Haiti, history, heritage
Mr. Trump, please read up on how Haitians have contributed to this country
During the presidential campaign of 2016, Donald Trump stood at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami and said he would be a “champion” for immigrant Haitians.
Since becoming president, Mr. Trump has stripped immigrant Haitians of our protective status and begun deporting us. He has revived the stigma that we all have AIDS. And, two weeks ago, he insulted Haitians with vulgarities unfit for the printing press. In this, he not only diminished himself as assumed leader of the free world, but also sadly revealed his ignorance of the personal resilience of Haitians and their contributions to the United States through history.
Haiti became the first Western nation led by former slaves. It was the first nation to end slavery and truly embrace the concept of liberty for all. France and the United States preached “liberty, equality and fraternity” and “all men are created equal,” but those ideals did not apply to enslaved Africans.
As the first two independent nations of the Western hemisphere, Haiti and the United States have been intertwined for well over two centuries. They made history against the European colonial system. Haitians helped the United States in its struggle against English forces. Commanded by French admiral Count JeanBaptiste D’Estaing, the Saint-Domingue Black Legion fought alongside the Continental Army at the Battle of Savannah.
Napoleon’s defeat in Haiti set the stage for the Louisiana Purchase by the United States in April 1806. Henry Adams argued that “the prejudice of race alone blinded the American people to the debt they owed to the desperate courage of 500,00 Haitian Negroes who would not be enslaved.” The Louisiana Purchase stands as perhaps the greatest achievement of Thomas Jefferson’s presidency because it doubled the size of his country.
Haitian independence inspired leaders like AfricanAmerican Nat Turner, who led a rebellion of slaves and freed blacks that arguably hastened the end of slavery in America. In Pittsburgh, the abolitionist community of the Hill District called itself Little Hayti.
If Mr. Trump had any sense of the Republican Party’s history, he would know that President Abraham Lincoln, the icon of the GOP, saw the value in Haiti and African countries when he implored Congress to recognize statehood for the island and the African nation of Liberia.
Haitian immigrant JeanBaptiste du Sable founded Chicago, the adopted home city of the first black president, Barack Obama, whose climb to the Oval Office beganthere.
Throughout the 19th century, Haitian-Americans fought to conquer the type of racist beliefs that Donald Trump still holds toward people of color, and which he puts into practice in the United States and beyond. It was a Citizens Committee of Haitian-Americans that brought the famous case of Plessy v. Ferguson to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to de-segregate public transportationin Louisiana.
It is appropriate to remind Mr. Trump of the many contributions Haitian-Americans continue to make to this country. To gain a foothold in the American Dream, many immigrant Haitians today clean the houses of other Americans, wash their dishes, tidy up their hotels. But we also teach your children, balance your accounts, conduct research to cure your illnesses.
Haitians also are making their mark in American politics: Haitian-Americans have served in state legislatures in Florida, Massachusetts and New York. Mia Love, a Brooklyn-born daughter of Haitian immigrants, became the first black female Republican and the first Haitian-American elected to Congress. Across politics, literature, religion, entertainment, law, medicine and other fields, Haitians and immigrant Haitians have contributed to America.
Our personal stories resonate, too, showing the resilience of countless Haitians.
As for me, Yven Destin, my parents — Dioles and
Rosie Destin — lived as subsistence farmers in rural Haiti. In the 1970s, they left Port-au-Prince, the capital city, and migrated to Florida.
Life for my parents, like most Haitian immigrants, began in the service industry. My father cut hair during the day and bussed tables at night, working his way up to head waiter. My mother took up jobs as a caregiver and vendor selling clothes at the flea market, but mostly worked as a beautician until her untimely death in a plane crash on a visit to Haiti.
My father was then left to raise his three kids — my two sisters and me. After nearly 30 years of balancing two jobs with only a couple of hours rest in between, my father opened his own barbershop.
Armed with my family’s sense of hard work and sacrifice, I did well enough to be admitted to leading colleges and universities, including Morehouse College, the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh, earning bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D degrees.
My wife, a native of Uganda, and I now have a 7year-old boy whose life integrates his Ugandan, Haitian and American cultures. In one racist statement, Mr. Trump degraded my history and that of my family.
As my wife and I begin to explain to our son the richness of his heterogeneous heritage, Mr. President, you might want to listen in.
Leon Pamphile is an immigrant Haitian, retired Pittsburgh schoolteacher and executive director of the nonprofit Functional Literacy Ministry-Haiti (leondpamphile@yahoo.com). Yven Destin is a sociologist and teacher living in Cincinnati (yven. destin@gmail.com).