told of the harsh work conditions and how grateful they were with their American employers.

Ramirez was one of those harvesters, but in a different town, collecting cherries and strawberries, and he also worked at a mashed potato factory.

Like him there are many seasonal farm workers that travel throughout the U.S. to “pizcar” as they refer to the fruit harvest.

Yes, he was also an undocumented, as many of them are, but as his fiancée stated: “They believe that if you are Mexican, that you are illegal, and that you must be bad”.  That is precisely what those students of Shenandoah Valley High School must have thought in order to perpetrate their crime.

This is a very special case because it involves on one hand the typical case of an undocumented immigrant worker in a town where the Hispanic community was growing, and on the other hand, youths that played in the beloved local football team in a blue-collar town in which racial tensions were evident, right within the influence of Hazleton, the city that became famous thanks to its anti-immigrant mayor and his rhetoric of hatred.

It’s indeed a very special case also because it seems that relatives of policemen might be involved.  There is silence, contradicting accounts, and fear that the perpetrators will be merely tried as minors.  There is fear indeed that justice might not be served.

Ramirez, who died as a result of a brain trauma as revealed by his fiancée, and who leaves behind two children and another child of hers that he treated as his own, is forever gone, he is just a coffin on its way to Guanajuato, where his grandmother had warned him to be extremely careful with entering any fights because one of those blows might kill him.