Haitian Community Research Articles

Factors affecting compliance with colorectal cancer screening among households residing in the largely Haitian community of Little Haiti, Miami-Dade County, Florida: an observational study.

The United States Black population is disproportionately affected by colorectal cancer (CRC) in terms of incidence and mortality. Studies suggest that screening rates are lower among Blacks compared with non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). However, studies on CRC screening within Black subgroups are lacking. This study examined disparities in blood stool test (BST) compliance and colonoscopy use by race/ethnicity (Haitian, NHW, non-Hispanic Black [NHB], and Hispanic) among randomly selected households in Little Haiti, Miami-Dade County, Florida.This study used cross-sectional, health and wellness data from a random-sample, population-based survey conducted within 951 households in Little Haiti between November 2011 and December 2012. BST compliance and colonoscopy use were self-reported and defined, conservatively, as the use of BST within the past 2 years and the ever use of colonoscopy by any household member. Factors associated with BST compliance and colonoscopy use were identified using logistic regression models. Analyses were restricted to households containing at least 1 member ≥50 years (n = 666).Nearly half of the households were compliant with BST (rate [95% confidence interval (CI)] = 45% [41%-49%]) and completed colonoscopy (rate [95% CI] = 53% [49%-58%]). Compliance with BST was not associated with race/ethnicity (P = 0.76). Factors independently associated with BST compliance included low educational attainment (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.63, P = 0.03), being single (AOR = 0.47, P = 0.004), retirement (AOR = 1.96, P = 0.01), and the presence of diagnosed health problems (AOR = 1.24, P = 0.01). Colonoscopy use was lower among Haitian households (46%) compared with NHW (63%), NHB (62%), and Hispanic households (54%) (P = 0.002). Factors independently associated with colonoscopy use included identifying as NHB (compared with Haitian) (AOR = 1.80, P = 0.05), being single (AOR = 0.44, P = 0.001), retirement (AOR = 1.86, P = 0.02), lack of continuous insurance (AOR = 0.45, P < 0.001), and the presence of diagnosed health problems (AOR = 1.44, P < 0.001) and physical limitations/disabilities (AOR = 1.88, P = 0.05).Compliance with BST and use of colonoscopy are low within households in the Little Haiti community. Significant disparities in the use of colonoscopy exist between Haitian and NHB households. Barriers and facilitators of colonoscopy within each racial/ethnic group need to be identified as the next step to developing culturally appropriate, community-based interventions aimed at increasing colonoscopy use in this large minority population.

Priorities, concerns and unmet needs among Haitians in Boston after the 2010 earthquake.

In January 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti. The devastation not only affected those living in Haiti at the time but also those Haitians living in the United States (U.S.). Few studies have assessed the degree of impact of the earthquake in U.S. Haitian communities. The purpose of this study was to elicit information about health priorities, concerns and resources needed to improve the delivery of health and social care for Haitians in Boston, MA. We conducted six focus groups among 78 individuals in the spring of 2011. Participants were recruited through community organisations, including churches, Haitian social service centres, restaurants and by word of mouth. Analysis of qualitative data revealed an enormous psychological, emotional, financial and physical toll experienced by Boston‐area Haitians following the earthquake. Participants described increased distress, depressive episodes, headaches and financial hardship. They also noted insufficient resources to meet the increased needs of those living in the U.S., and those who had immigrated after the earthquake. Most participants cited an increased need for mental health services, as well as assistance with finding employment, navigating the immigration system, and balancing the health and financial needs of families in the U.S. and in Haiti. Despite this, many reported that the tragedy created a sense of unity and solidarity within the Haitian community. These findings corroborate the need for culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health services, as well as for employment, immigration and healthcare navigation services. Participants suggested that interventions be offered through Haitian radio and television stations, as well as group events held in churches. Further research should assess the need for and barriers to utilisation of mental health services among the Haitian community. A multi‐faceted approach that includes a variety of outreach strategies implemented through multiple channels may offer a means of improving awareness of and access to health and social services.

“Men anpil, chay pa lou”: Reflecting on Initial and Future Collaborative Projects between the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Community of Carrefour-Feuilles, Haiti

IntroductionA two-year collaborative project between professors in the department of Black studies, the department of global studies, and the Center for Black Studies Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), culminated in a research trip to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in June 2015. research collaborative aimed to develop a conceptual and inclusive framework for short-term and long-term development prospects in the earthquake-devastated community of Carrefour-Feuilles. research trip included a two-day workshop that brought UCSB scholars to this specific community in Haiti to engage with community leaders and residents, Haitian faculty and students, grassroots organizations, governmental agencies, and international nongovernmental organizations working in Carrefour-Feuilles.The research project, titled The Haiti Sustainable Development Research Collaborative: Carrefour-Feuilles Neighborhood Redevelopment Project, consisted of three professors from global studies and Black studies, three graduate students, five undergraduates, and two videographers, one of whom recently completed a master's degree in the UCSB global studies program. Together, we spent seven days in Haiti hoping not only to reach our research goals but to also to provide the five undergraduates with an educational opportunity to broaden their historical and sociocultural understandings of Haiti and its development in an increasingly globalized world.Their reflections, provided below, offer valuable insights on the undergraduates' first experiences in a non-Western developing country; they also uncover the fruitful complexities of translating textbook knowledge into real-world understandings of both local and global issues. students-Unique Vance, Mariah Boyd, Sean Tanabe, Ashley Baker, and Andrew Neiman-each completed a course and research project in Spring 2015 with Nadege T. Clitandre, an assistant professor of global studies who has close ties to the community of Carrefour-Feuilles. She and Claudine Michel, professor of Black studies, co-led the trip with the assistance of Philip McCarty, a lecturer in global studies and anthropologist with experience in field research in countries outside the United States.Together with reflections offered by N. Pierre, Jamella Gow, and Nikita Carney, doctoral students who focus on Haiti and the broader Caribbean, this short essay provides insight into the preliminary processes of building a partnership between a large US research university and a community in Port-au-Prince, as well as the experience of engaging with leaders and other members of the community of Carrefour-Feuilles. In this piece, we provide personal and critical reflections developed in the field and also a commentary on the value of cross-cultural research and academic exchange between students from different countries. We share these reflections in the hopes of generating more interest in this fruitful collaboration between the Center for Black Studies Research and the department of global studies.N. PierrePhD Candidate; History, New York University; Visiting Researcher, UCSB Center for Buck Studies ResearchThe Center for Black Studies Research and the global studies department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, secured funding for the Haiti Sustainable Development Research Collaborative. essential kernel of the trip was to conduct a needs assessment brief to function as guide for the redevelopment of a neighborhood in Carrefour-Feuilles, Port-au-Prince.There were five major objectives: 1) investigate current NGO strategies pertinent to reconstruction; 2) assess the effectiveness of aid toward longterm infrastructure development; 3) examine the role of local leaders in relation to their constituents and foreign NGOs; 4) develop a plan of action for local community members to recover their collective history; and 5) which resonated with me most, develop research questions and theoretical frameworks that would enable community members to participate in the reconstruction of their hometowns. …

International cooperation Brazil-Cuba-Haiti: the role of community radios in strengthening social mobilization in the public health context in Haiti

The present article investigates the role of Haitian community radios in strengthening social mobilization, with the aim of supporting the actions undertaken in the field of public health in Haiti, based on the development of the Workshop for community radios, as part of the Tripartite Cooperation Brazil-Cuba-Haiti. The qualitative methodology is justified because of the study content, an analysis of documents and direct observation, through a case study presented at the Workshop held in the department of Hinches, in Haiti. This meeting was held in the context of the Working Group on Tripartite Communication, under the responsibility of the Health Channel/Fiocruz, in partnership with the Department for Health Promotion and Environmental Prevention of the Ministry of Health and Population of Haiti (DPSPE/MSPP/Haiti), with a proposal to better structure a network of multipliers in health promotion.

