Joselo Lucero: "We're Not Looking Back to Three Years Ago, We're Looking Forward"

Joselo Lucero, whose brother Marcelo was murdered in Patchogue three years ago in a hate crime attack, says that remembering the death is how to continue to advance the conversation on hate crimes.

“We’re not looking back to three years ago, we’re looking forward,” Lucero said after a at the location where and Joselo's brother in 2008. “We are looking to start a conversation, to present something, you always have to look back first, you have to find something to begin with.”

Lucero has since moved to Bay Shore but still returns to Patchogue.

“I’ve continued doing what I’m doing even though I’ve moved out of Patchogue but I still coming back because I believe I can make a change,” he said.

Joselo now does presentations throughout New York raising awareness about what happened to his brother as well as discussing violence and bullying.

He hopes to reach out to the in order to start a positive relationship with them, which he says was lacking with previous executives.

Regina Casale attended Sunday’s vigil and is an organizer for the Marcelo Lucero award, which is given to a student at . Casale said that Marcelo is still being talked about three years later as a symbol to show that work needs to be done to keep the community safe.

Casale also says that the conversation on hate crimes is not over.

“Marcelo is a symbol because it was Marcelo who was killed, but we have to look beyond Marcelo, we have to look beyond his skin, beyond his name, beyond his language, and we have to talk about people that die from violent acts, especially hate crimes,” Casale said.

Gilda Ramos, a librarian at the who also attended the ceremony, said that remembering what happened shows that there is no desire for the crime to happen again.

“We’re here because we don’t want this to happen again in this community or somewhere else,” Ramos said.

Contributions to the Marcelo Lucero Award can be made by mailing a check payable to the Marcelo Lucero Scholarship to Patchogue-Medford High School, 181 Buffalo Ave. Medford, NY 11763.