7756: Haitian American Candidates (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


05/03/2001


A New Political Complexion
Come next week, the City of North Miami will be a very different place
By Kathy Glasgow


The April 14 party to launch Alix Desulme's campaign for a seat on the North 
Miami City Council had a small-town, familiar feeling, not unlike most 
political events in this municipality of almost 60,000. Desulme's kickoff, 
just three weeks before the May 8 election, took place at the Jaycees 
headquarters on West Dixie Highway. An ambitious 23-year-old from a 
politically active family in Haiti, Desulme is vice president of the North 
Miami Jaycees and is involved in numerous other civic and political 
organizations.

Among those who turned out for the event were state Rep. Frederica Wilson 
and many political and community activists, the majority of them Haitian 
American. Desulme (pronounced dez-ool-may) made a short speech in English, 
which was repeated in Kreyol by campaign strategist Lucie Tondreau. Several 
other political candidates were introduced, and then a DJ started up some 
danceable konpa tunes. Someone sliced hunks from a large, slightly lopsided 
cake and passed around plates, while North Miami City Councilman Scott 
Galvin, behind the clubhouse bar, poured soft drinks and wine.

A young woman wearing a skirt and ruffled jacket walked in, straight into 
the open arms of North Miami mayoral candidate Joe Celestin, who exuberantly 
whisked her into a dance. The 44-year-old Celestin was almost elected the 
town's first Haitian-American mayor in 1999; many observers believe he 
stands a better chance this time, his fourth try for political office. (He 
previously has run for state representative and state senator.)

Celestin's opponent also was there at Desulme's party -- mailman Arthur 
"Duke" Sorey, who apologized for his informal dress, jeans and a "Duke for 
Mayor" T-shirt, by explaining he'd just come from a full Saturday of 
door-to-door campaigning. Sorey, a 23-year North Miami resident, is African 
American, but he knows he can't win without at least a portion of North 
Miami's large and growing Haitian voting bloc. Two years ago he lost his 
city council seat to the first Haitian American ever elected to any North 
Miami office. The contest was bitter and divisive, and a deep resentment 
remains between two ethnic groups that, in most demographic data, are 
classified as "Black Non-Hispanic" yet are different by nearly every other 
standard.

An hour into Desulme's party, Sorey was dancing to the undulating beat along 
with everyone else, and it seemed possible the 2001 elections in North Miami 
just might avoid the wrenching, racially charged ugliness of two years ago. 
After all, Miami-Dade County's fourth-largest municipality has been changing 
rapidly. The town's entrenched Anglo power structure is dissolving as black 
non-Hispanics now make up 55 percent of the population, according to the 
2000 census. No reliable count has been made of North Miami's Haitian 
residents, but a widely accepted estimate puts Haitians at about 32 percent 
of the total population.

Just as the city's elections are nonpartisan, most agree they should also be 
nonracial. But ever since blacks and Latins began moving into the previously 
white neighborhoods of North Miami (northward migration from immigrant 
strongholds, particularly Little Haiti), issues of race and ethnicity have 
come to underlie most political considerations. Until just a few years ago 
Haitians, like other immigrant groups whose first concern is for economic 
stability, were ignored in the political arena. In 1993 the first Haitian 
American to run for North Miami City Council, Sidney Charles, was defeated. 
Ossmann Desir became the first Haitian elected to the council two years ago 
(by defeating Sorey), but many North Miamians weren't ready to accept a 
Haitian city official. This year it appears most voters expect the 
inevitable: Haitian political clout more in proportion to their numbers. 
That would be a big change from the days when men with some money and 
contacts could claim to speak for a voiceless community.

"Before, any self-appointed person could come up and say, “I'm a leader.' 
But now those who run for office and win are anointed as leaders," observes 
Leonie Hermantin, executive director of the Haitian American Foundation. 
"Now [the Haitian community] has elected officials; now we've stepped up to 
another level. Now to legitimize your leadership you either have to be on 
somebody's team so you're known to be in this person's camp, or you run for 
office."

Adds Desir: "This election might be an historic one. For the first time 
since 1926 [when North Miami was incorporated] you might have a black 
majority on the council." Almost certainly the new mayor will be black (a 
white former mayor entered the race at the last minute but has little chance 
to win); a black man will definitely win the District 3 seat, where Desulme 
faces two Haitians and one African American; and Desir already represents 
District 4. (In 1999 tiny El Portal was the first municipality in the nation 
to elect a majority Haitian city council, including a Haitian mayor.)

Desulme's District 3 race has been a somewhat emotional experience for the 
Haitian-American community throughout South Florida. Speculation began 
immediately after the 1999 election about who would take on long-time 
conservative Councilwoman Jeanette Carr when her seat came up for grabs two 
years later. Since Carr's first victory in 1990, District 3 has become 
heavily Haitian. Carr quietly opted to retire.

One of the first to declare interest in the position, funeral-home owner 
Fred St. Amand, dropped out early on, possibly the result of a scandal that 
resulted in the firing of his son, Fred St. Amand, from the North Miami 
Police Department. Leslie Prudent, a popular high school principal, was long 
considered a shoo-in should he run, but in late March he decided against it. 
Almost immediately Desulme, driving-school owner Victor Pierre-Louis, and 
African-American educator Tyrone Hill filed to run. Then veteran Democratic 
Party activist Jacques Despinosse, who has run several times unsuccessfully 
for state and county office, jumped into the ring. This move was not 
welcomed by many Haitian community leaders, who consider Despinosse an 
important pioneer but who had already positioned themselves behind Desulme.

