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#2982: Haitians and US Census (fwd)
From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>
As the staff member of a community-based organization serving the Haitian
community in Miami-Dade County, I must stress that an accurate count of
Haitians living in this community is not simply an excercise of ehtnic
pride. An count of Haitians will give us the means to best identify and
assess the needs of our community.
It is not by accident that both Asian and Hispanic identities have been
deconstructed for the purpose of the Census. The Asian community in spite
of its minority status (under 6% of total population) has successuly
convinced the folks at the Census bureau that not all Asians are similarly
situated. For example the needs of Philipinos immigrants or of Laotians
refugees are much more compelling that those of their more affluent
Japenese-American counterparts.
In my opinion,the absence of reliable information about our community and
the specificity of its needs makes delivery of services to this hard to
reach population extremely dificult.
The Census is not really intended to gauge our level of ethnic pride and
solidarity. It is instead used to measure and assess our numbers and more
importantly the conditions under which we live. If we (Haitians)want to know
who we are, where amd how we live,then we must write in HAITIAN.
We are instructing people who come to us for assistance in filling out the
form to check Black on the short form and write-in Haitian for question #6.
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