29555: Ayiti Chanje (news) For U.S. Haitians, Home Is Both Near and Far Away (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

> From ayitichanje1804@hotmail.com:

MIGRATION:

For U.S. Haitians, Home Is Both Near and Far Away

By Michael Deibert

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35559

NEW YORK, Nov 21 (IPS) - Roman Catholic Bishop Guy Sansaricq presides over his 
flock at St. Jerome's Church in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Sitting on a 
busy, heavily Caribbean stretch of Nostrand Avenue, Sansaricq's office in the 
brick church is adorned with both a portrait of the Virgin Mary and a naïve 
painting depicting a lyrical scene of village life from his native Haiti.

"You leave a piece of your heart in your native country," says Sansaricq, a 
voluble 72-year-old, whose appointment as Auxiliary Bishop of Brooklyn this 
past summer makes him the first Haitian-American to hold that post. "But at the 
same time, you need to live, you need an income, you need an education."

Sansaricq emigrated to the United States in 1971, following stints in the 
Bahamas and Canada. Born in the remote southwestern town of Jérémie, Sansaricq 
saw many of his own family members fall victim to the Haitian dictator Francois 
"Papa Doc" Duvalier, who ruled Haiti from 1957 until 1971.

Throughout his long residency in New York, Bishop Sansaricq has been in a 
unique position to observe the changing face of the city's immigrant Haitian 
community. He has seen waves of immigration during the tenures of Duvalier and 
his son, Jean-Claude, whose own dictatorship lorded over Haiti until 1986, the 
series of military governments that followed, two terms of the presidency of 
the former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide (one interrupted by a coup in 1991, 
another cut short by massive protests and an armed rebellion in 2004) and now 
René Préval, who was inaugurated to his second term as Haiti's president in May 
of this year, replacing an unelected interim government.

"Before, there was a hope that the Haitian population had to return to Haiti," 
Sansaricq says, referring to the belief of many Haitians that, once the 
Duvalier dynasty was uprooted, their impoverished country of eight million 
would stabilise.

"There was a strong spirit of trans-nationalism," he says. "(But) now there is 
greater progress in terms of political involvement here in this country, as 
well. People are now recognising the United States as a place where they have 
roots."

Over one million Haitians live in the United States, more than one-third of 
them in the New York metropolitan area.

One group advocating for greater involvement in U.S. politics is the Consortium 
for Haitian Empowerment (CHE). In Brooklyn's Fort Greene area, on the third 
floor of a shopping mall, CHE is attempting to translate Haiti's numbers into 
political clout that will influence the way U.S. policy affects Haiti's sons 
and daughters both in the United States and at home.

The organisation grew out of an attempt to assess the impact that the Sep. 11, 
2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Centre had on the Haitian community 
in the New York area, and since the group officially formed in 2002, it has 
grown to include 16 member organisations from across Haiti's often-fractious 
political spectrum.

"The stronger the Haitian community here is, the better we can help Haiti," 
says one of CHE's founders, Gina Cheron, who first came to the U.S. in 1991 as 
a student. "By putting aside some of the differences that separate us and by 
working together we will be in better position to bring something to the table, 
and to influence American policy towards Haiti."

To be sure, the last decade has not been kind to Haiti. René Préval now steers 
a country whose turbulent politics, yawning class divide and environmental 
degradation have made Haiti a place where rich and poor alike often find it 
difficult to live, let alone make a living.

Some 80 percent of the country's population lives in poverty, and Haiti's rate 
of hunger is ranked as the world's third highest, surpassed by only Somalia and 
Afghanistan. Two-thirds of the labour force has no formal jobs. Deforestation 
has resulted in 90 percent of Haiti's tree cover being destroyed for charcoal 
and to make room for farming in the past 50 years, leaving little left to hold 
topsoil when the Caribbean rains fall.

The bright spots -- a decision by the Inter-American Development Bank to 
forgive Haiti's debt to that entity, a pledge of 750 million dollars to help 
fund economic recovery efforts by international donors this past July -- will 
require visionary stewardship, many say, to translate into an improvement in 
the lives of people on the ground.

It is a situation that has left many Haitian-Americans feeling exasperated.

"There are all of these external factors that make the country the way it is, 
that we're being made to pay for taking our independence they way we did," says 
Shu-fy Pongnon, sitting in a cafe in Manhattan's West Village, referring to 
Haiti's 1804 liberation from France in an era when slavery was still embraced 
throughout much of the Americas, including the United States.

Pongnon, who was born in New York to Haitian parents and raised both in the 
United States and Haiti, serves as both executive producer of I and I Exchange, 
a Caribbean women's and children's interest newsmagazine programme that airs on 
Brooklyn Community Access Television, and as special assistant to the deputy 
borough president of Manhattan, Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, herself of Haitian 
extraction.

"But at some point, we have to take the reins of this monster, we have to say 
that people deserve to live basic, decent lives," Pongnon says. "I think we 
need to recognise when someone (from the diaspora) wants to have input that 
would benefit in which direction in the country is going in."

One issue that hits close to home for Haitians living in the United States is 
Haiti's constitutional ban on dual citizenship.

Haiti's parliamentarians from 1991 until present have done little to address 
the issue -- though many lawmakers and government officials themselves hold 
varying degrees of citizenship or legal immigrant status in countries other 
than Haiti.

"Dual citizenship has well served many countries around the world," says Harry 
Fouché, CHE chairman and a former Consul General for Haiti in New York. Fouché 
emigrated to the United States with his family in 1969.

Fouché cites in particular the example of Greece. Former Greek Prime Minister 
Andreas Papandreou, born the son of a well-known Greek politician in the city 
of Chios, moved to the United States to attend Harvard University, served in 
the U.S. navy and became a professor at various U.S. colleges before returning 
to Greece to hold his nation's highest office in 1981.

"All the knowledge he acquired while he was here helped his country," says 
Fouché. "I think there will be a revision of the (Haitian) constitution. People 
have to demand that."

Conversely, as Haiti's development has stalled or even retreated, Haitians in 
the United States have become ever-more present fixtures on the political 
landscape.

In recent mid-term election in the United States, the Haitian-American Kwame 
Raoul, a Democrat, won re-election to the 13th District in Illinois as state 
senator with more than 80 percent of the vote. M. Rony Francois, a physician 
from the city of Tampa, currently heads the Florida Department of Health. The 
suburban Miami enclave of El Portal became, in 2000, the first municipality in 
the United States to elect a Haitian-American mayor, followed by North Miami 
and Spring Valley, New York. Haitian-Americans serve on city councils and 
municipal bodies throughout the country.

Having first arrived in the United States with one foot back in their homeland, 
many Haitians now seem to be seeing their adopted country as a place where they 
can thrive.

"It's not (the politicians) who are going to change the country," says the 
Reverend Daniel Ulysse, a CHE board member who arrived in the U.S. from the 
northern city of Cap-Haïtien in 1981, in a statement as applicable to the 
United States as it is to Haiti. "But rather it will be us coming together and 
putting our differences aside."

(END/2006)

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