16087: (Hermantin) Patriot day: Haitian Americans fete their culture and their roots (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Posted on Mon, Jul. 07, 2003

Patriot day: Haitian Americans fete their culture and their roots
BY DAPHNE DURET
dduret@herald.com


Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant whose name and face became symbols for
police brutality in the late 1990s, is now lending his name to a new cause:
sending Haitian-American children to Haiti to celebrate the 200th
anniversary of the nation's independence.

''By my life being saved, I owe something to everyone, especially to the
Haitian people,'' Louima said at the Haitian American Day Festival at the
AT&T Amphitheater on Sunday afternoon.

The daylong event was one of Louima's first major public appearances since
he moved to South Florida with his wife and children two years ago. Almost
six years ago New York City police officers brutally attacked Louima in a
Brooklyn precinct bathroom.

On Aug. 9, 1997, Louima was arrested in a brawl outside a Brooklyn nightclub
and was taken to a police station where the attack occurred.

One officer is serving 30 years for the attack and another is serving a
five-year term for perjury.

Louima and Frantz Bouloute of Fan's Productions in Miami began working
together two months ago to organize Sunday's festival.

The event featured both Haitian and American artists in an effort to appeal
to the thousands of young people in South Florida with roots in Haiti.

Some of the proceeds, the organizers said, will be used to send American
schoolchildren of Haitian descent to Haiti on New Year's Eve in anticipation
of independence day the next day. Haiti declared its independence from
France, the colonial power, on Jan. 1, 1804.

As he walked in the stifling heat through the crowds Sunday afternoon with a
walkie-talkie in his right hand and beads of sweat forming at his temples,
Louima said he took joy in seeing children who had never been to the land he
left more than a decade ago showing pride in their heritage.

''We used to be discriminated against because we're Haitian,'' he said. ``We
still have a long way to go, but we're moving in the right direction.''

Louima and others at the festival said music plays an essential role in
promoting Haitian culture.

A crossover of Haitian compas music into the mainstream, however, may be
easier said than done.

''What makes it the most difficult is the language,'' said Patrick Augustin,
a program director for the Chicago Haitian radio station ''Radio Lakay'' and
president of the Pan-African Association, who was at the festival with his
wife, Josiane. ``But if Haitian artists can make music in both languages,
then it is possible.''

Some artists who performed earlier in the afternoon, such as local band
Groov'La, sang in both English and Creole to appeal to the multicultural
crowd. Also scheduled to perform late Sunday were rappers Mystikal and
Sticky Fingaz, as well as Haitian artists Konpa Kreyol, Ti Vice and Sweet
Mickey.

For fans who danced along to the music Sunday afternoon, the guitar-rich,
digital keyboard compas sound gave them a chance to reconnect with the
culture some left behind only recently.

''Music is what maintains Haitian culture,'' said Farah Lolange, 19, a
festival volunteer who moved here from Haiti two years ago. ``When you're a
Haitian living in America, it's all you have to remind you of home.''

Louima, who also plans to use some of the proceeds for a project to build a
hospital in Haiti through his nonprofit Abner Louima Foundation, said he
hopes Haitian music and culture will soon appeal to a worldwide audience.

``It doesn't matter what you are, Haitian, Jamaican, Bahamian, American.
We're just trying to bring everyone together.''

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