17640: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald- South Dade-Group to back voice of Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Jan. 04, 2004

SOUTH MIAMI-DADE
Group to back voice of Haitians
A new civic group used the 200th anniversary of Haiti's independence to
encourage Haitians in South Dade to exercise their political power.
BY DAPHNE DURET
dduret@herald.com

As hundreds of people squeezed into a South Dade church Thursday to
celebrate Haiti's bicentennial, Elou Fleurine greeted them with an expectant
smile.

Fleurine said the turnout was evidence South Dade's Haitian community --
which started more than 20 years ago with a few dozen migrant farmers from
Cap-Haitien, Pestel and La Gonave -- has grown into a thriving force with
voting power.

That made Thursday the perfect day for the coming-out party for the South
Dade Haitian-American Citizen Club -- the area's first Haitian-American
political organization.

''We're working together so that Haitians in Homestead and Florida City can
have a voice on city commissions and councils just like they do in North
Miami,'' Fleurine said.

The majority of North Miami's council members are of Haitian descent, and
the city's Mayor Josaphat Celestin is the first Haitian-American mayor of a
Miami-Dade city.

At the event, which featured music, dancing and poetry, leaders told
Haitians that the key to the community's future is in their hands.

''Our 200 years of independence in Haiti is a point of beginning for us
here,'' Micheline Ducena, director of the Homestead-based Haitian
Organization of Women, said to the crowd in Creole. ``And no matter where we
came from or where we've been, we are one people and we must work
together.''

Ducena and other leaders at the event said the key to making Haitians a
strong political force in South Dade is to tear down political, social and
religious divisions within the community.

Working past those differences, Fleurine said, has been the Citizen Club's
main focus since he founded it in July.

The group, which has grown to 280 members from Cutler Ridge to Florida City
-- with a couple of members in Kendall -- has focused much of its efforts on
getting American citizens of Haitian descent and Haitian-born, naturalized
American citizens registered to vote.

The group has helped 200 people register to vote in five months, Fleurine
said.

''Everybody forgot that Haitians helped the Americans fight for their
independence,'' said club member Joseph Billy-Louis, referring to Haitian
soldiers who fought in Savannah, Ga., to help oust the British.

``We helped them when they were struggling. Now we're struggling, and we
want to be heard.''

Homestead Mayor Roscoe Warren on Friday said the Haitian community's efforts
helped him get elected. Warren said the community's numbers have grown so
much, he thinks it is likely there will be a Haitian council member on
Homestead's City Council within several years.

''They've come a very long way in a short time,'' Warren said.

''I would even venture to say that there are more Haitian Americans in the
community now than there are African Americans,'' he said.

_________________________________________________________________
Enjoy a special introductory offer for dial-up Internet access — limited
time only! http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup