Local Haitians feel impact of gang violence in their home country

By Nicole Shaker •

Anne Sylvie Jean Louis, junior psychology major, is proud to be Haitian.

“There’s just so much that Haiti has done,” she said, recalling when a Greek student told her that Haiti was the first nation to recognize Greece as an independent country. “Haiti has been a very colorful, vibrant and loving country.”

It saddens her to see her country racked with intense gang violence, which spiraled after the 2021 assassination of the country’s president, Jovenel Moϊse. The country has no active government, as Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigned after getting stranded outside the country in early March.

Gang violence, which is concentrated in Port-au-Prince,  the capital, has killed more than 1,500 people this year, according to the United Nations human rights office. Haitians across the city face displacement, hunger, injury and loss.

“[There are] unmanned hospitals and people essentially dying by the side of the road. You’re talking about a desperately poor country where anyone who can get out is getting out and the people that are left are struggling to survive,” George Nelson Bass III, assistant professor of history and political science, said. “It is a tragedy, especially here in South Florida, where so many of our fellow Floridians can trace their roots back to Haiti. It’s incredibly sad that it’s not met with more pressing urgency.”

Jean Louis is feeling the impact. She was born in Port-au-Prince and moved to the United States when she was 3.

“I unfortunately haven’t been back since just because every time that we’ve tried to go back, there’s been some kind of unrest or situation in the country that hasn’t made it safe enough to travel there, ” she said.

A lot of her family still lives in Haiti.

“We know people involved in the politics of Haiti, so it gets especially scary for them,” she said. “Most of what’s going on is largely centralized in Port-au-Prince, so it’s mostly affecting people that are within that area, but everyone is feeling at least a bit of an impact.”

Jean Louis is active in Little Haiti, a Miami neighborhood. She spent a summer working at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex.

“It really makes a big impact,” she said. “Growing up, there’s so many Haitians around here. I get to eat Haitian food with my family and do what I can to share my culture.”

The Little Haiti Cultural Complex includes a Caribbean Marketplace, an art gallery for local artists to display their work, and a theater.

Jude Guilluam, who is from Haiti, has been a security guard at the complex for a year.

“I’m satisfied with this place. This building, I’m comfortable in,” Guilluam said.

His family is still in Haiti.

“My cousin, my uncle, my auntie, my friends, my two kids, I’m trying to bring them here,” he said.

He said he misses his children and wishes they were with him.

“I talk every day with my kids. I love my kids so much. This place is better,” he said.

Sweat Records, a full-service record store, is just down the street from the Little Haiti Cultural Complex. Lolo Reskin opened the shop in 2005, when she was 22.

“We love the neighborhood. I live in the neighborhood. The culture’s amazing. We wish it got more support from the larger community and the local governments,” Reskin said. “We wish the Caribbean Marketplace up the street was bustling all day every day. As neighborhoods go, it has so much to offer, but it’s also neglected in a lot of ways.”

Jean Louis said maintaining the community is important to her.

“Little Haiti is currently facing a lot of gentrification within Miami, a lot of trying to urbanize the area, raise the prices, kick people out,” she said. “It’s so important to pay attention to things like that, because, especially as someone that has not been able to go back to the country, Little Haiti is the closest that I have gotten, and the closest that for the foreseeable future I will get, to being home.”

As the situation in Haiti grows more dire, smuggled guns from the U.S. are continuing to make their way into Port-au-Prince, according to the United Nations.

“Oftentimes you’ll find [guns] in old cars, for example, that are being exported to Haiti, guns that were purchased legally here, but are being exported illegally,” Bass said. “In many ways we are partly responsible because we have such lax gun laws. So if we really wanted to work on this, I think we’d have to think about reforming our own gun laws here in the United States, about what sort of identification and background checks are necessary for purchasing firearms, but that’s something that Florida in particular has been unwilling to do.”

Bass said that U.S. troops are not likely to intervene in Haiti to mitigate the situation.

“The United States would like to see Haiti stabilized, but the federal government’s also unwilling at this point in time to commit U.S. troops,” he said. “The United States doesn’t want to take on that role for a large variety of reasons, but if not us, then who?”

The nation has rarely seen a peaceful period since its birth in the early 1800s.

“Haiti has had an incredibly tragic history, starting out as the first successful slave revolt and an inspiration to much of the world, and ever since has been under the thumb of either the French or the British or the United States,” Bass said.

But the region wasn’t always like this. Bass said it was an extremely rich colony, and when it revolted successfully, the French made it pay exorbitant reparations.

“The French, when they lose the war of Haitian independence, essentially get together with the other European heads of States and the United States and make it clear that nobody wants to lose their colonies, and so they should make an example out of the Haitians,” he said. “They force them to essentially pay for their freedom.”

Bass said this was only the start of Haiti’s troubles.

“Add that in with a series of natural disasters, and you’d understand why it’s been so hard for them to develop,” he said. “The tragedy has been thus that Haiti has suffered this curse over the years of instability.”

Jean Louis grew up following news from her home, mostly through word of mouth.

“I’ve definitely been invested in what’s going on within my country throughout my life, but honestly, I would say less so through the news, and more so through my family,” she said. “A lot of times, it’s very easy for information about Haiti to be biased, to just consistently paint it in a negative light.”

She said she’s still impacted by every negative development.

“When you grow up with it, it can be very easy to become numb or desensitized to it. I do still very much feel anything related to Haiti. I can feel it in my chest,” she said. “Yes, it’s another year and more things are happening, but that also means another year that I have not been able to step foot back into my own country, the place that I was born.”

She said social media has been especially helpful.

“I follow a lot of different Haitian accounts because it’s more varied in the information. I can hear what’s going on in the country negatively, but I can also still see the pictures and videos and hear about the amazing things that are still happening within the country,” she said.

Bass said it’s important to stay informed on the situation, recommending The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and Al Jazeeras.

“I understand, especially for your generation, it’s overwhelming, because [it’s] constant news. You can’t fix everything. You can’t know everything, but you can focus on a handful of things where you want to see change in the world,” he said.

He said a great first step students can take to support Haitians in this time is contacting their elected representatives.

“Right now we’re talking about an absolute humanitarian disaster, so get your senators and your representatives from Florida to start talking about this more,” he said.

He said it would be beneficial for the government to take up the cause.

“There’s a vested interest in our political class taking this up anyways. Those people are suffering, and they’re going to be trying to get here because who wouldn’t? So if you want to ease the strain on the immigration system that I hear so much about, part of it is creating stable and secure places where people feel like they can live with dignity and not be a victim of crime or malnourishment, in this case. That’s the underlying problem with everything you hear about immigration: so many places in this hemisphere becoming untenable for working class people,” he said.

Jean Louis said one of the best ways to show support right now is learning about Haiti.

“Make sure to really do the research, but not necessarily just about the bad. Educate yourself on the history of Haiti. It’s very easy for people to be like, ‘Oh, Haiti’s a third world country,’ Oh, it’s developing,’ ‘Oh, it’s struggling,’ and not know or take the time to learn about all the rich things about Haiti,” she said. “It was the first free black republic within the Western hemisphere. It’s a big part of who I am. So I just implore people to, when they’re learning about the country, when they hear about the country, to make sure that they try looking at it holistically.”

As the situation develops, she remains proud of where she’s from.

“I remember growing up and being faced with different stereotypes, people being like, ‘Oh, you’re from Haiti. I’m so sorry for you.’ Why? I’m not sorry to be from there,” she said. “I think every country has its struggles, has things that it needs to work past, but Haiti has such a rich history and such a rich culture that’s still thriving and vibrant today.”