[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 64 (Friday, May 20, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
LIFE IN LITTLE HAITI
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HON. CARRIE P. MEEK
of florida
in the house of representatives
Friday, May 20, 1994
Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, a human rights tragedy is
occurring in Haiti: a consistent campaign of terror by the ruthless
regime in power against the Haitian people. As we all know and the
administration has finally acknowledged, this is a political campaign
of terror being waged against supporters of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. It has intensified in recent weeks.
As sponsor of H.R. 3663, the Haitian Refugee Fairness Act, I applaud
President Clinton's commitment to stop the summary repatriation of
Haitians fleeing their country by boat. However, it concerns me greatly
that Haitians currently interdicted are being summarily returned to
Haiti and afforded no protection at all.
Mr. Speaker, these are human beings. Men, women and children with
hopes and dreams. We must act in the most fair and humane way possible
to ensure their safety and well-being. I am inserting in the Record a
Washington Post article by William Booth that provides a glimpse into
the lives of the many Haitians who have settled in Little Haiti in my
district.
`Work, Work, Work': In Little Haiti, Life Is Hopeful but Hard
(By William Booth)
Miami, May 18.--As the Clinton administration dispatches
more ships to intercept a feared mass exodus of Haitian
``boat people,'' a classic tale is unfolding here on the
streets of Little Haiti, where the nation's most unwanted
immigrants pursue their own version of the American dream.
On the nightly news, Haitian immigrants appear as a
desperate and diseased people, walking barefoot down the
gangplanks of U.S. Coast Guard cutters, another burden to the
already overwhelmed courts and schools of South Florida.
Under pressure from state officials, President Clinton has
vowed to keep them out.
But the negative image fades against the vibrant scenes of
life in Miami's Little Haiti. Here the streets are lined with
storefront churches and mom-and-pop businesses selling
medicinal herbs, beepers, mangoes and health insurance, while
members of a growing, economically mixed community of more
than 100,000 are filling adult education classes, opening
beauty salons and struggling to survive.
``Work, work, work, church, school and more work. That is
the life of Haitians in this country,'' said Tony Garcon, a
Haitian who came to Miami 14 years ago and now cooks at a
country club, a job that allows him to take vacations and
send his children to school back in Haiti, where he says
there is better discipline.
During two dozen interviews, most Haitians and their
advocates said they believed Haitians would stop coming to
the United States if the political violence, repression and
economic stagnation in their homeland ended.
Haitians described their lives here as hopeful but very
hard. Many are disturbed by the crime and discrimination, and
parents complain that their children are becoming ``too
American,'' meaning unruly and disrespectful.
``In almost all respects, the Haitians are the typical
immigrant ethnic community, people who really come to the
States for a better life, to get their kids an education, to
sacrifice for the next generation,'' said Alex Stepick, a
sociologist at Florida International University who has
studied the Haitian community for more than a decade.
But the Haitians face unique obstacles too, Stepick said.
They are from the poorest country in the hemisphere; they are
black; and they are immigrating to a city where the balance
of power is shifting away from English-speaking Anglos and
toward relatively affluent Spanish-speaking Cubans and other
Hispanics.
Thrown into the mix is the unease felt between many
American-born blacks and Haitians, seen in schoolyard fights
and in the fact that Haitians do not move into traditionally
black neighborhoods a few blocks away.
Clinton administration and state officials say they fear a
mass exodus of Haitians to South Florida will swamp local
government, already struggling with past waves of migration.
Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles (D) is using the federal
government to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars he
says the state has spent caring for, teaching and
incarcerating illegal aliens, including the Haitians.
But calculating the real costs--and benefits--of the
Haitians is not so easy. Many Dade County officials said they
are not sure how much the Haitians consume; nor do they
believe that the Haitians are any more ``costly'' than the
Nicaraguans, Dominicans, Colombians and Cubans who have
settled here.
As a community, Haitians are praised by officials in Miami
as industrious and law-abiding. It is not unusual for Haitian
immigrants to work two and or sometimes three jobs for
minimum wage. Many attend school besides, either to learn
English or a trade.
``Our adult classes are absolutely crammed with Haitians,''
said Henry Fraind, assistant superintendent of the Dade
County schools.
Raymond and Clotilde Sylverne and their four children came
to Miami two years ago from Port-au-Prince, where Raymond
worked as an accountant and Clotilde as a government
receptionist. Because of their ties to the exiled government
of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, both were granted political aslum
here.
After getting two months of free rent, the Sylvernes now
live in a spartan duplex on a tough street in Little Haiti.
They have been robbed twice. They want a better house, but
cannot afford one.
Raymond works at night as a security guard for $5.20 an
hour. During the day, he takes five hours of English classes
at Miami-Dade Community College. He sometimes falls asleep in
class.
``But I keep going. My English must be good,'' he said.
``Without English, nothing.'' A counselor has suggested that,
after he improves, he should seek training in health care,
perhaps as a medical technician.
Clotilde works at a children's day care center for $4.50 an
hour and takes free English classes at night. The two see
each other in passing.
``Tired, tired, all the time,'' Clotilde Sylverne said. The
couple laughed when asked if they had been to Disney World in
Orlando; they have neither the time nor the money.
Two of their children go to Toussaint L`Ouverture
Elementary School, where 80 percent of the pupils are
Haitians. One son will go a magnet school next year.
The Sylvernes get $159 a month in food stamps and Medicaid
for their children. They have used Medicaid once in two
years.
As soon as they earn more money, Raymond Sylverne said, his
family will stop taking public assistance. ``It's no good,''
he said, ``It's for poor people.''
The Sylvernes live in the middle of Little Haiti on a
dilapidated side street behind Notre Dame d'Haiti, the large
Catholic church that serves the Haitian community and holds
services in Haitian creole.
The history of Haitians in Dade County is brief. When the
first recorded boatload of immigrants detected by the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service arrived in 1963, they
were sent back to Haiti. By 1981 there were between 50,000
and 70,000 Haitians. Today, there are more than 100,000
reports Oliver Kerr of the Dade County Planning Department.
Kerr said recent patterns of settlement show Haitians are
moving into more affluent areas north and west of Little
Haiti. They are also moving to Homestead, the agricultural
area hardest hit by Hurricane Andrew, where they work in
construction and landscaping and on vegetable farms,
displacing migratory Mexican labor. More and more Haitians,
many of them middle class, are moving to Miami from New York,
Boston, Chicago and Canada.
While some Haitians rely on food stamps and Medicaid,
social workers say that many seem reluctant to take public
assistance and often view it as a dead-end.
Dade County officials say they do not know exactly how many
Haitians seek help because they cannot ask the question of
ethnicity. But they said they believe that many Haitian
children and pregnant women seek medical care at county
clinics, where they must either have Medicaid or pay from $8
to $50 for their visits.
Officials have often warned that Haitians could overwhelm
the school system, but of the 307,000 students in Dade
County, only 7,000 are Haitian-born. The principal of
Toussaint L'Ouverture Elementary said only about 75 of the
1,200 students need intensive English instruction.
The language problem, however, is more severe at middle and
high schools, where many Haitian students who recently
arrived in Miami--the ``just-comes,'' as Haitians call them--
must learn English and often struggle with their other
classes.
Danielle Romer, the program coordinator of An Nou Koze, a
Haitian-help hot line, said that among the biggest problems
she hears about are Haitian parents frustrated by unruly
teenagers who become too Americanized.
``They keep sending them back to Haiti to go to school,''
Romer said. ``I don't think it's right. But in Haiti, kids
don't talk back to their parents.''
Like the Cubans who came before them, many Haitians live in
an immigrant enclave and socialize mainly with other
Haitians.
In Little Haiti, it is possible to buy Haitian Prestige
beer at L'Unique Minimarket; eat griot and lambi at
Restaurant BeBe; listen to Haitian merengue at Les Cousins;
monitor one of the dozen creole radio programs; and worship
in a church where the liturgy is in creole.
But unlike the Cubans, whose middle class and elites fled
the island in the early 1960s after the ascendancy of Fidel
Castro, the Haitians did not arrive with money or
organizations. Nor have they benefited from the almost $1
billion in aid that the federal government funneled to the
Cubans in the decade after their arrival.
To work, Haitians have to learn English and often some
Spanish. And they must leave the enclave and compete with
others for jobs.
In the last few years, the number of home-grown Haitian
civic clubs, business associations and advocacy groups has
exploded, and the leaders of the Haitian American Chamber of
Commerce say that more than 350 Haitian businesses are
operating in Dade County.
Still, for the average Haitian in Miami, the immigrant's
story is still about sacrifice. ``We are tired, tired,
tired,'' said Raymond Sylverne. ``Sometimes all we want to do
is go to sleep and have some dreams.''
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