The tragic death of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on Nov. 8, committed by a group of teenage students attending Patchogue-Medford High School, plagued the Village of Patchogue and its neighboring communities.

Since then the Department of Justice has declared his death a "hate crime."

This disturbing reality has forced school administrators across Long Island to revisit their school curriculum and attend anti-racism workshops to investigate new teaching methods and pedagogies needed to eradicate the systemic problems that contaminate our school culture.

Unfortunately, many schools can be arenas for social, cultural and political power struggles, especially when resources, learning opportunities and funding are not distributed evenly.

Schools' efforts to bandage the symptoms with "quick-fix" programs will not remedy the serious problem of institutional discrimination.

Culture is an integral part of one's identity, and therefore, by not having diversity represented in our school curriculum we are not respecting the identity of our students or the community we serve.

Long Island continues to become more racially and culturally diverse.

Since 1990, Latinos are Long Island's largest and most rapidly growing ethnic population, having increased from 6 percent to nearly 13 percent in the last decade and a half, according to LongIslandIndex.org. Asians have more than doubled in population from 2.3 percent to 5 percent while the black population has increased only modestly since 1990, growing from 7 percent to 9 percent.

While many schools addressed the issue of Lucero's death internally, Patchogue's Ecuadorean community, now organized as Fundaci Lucero de América, supported the Diálogo Comunitario por la Paz y Unidad, or Community Dialogue for Peace and Unity. 

The Alianza Ecuatoriana Internacional and Project Art are the community organizations that initiated this event with support and participation by the Long Island Latino Teachers Association, a branch of the AFT/NYS Latino Caucus. The goal was to begin the healing process by sowing the seeds of unity, peace and reconciliation through an educational and cultural community dialogue.

We had only three weeks to organize the event, no budget and several obstacles to overcome.

Our biggest problem was to find a venue and, after being denied by several neighboring educational institutions, we were welcomed into the Congregational Church of Patchogue.

The church became an oasis of cultural products, community involvement and education on Dec. 7, and more than 150 people gathered in support of our efforts.

The result of all the participants' buena voluntad was a four-hour event featuring a series of cultural performances and educational information presented by Dafny Irizarry, president of LILTA; Dr. Eddie Fergus of Metro Center for Urban Education at NYU; the 5th Precinct of SCPD; the mayor of Patchogue; the Congregational church; and parents.

Also included was an exhibition of local artists, ceramists and traditional dances performed by Ecuadorean Folkloric Group Ayazamana and the Latin Dance Team of Patchogue-Medford HS.

Combining culture, community and education were vital to the success of the Diálogo Comunitario.

We created an intercultural space where representatives of the community could gather, and culture was the vehicle to disseminate educational material.

We hope to provide future Diálogo Comunitarios in other communities. The event was an opportunity to explore the possibility of how cultural products could create a culture of peace. Also, it strongly supported the idea of community involvement as being an effective educational tool. Perhaps it even allows us to seriously consider the option of intercultural education.

As UNESCO states in its guidelines; "Intercultural education aims to go beyond passive coexistence, to achieve a developing and sustainable way of living together in multicultural societies through the creation of understanding of, respect for and dialogue between the different cultural groups.

"In order to strengthen democracy, education systems need to take into account the multicultural character of society, and aim at actively contributing to peaceful coexistence and positive interaction between different cultural groups."

As a LOTE, or world language teacher, I believe we are responsible for addressing issues, such as the goals set by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese: Community, Culture, Connections, Comparisons and Communication. The problem is language programs are not as highly respected or deemed as important compared to math, science or social studies. Many programs are being cut and limited to two languages.

Administrators and others who have the power to combat certain obstacles must be educated on the importance of language, both "mother tongue instruction" and "second language instruction." Language programs are crucial to fostering cultural respect and intercultural dialogues and instilling global citizenship.

Regina Casale, a member of Middle Island Teachers Association, teaches Spanish in the Longwood Central School District. She is co-founder of AEI and vice president of Lucero de America.