The Paradoxical Situation of Blood Donation in the Haitian-Quebec Community

Blood donation involves precise regulations aiming to protect donors and recipients. At the beginning of the 1980’s, thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C. To prevent the contamination of blood products, health authorities asked Haitians, among other groups, to voluntarily refrain from giving blood. Witness testimonies at the Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada (Krever Commission) show how profoundly affected Haitians were by these events. Today, we know that it is preferable to use phenotyped blood from the same community as the donor in the case of certain diseases. Increasing blood donation from the Black community is believed to be the best way to find donors who will be compatible with patients suffering from sickle-cell disease. Blood supply agencies such as Héma-Québec are seeking to convince Haitians to give blood in greater numbers. However, this task represents a great challenge, since, less than one generation ago, authorities asked that Haitians voluntarily abstain from donating blood. This paradoxical situation inspired the present analysis. Through the conceptual lens of a constructivist approach to ethnicity, this case study draws on a number of sources. By retracing the history of this community and the major events that have affected it over the decades, we are brought to a better understanding of the perceptions and realities of the Haitian community in Montreal with regard to blood donation. Our analyses show that even if Haitian-Quebec leaders are positively disposed towards blood donation, our results also expose that past events of the 1980’s have not been forgotten. Even if many are now willing to give blood to meet specific medical needs, for some, this could also contradict the usual universalist and altruistic message of blood donation. This case study highlights the importance of examining what happens at the relational boundary between minority and majority groups: after all, these events also contribute to redefining them. Le don de sang au Québec est encadré par des règles définies pour protéger les donneurs et ceux qui doivent subir une transfusion sanguine. Au début des années 1980, des milliers de Canadiens seront infectés par le VIH et l’Hépatite C. Pour prévenir la contamination des produits sanguins, les autorités sanitaires ont invité certains groupes, dont les Haïtiens, à s’abstenir volontairement de donner du sang. Les témoignages à la Commission d’enquête sur l’approvisionnement en sang au Canada (Commission Krever) ont montré à quel point les Haïtiens-Québécois en ont été affectés. Aujourd’hui, on sait qu’il est préférable d’utiliser le sang phénotypé qui provient de la même communauté que le donneur dans le cas de certaines maladies. Par exemple, l’augmentation de dons de sang de la communauté noire serait la meilleure façon de trouver des donneurs compatibles avec les patients atteints d’anémie falciforme. Convaincre les Haïtiens de donner du sang en plus grand nombre semble pourtant un véritable défi du fait qu’il y a à peine une génération, les autorités responsables ne voulaient pas de leur sang. C’est cette situation paradoxale qui a inspiré la présente analyse. À partir d’une approche constructiviste de l’ethnicité, cette étude de cas fait appel à de nombreuses sources afin de faire le point sur le rapport de la communauté haïtienne du Québec au don de sang, en reprenant le fil de l’histoire de cette communauté. Même si les leaders de la communauté haïtienne québécoise sont maintenant plutôt favorables au don de sang et qu’Héma-Québec a fait de nombreux efforts pour recruter des donneurs au sein de cette communauté, nos analyses montrent que la mémoire des événements difficiles vécus dans les années 1980 n’a pas complètement été effacée. De plus, même si plusieurs peuvent être motivés à donner du sang pour répondre aux besoins médicaux de la communauté, pour certains, ceci peut aussi aller à l’encontre du message universaliste du don de sang. Cette étude de cas montre l’importance de s’intéresser aux événements qui affectent ce qui se passe à la frontière des relations entre minorités et majorité et contribuent ainsi à les redéfinir.

Music and Mobilization: Kombit Pou Haiti 2010

“One hundred percent of the proceeds from the sale of Kombit Pou Haiti 2010 benefit the Lambi Fund of Haiti (www.lambifund.org), an organization dedicated to helping Haitian communities rebuild and recover by building economic community enterprises, such as sugar mills, grain mills, and small businesses, and by planting crops to sustain local communities. The SLAMjamz Relief Project may be a small part of what has been achieved for Haiti, but it is intended to stand as something instructive about the mobility of art and the power of independent artists to impact people and issues that seem far away but are really integral to the lives we all lead.”

Notes on The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History

The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History started life somewhere between a party and a temporary autonomous zone—a very temporary autonomous zone, because we were shut down by the police some five hours after we opened our doors. By then, over 300 people had crowded into my Brooklyn loft to experience more than twenty-five exhibits on topics ranging from lesbian communities in Haiti to seventeenth-century Baroque opera. A gingerbread replica of Stonewall, complete with sugar-cookie cops, shared a table with an altar to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. A timeline of American queer history—with nearly fifty hand drawn illustrations—snaked throughout the warren of small rooms my roommates had created from two-by and plastic. It was January 14, 2011, and I’d spent the last few months thinking about the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s “A Fire in My Belly” from the Hide/Seek show at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. I was furious, of course, but I also realized that the chances of my getting to DC to see the show were next to nil. They could have pulled the entire thing, and it wouldn’t have directly affected me. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have directly affected anyone I knew. I say this not to criticize Hide/Seek, but because in the context of the near total silence on the part of all museums, everywhere, with regards to queer history, the removal of one piece of art was simultaneously enraging and downright pedestrian. I vented on Facebook, which felt like pissing vinegar into an ocean already full of it: one more stream of hot invective disappearing with barely a splash. The worst part was that I couldn’t even really blame the National Portrait Gallery.

Acceptability of a modular, community-informed disaster risk reduction training programme in Delmas, Haiti

<h2>Abstract</h2><h3>Background</h3> Haiti experienced an Earthquake that killed 230 000 and injured 300 000 people. National disaster plans were developed; however, little is known about how to translate national policies to the community. The aim of this study was to examine the acceptability of a modular Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) curriculum implemented with community leaders. <h3>Methods</h3> In 2012, a disaster preparedness community assessment (N=144 households) and key informant interviews were held. In 2013, DRR activities were piloted and outcomes informed curriculum development, which consisted of three content domains: definition of hazards, risks, and vulnerabilities; identification of protective factors and community assets; and development of community engagement strategies to assess, mitigate, and manage environmental threats. Participants were identified during the pilot study as those interested in taking a leadership role. A pre-test and post-test research design was used to assess knowledge acquisition, and questionnaires were administered to determine acceptability of methods. <h3>Findings</h3> Participants (n=16) showed improved ability in defining disaster terms: hazards (pre-test 0; post-test 11; 68% improvement), disaster (2; 10; 50%), vulnerability (7; 14; 44%), and risk (8; 12; 25%). 81·25% of participants correctly identified community assets; 100% proposed strategies for engaging others in DRR activities. Participants found the training acceptable and beneficial: 93·75% enjoyed training activities; 100% found the topics relevant and useful; and 81·25% felt comfortable sharing activities with others. <h3>Interpretation</h3> Community-based activities are acceptable methods for developing local capacity to mitigate risk to future hazards and disasters. A modular format supports the ability of the curriculum to be adapted and applied in other communities in Haiti. <h3>Funding</h3> The Douglass Passaro Global Horizons Scholarship.

LIBERATION‐FOCUSED COMMUNITY OUTREACH: A QUALITATIVE EXPLORATION OF PEER GROUP SUPERVISION DURING DISASTER RESPONSE

While it is clear that community outreach and disaster response must include cultural and social justice competence, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding the process by which this can occur. Guided by liberation psychology, this qualitative study examined the peer group supervision process of psychologists and counselors providing outreach to Haitian communities in Florida after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The findings suggest that peer supervision generated a cyclical process in which the practitioners focused on both content and process themes that were salient to the community outreach. During supervision, practitioners used content information on the community's culture, strengths, and sociopolitical issues to conceptualize the community's experiences and needs. This content informed the outreach process, including the practitioners’ roles and the ways in which they connected and developed respectful relationships with the community. Ongoing peer supervision appeared to facilitate a liberation‐focused community outreach and increase consciousness among the practitioners.

Utilities’ Contribution to the Human Right to Water and Sanitation: Importance of Stakeholders’ Ownership

The comparative analysis of two successful experiences, that improved access to water and sanitation services for nearly 1.5 million people, allows us to highlight similarities and draw lessons. These experiences, taken from very different contexts, Port-au-Prince and Algiers, have succeeded in various issues. Both projects started by the completion of a sincere and shared initial diagnosis. They considered recognition of co-operation and dialogue between actors as keys for improvement and sustainability. They set up solutions that fitted the local context and available resources: focussing on the communities in Haiti, and on the utility in Algiers. Finally, they revealed that implementing the human right to water and sanitation requires a resilient governance model and ownership from all actors.

Supports for Health and Social Service Providers from Canada Responding to the Disaster in Haiti

In January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The massive disaster made it difficult for local Haitian community officials to respond immediately, leaving the country reliant on foreign aid and international and non-governmental relief organizations. This study explores the effectiveness of various supports that were made available to health and social service providers in Haiti, by focusing on their lived experiences pre-deployment, on-site and post-deployment. The paper provides a qualitative exploration of participant perceptions with respect to the success of their performance in response, and relevant literature describing the various supports provided to health and social service providers responding to disasters. Methods: A single, semi-structured interview was conducted with Canadian health professionals (n=21) who deployed to Haiti during the time of, or after, the 2010 earthquake. The study uses Strauss and Corbin’s structured approach to grounded theory to identify main themes and relationships in the interviews. Results: The interviews indicate that training, and psychological and emotional supports for health and social service providers require improvement to enhance the experience and effectiveness of their work. Conclusions: Findings indicate that supports are most effective when they are tailored to the volunteers. The paper highlights future research stemming from the grounded theory findings.

Design and Performance Evaluation of a Solar Convection Dryer for Drying Tropical Fruit

Abstract. This article describes the design, construction, and performance evaluation of a natural-convection, solar dryer capable of producing dried mango slices in rural Haitian communities. A sorption isotherm was developed for the Tommy Atkins mango variety to determine target levels of moisture content needed to achieve required levels of water activity. The solar dryer was constructed and operated in Gainesville, Florida, during the summer of 2011. Performance evaluation revealed cabinet temperatures between 37.0°C and 43.7°C during sunlight hours depending on airflow and loading conditions. Damper restriction was shown to effectively control flow rates to adjust temperatures within the dryer. Operating capacity of the dryer was 9.5 kg of fresh mango slices per 36 h, lowering the moisture content from 84.5% (w.b.) to 10.3% (w.b.) under a continuous mode of operation. The collector efficiency, pick-up efficiency, and system efficiency were 26.7%, 20.4%, and 25.9% respectively.

Hypertension among Haitians Living in the Bahamas

For many Haitians in the Bahamas, migration and the process of adapting to life in an often hostile environment creates stress and may be correlated with high blood pressure. This study examines the social determinants of hypertension among Haitians in the Bahamas by exploring how experiences of migration create stress that is believed to cause high blood pressure. The Haitian explanatory model of high blood pressure, tansyon, explains the relationships between variables such as diet, stress, and poverty, and the blood. Research was conducted in several Haitian communities in New Providence and Abaco using ethnographic methods such as interviews and participant observation. Information about hypertension was also obtained during community blood pressure education workshops conducted in collaboration with Haitian community associations. This study offers valuable insights for public health efforts in the Bahamas on the issue of hypertension in the Haitian community. This study is relevant to researchers studying the connections between hypertension and migration for populations originating from less developed countries.

Employing a Community Based Participatory Research Approach to Bear Witness: Psycho–Social Impact of the 2010 Earthquake on Haitians in Somerville, MA

We employed a community-based participatory research approach to assess mental health among the Haitian community in the Somerville, MA area. The development of the survey coincided with the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and so several questions related to the natural disaster were included in the analysis to increase understanding of the impact locally. We surveyed a convenience sample of 64 Haitians recruited with the assistance of the Somerville Haitian Coalition. The survey assessed demographic data, reasons for migrating to the area, response to the 2010 earthquake, and mental health. Mental health measures included the short versions of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and the Perceived Stress Scale. Participants reported high rates of stress and depression post-earthquake. On the CES-D, men reported higher average depression and stress scores than women (13.8 vs. 11 and 20.6 vs. 17.6). Our results suggest that social and family support resources may be beneficial to Haitians in our sample.

Peritoneal Tuberculosis in a Pregnant Woman from Haiti, United States

Peritoneal Tuberculosis in a Pregnant Woman from Haiti, United States

Spatial Strategies of Haitian Businesses in the Diaspora: The Case of Metropolitan Miami (2001-2009)

The spatial dispersion of Haitians in the Caribbean, North America, and Europe in the twentieth century has had an increasing impact on Haiti's demography and on the transnationalization of its economy and social networks. Haitians abroad now constitute the equivalent of 20 percent of Haiti's population and families left behind are increasingly dependent on the social and economic strategies of their siblings living in foreign countries (e.g., social networks and remittances, family reunification). This trend has been reinforced in the aftermath of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. Migration flows and transnational ties are stronger than ever. In the United States, the development of Haitian communities-mainly in the Northeast and Florida-has been accompanied by the settlement of ethnic businesses that have provided goods and services, in response to the cultural needs of immigrants as well as the need to maintain symbolic ties with the homeland.Moreover, the presence of ethnic businesses has played a key role in the social, geographic and identity structuring of immigrant neighborhoods. At the same time, its contribution to the social and cultural transformation of US cities with a strong Haitian presence has been remarkable. In the context of the significant impact of contemporary immigration on demographics, culture and urban change in the United States, it seems relevant to focus on the relation between ethnicity, residential patterns and the emergence of immigrant business communities.The Haitian business community of Miami is probably the most visible and diverse one in the Haitian diaspora. It has experienced a remarkable transformation since its emergence in the 1970s, from a small enclave to a diversified transnational business community. Once confined to the ethnic neighborhood of Little Haiti, Haitian businesses have followed the northward residential movement of immigrants to the suburbs.1 In this study, I focus on the evolution of Haitian businesses' spatial patterns and their activities over the last decade (2001-2009) in the Miami metropolitan area. This focus stems from a curiosity about how Haitian businesses have responded to the specific needs of immigrants and, consequently, how immigrants' social and residential patterns have impacted the dynamics of ethnic businesses.As an outline for this general reflection, I begin by presenting the theoretical framework and methodology on which the analysis is grounded. Then, preliminary considerations on Haitian residential and social patterns in the United States and on the Haitian diasporic market will provide a contextual understanding of the general features of Haitian businesses in Miami. The evolution of the size and the nature of the business community between 2001 and 2009 will then be analyzed on the basis of two exhaustive surveys conducted in the Miami-Dade's Haitian enclaves of Little Haiti and North Miami-Biscayne Park in May 2001 and June 2009. Both places were homes to some 485 Haitian businesses in May 2001 and 471 of them in June 2009.Theoretical Framework and Methodology: Ethnicity, Residential Patterns and the Haitian Ethnic MarketRecent US history has shown a connection between ethno-racial categorization, residential geography and the settlement strategy of small businesses owned by immigrants. The residential concentration of many immigrant groups has provided a market for the creation of localized ethnic business communities throughout the country: New York's South Bronx, New York's and California's Chinatowns and Miami's Little Havana among others. The ethnic and racial lines along which immigrants have been integrated play a key role in their visibility as territorialized groups in large urban areas.Three theories have relied on the significance of race and ethnicity in US residential patterns: spatial assimilation, place stratification, and the ethnic residential niche model. The spatial assimilation model has attempted to demonstrate that immigrants and their descendants are increasingly likely to live in places occupied by the non-Hispanic white majority as they move upward in the socio-economic hierarchy and as they incorporate into the social and cultural mainstream. …

Edwidge Danticat: A Reader’s Guide ed. by Martin Munro (review)

Edwidge Danticat: A Reader's Guide. Edited by Martin Munro, foreword by Dany Laferriere. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010. 232 pp. $22.50 paperback.Review by Tomaz CunninghamEdwidge Danticat: A Reader's Guide, edited by Martin Munro, is a collection of fourteen essays followed by a personal interview with Edwidge and a thorough bibliography on her work. Divided into four sections, reader's guide addresses all of from her first highly-acclaimed and controversial novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) up to and including moving personal memoir Brother, I'm Dying (2007). Lesser known portions of work, such as her young adult fiction and travel writing, are addressed in this reader by academics, literary critics, and fellow writers of Caribbean fiction. Together, these fourteen essays provide a thorough and current perspective on work of an incredibly prolific writer whose personal story is one Munro describes as of modern (25).The first section of book, entitled Contexts, contains four essays, which attempts to examine both Edwidge personal life and her as they relate to Haitian, Caribbean, and African-American literature (11). Inside Out: A Brief Biography of Edwidge Danticat, a biographical essay by Munro, traces certain aspects of life from her youth in Duvalierist Haiti to her immigration to Brooklyn, New York and later relocation to Miami. Munro notes that connection to Haiti has largely been a result of migrant Haitian communities that she has been able to find in United States. Munro also names some of literary influences, both Haitian and African-American, and traces her growth as a writer from Eyes, Breath Memory to The Dew Breaker (2004), latter of which he describes as Danticat's most accomplished work to date (23). Similarly, essays by J. Michael Dash (Danticat and her Haitian Precursors) and Carine Mardorossian (Danticat and Caribbean Women Writers) examine work in context of Haitian and Caribbean literature and explore how both fits into and expands certain constructions of identity (national identity, gender, class and race for example) normally accepted in Caribbean literary expression. The most ambitious essay in this section is Danticat and The African American Women's Literary Tradition, in which RegineMichelle Jean-Charles compares with African-American women's writing. This essay seeks in some way to explain selfidentification as an African-Haitian American (AHA) woman and writer and explore how this identity impacts her writing. According to JeanCharles, shares certain themes common to AfricanAmerican women's writing, such as healing from sexual violence, closeknit female relationships, silence and voice and the transformative power of reading and writing (59). However, Jean-Charles also notes that race does not play such a crucial role in work as it does in literary tradition of most African-American women writers. Other factors, such as nationality, language and common experience of immigration inform identity of subjects as much as issues of race (58).Texts and Analyses, second section, is most useful portion of work from a standpoint of literary criticism. This section examines entire corpus of novels, young adult fiction, and travel writing. In Writing Young: Young Adult Fiction, Kiera Voclavik examines Behind Mountains (2002) and Anacaona (2005), noting that recurrent themes of exile, violence and sadness that characterize are as present in young adult fiction as they are in her fiction for mature audiences. The understandable absence of adult theme of sexual relations make young adult fiction an effective way to introduce young non-Haitian readers to culture and history. …

Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora ed. by Regine Ostine Jackson (review)

Reviewed by: Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora ed. by Regine Ostine Jackson Carolyn Cooper Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora. Edited by Regine Ostine Jackson New York: Routledge, 2011. 348 pp. $132.95. Edited by Regine O. Jackson, this trans-cultural, multi-disciplinary collection on Haitian migrant communities comprehensively delineates the complexities of “glocalization” over several generations and in disparate directions. As Jackson posits in her lucid introduction, “Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora aims to interrupt the continuity of scholarship on diaspora where binary oppositions – between diaspora and territory, or identity and place – have become commonplace.” Arguing instead for the simultaneity of “here” and “there,” Jackson proposes a reconceptualization of diaspora as a “metageography” that “opens up a space to challenge bounded perspectives on place and to accentuate discontinuous spaces.” Indeed, Haitians dispersed in the Caribbean, North America and Europe wrestle with the politics of place and displacement. Gina Ulysse’s lyrical evocation of the “past that is now archived in our bodies” emblematizes the reverberant preoccupations of Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora. Bodies travel, carrying with them the inscriptions of history. Memories, both personal and communal, transcend spatial boundaries. The subtitle of Ulysse’s poetic reflections, “Coffee Memories, Peasant Food and the Vodou Some of Us Do,” intimates the primacy of food culture and religion as potent markers of identity. A vagrant scent or a fragment of song can evoke home, destabilizing one’s sense of locatedness in diaspora. The essays in Part I, “Lateral Moves,” examine the unsettling complications of migration within the Caribbean: Jamaica, Guadeloupe, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Bahamas. They acknowledge the role that social variables such as color and class play in determining the degree of acceptance of Haitian migrants in often-reluctant host societies. Matthew Smith’s historically grounded essay, “From the Port of Princes to the City of Kings: Jamaica and the Roots of the Haitian Diaspora,” the first chapter of the collection, privileges the “illustrious exiles” who sought refuge in Jamaica in the 19th century. The political elites Boyer, Soulouque and Geffrard did not all fare the same. Smith reports the contempt with which Soulouque was dismissed by the racist proprietor of lodgings at which he sought accommodation: “I won’t keep a house for black men… [End Page 290] I would despise myself to have a black king. As for that black beast and his black women – Bah! … Queen Victoria is my king.” The animosity of this proprietor prefigures the disdain that future generations of Haitians would be forced to endure across the Caribbean, especially those deemed “low-class” and of the “wrong” color. Paul Brodwin’s “The Dialectic of Marginality in the Haitian Community of Guadeloupe, French West Indies” documents the precarious spaces inhabited by undocumented migrants. Similarly, the Haitians in the Dominican Republic who are the subjects of Samuel Martinez’s essay suffer multiple oppressions. Deploying the metaphor of the onion, Martinez exposes the layers of abuse that these alienated migrants are forced to endure. Marginalization is a recurring trope in the collection, as evidenced in Yanique Hume’s revisionist essay, “On the Margins: The Emergence of a Haitian Diasporic Enclave in Eastern Cuba.” Contesting conventional conceptions of the experience of diaspora, Hume argues that, “the almost exclusive emphasis placed on transnational flows between home and host societies impedes an examination of diaspora as a condition of dwelling.” Conversely, Hume offers a “redemptive reading” of the ways in which Haitian migrants in Cuba have settled themselves into hyphenated definitions of home. Despite the persistent marginality of their location, both geographic and ideological, they reclaim their collective identity as a vibrant community, not just an “agricultural outpost.” Ermitte St. Jacques’s essay, “Between Periphery and Centre in the Haitian Diaspora: The Transnational Practices of Haitian Migrants in the Bahamas,” foregrounds hierarchies of marginality. St. Jacques pointedly observes that, “[t]he destinations that form the geography of the Haitian diaspora demarcate central places as Miami and marginal locations as Nassau that correspond to their position within global and regional geo-political hierarchies.” The Bahamas is imagined as a transit point to more favorable destinations. But those Haitians who do choose to settle in the Bahamas find themselves trapped on...

Surviving Material Poverty by Employing Cultural Wealth: Putting Music in the Service of Community in Haiti

Haiti and its citizens are frequently squeezed between a confusing and uneasy pair of polarizing superlatives: the Caribbean nation is routinely identified as “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere” at the same time that its culture is upheld as one of the richest in the post-colonial Americas. