Vanessa de la Torre

Despite New England's progressive reputation, residential segregation still exists in communities throughout the region. 

In this second episode of a special radio series on "Racism In New England," we look at how housing laws and discrimination influence where we live — from the predominantly white states of northern New England to cities and suburbs in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Here’s the story that New England tells itself: Racism is a Southern problem.

But our region’s abolitionist past hides a darker history of racism, slavery and segregation. It’s a legacy that lives with us today. 

It’s been six months since a police officer fatally shot Anthony Jose “Chulo” Vega Cruz after a traffic stop in Wethersfield, Conn.

The 18-year-old’s father, Jose Vega, often walks by the site of the shooting on Wethersfield’s Silas Deane Highway. It’s hard not to — he lives just a block and a half away. 

Off a highway in central Connecticut is the mosque with a 400-student Muslim Sunday school.

More guards are on patrol these days. And for the older students in the transition class, talking about Islamophobia is not only welcomed, but encouraged. The teenagers are in their final years of high school and will be heading off to college soon.

Leticia Colón de Mejias thinks no problem is insurmountable if Americans come together.

“Sometimes we take these subjects and we make them so big and scary that people feel we can’t take action,” said Colón, 42, a Connecticut entrepreneur, environmentalist and mother of seven. “Climate change seems terrifying. And everyone’s like, it’s too big.”

The state’s attorney investigating the fatal Wethersfield, Conn. police shooting said she wants to go back to the beginning of the traffic stop and understand why police pulled over 18-year-old Anthony Jose “Chulo” Vega Cruz.

Nearly two weeks since a Wethersfield police officer shot an 18-year-old driver after a traffic stop, the chief state’s attorney’s office released dashcam footage and surveillance video on Friday that show the incident that led to the man’s death.

Steve Harris climbed the steps to the upper lobby of Hartford Stage. This was a night off for the cast and crew of Detroit ‘67, a theater production set during the civil unrest of late 1960s Detroit.

But Harris, a 71-year-old retired fire captain in Hartford, came to see the photo exhibit inspired by the play. It brought him back to those turbulent times.

Quyen Truong still gets a cozy feeling when she sees a hand of cards.

It reminds her of family and traditions as a refugee from Vietnam who arrived in the U.S. in late 1990. Aunts, uncles and cousins in Connecticut — among the Southeast Asian refugees who resettled here in waves after the Vietnam War — would get together on weekends with rolls of quarters, nickels, pennies and dimes.

The nerves are kicking in, said Constanza Segovia, talking politics outside her house in Hartford before Election Day. The stakes are high -- nationally and in the Connecticut gubernatorial race.

Team Hayes brought out the bullhorn. A League of Women Voters debate was starting in an hour in Danbury, Conn., so a crew of volunteers set up on the side of the road, waving campaign signs at passing cars and chanting about change.

Gunfire brought chaos to the West Indian Day Parade in Hartford a decade ago. Some parade goers assumed fireworks — until they saw a kid on the ground.

His head was soaked with blood.

A white Hartford police sergeant who was caught on a citizen’s video saying he was “trigger happy” has been demoted and is fighting for his job, city officials said Thursday. 

Julissa Mota can recall the exact moment when squash — the preppy racquet sport — entered her consciousness.

Visitors had stopped by Julissa's fifth-grade class at M.D. Fox School, a neighborhood school in Hartford's South End. Capitol Squash, an urban squash program, was new and recruiting kids in 2014, so the executive director brought along a coach and a big blue box with racquets inside for the children to pass around.

Zack and Gillian Petrarca aren’t old enough to vote. But the teenage siblings say they are Team Hayes all the way.

Tatiana Melendez waited in the shade during a New England heat wave, ready to make a move.

“I got all the information for you, all right,” Melendez, 46, said as she handed a baggie of info to a passerby. “This is very good for you. For everybody doing sex.”

A sign taped to the door told customers that Story and Soil Coffee was closing early for a staff training.

Commencement was two days away and Karina Lasalle Arroyo had hauled out nearly seven months’ worth of luggage from her time in Connecticut.

She stood in a dormitory parking lot and confirmed she was ready to go home.