It's largely because of this show of support by an impressive collection of 
prominent political and civic figures that Desulme is expected to win in 
District 3. (It didn't help Pierre-Louis that one of his former 
driving-school customers loudly demanded his money back during a public 
forum attended by all the North Miami candidates.) Hill, despite being a 
polished, knowledgeable candidate, will probably not be able to overcome the 
mere fact he's not Haitian.

Thus in this election the real race factor in North Miami isn't color. There 
are still the white North Miamians who consider African Americans and 
Haitians an identical dark force, but the two groups themselves live a more 
complex political reality. Many Haitian Americans say they have become 
disenchanted with Joe Celestin but are no more inclined to vote for Duke 
Sorey. This despite the fact that Sorey, a Democrat, shares political views 
compatible with those of the majority of Haitian Americans, who 
overwhelmingly are registered as Democrats. Celestin, a Republican, supports 
Gov. Jeb Bush's controversial plan to eliminate affirmative action and 
counts on the enthusiastic backing of the state Republican Party. A general 
contractor, Celestin still fields questions about his business indebtedness. 
During the past fourteen years, according to court records, judgments have 
been entered against Celestin for debts totaling nearly $200,000. He 
maintains he is paying off his obligations and that there's nothing wrong 
with taking risks and losing.

"I can't support Joe, because I don't want Republican principles to make 
inroads on the council," asserts a Haitian-American man who lives in North 
Miami and is involved in local politics. "But I still wrote my 
[contribution] check for $150. Why? We're Haitian. We stick together. I 
can't tell my people to vote for an African American, because they'd never 
do that for us."

Adds Carline Paul, a schoolteacher and community activist who has been an 
outspoken critic of Celestin and in fact worked for his opponent in 1999: 
"I'm sitting this one out. I'm not with Joe, but I'll never vote for Duke. I 
can't support him after how his people treated us in the last election."

Paul and other Haitians say the 1999 contest between Sorey and challenger 
Ossmann Desir exacerbated divisions between Haitians and African Americans. 
"All during that election day," recalls Aude Sicard, a Celestin campaign 
volunteer then and now, "there were altercations and name-callings between 
Haitians and African Americans."

Most non-Haitians involved in this election say they haven't noticed any 
lingering hard feelings, and by all accounts the 2001 campaign has been 
surprisingly free of the hostility and race-baiting so prevalent in 1999. 
But on Haitian radio it's a different story. Whereas mayoral candidate Sorey 
has been literally walking the length and breadth of North Miami, networking 
and attending forums and lunches, Celestin has conducted his campaign almost 
exclusively on the radio. Kreyol-language radio is the only means of mass 
communication within the Haitian community, and Celestin and his supporters 
repeat a simple message: Haitians need representation and must vote for 
Haitians. A Haitian who votes for a non-Haitian abandons his people.

Sorey has bought airtime on the 24-hour Kreyol station WLQY-AM (1320), as 
much as his cash-poor campaign can afford. Celestin, on the other hand, 
doesn't really need to spend money on radio advertising, since he and his 
supporters frequently call in to talk shows to discuss the need for Haitian 
political participation and for a Haitian-American mayor of North Miami. 
Paid advertising slots that are the bread and butter of radio-airtime 
brokers often conclude with the pitchman plugging Celestin for mayor. 
Clearly, during election season, Kreyol speakers and English speakers 
inhabit two parallel but vastly different universes. "If Joe wins," muses 
Councilman Scott Galvin, "to me it will demonstrate we really almost have 
two separate North Miamis: the Haitian North Miami and everyone else's."

On April 16, the day a Haitian man was arrested for causing a disturbance at 
a North Miami bank, Celestin appeared as a guest on Herntz Phanord's program 
on WLQY to decry the "victimization" of Haitians by the North Miami police. 
"Sometimes they beat us for nothing," Celestin asserted. "They beat us, they 
mistreat us, and there is nothing that can be done." There's no evidence the 
arrested man (who at the time was facing armed-robbery charges) was beaten 
or hit by the police, though police reports indicate he was pepper-sprayed 
to allow officers to handcuff him. Nevertheless the incident provoked 
numerous phone calls to both the radio station and police headquarters. In 
many ways it's reminiscent of campaigning on Cuban-exile AM stations, where 
some politicians have been known to utter inflammatory and demagogic 
statements and make defamatory allegations in Spanish -- which they don't 
repeat in English.

Duke Sorey says he's been approached by several Haitian Americans who swear 
they're voting for him but will never publicly admit it, fearful of being 
seen as traitors to their culture. Some Haitian business owners, he says, 
have told him they're openly supporting Celestin but actually voting for 
him. "Joe's people go around and put signs in people's yards without 
asking," Sorey alleges. "[The residents] tell me: “I'm voting for you, Duke, 
but don't take that sign out. We don't want no problems; just leave the 
signs there.' There's a lot of fear of backlash."

Despite Sorey's hard work, a victory still is considered a long shot, 
particularly after former North Miami Mayor John Stembridge declared his 
candidacy just a few hours before the filing deadline. Stembridge, 62 years 
old, is white, Republican, and seems to have no interest in actually serving 
as mayor again. He speaks of his past successes in improving race relations 
and lists among his main concerns "the safety of women when they go shopping 
in our city." Stembridge won't discuss the generally held theory that his 
candidacy serves only the purpose of ensuring a Haitian victory by 
attracting white residents who would otherwise vote for Sorey or not at all.

Perhaps the ploy won't be as successful as Celestin's side hopes. On the 
other hand, Celestin may not need the extra help. He knows he's the 
front-runner. He says he has no intention of jeopardizing that status by 
being contentious (as he was perceived in 1999), and he adds he's tried to 
mend fences with everyone who opposed him in the past. "I've learned a lot 
since my last race," he muses. "I know it's more important to be united. I 
know this election is mine to lose."




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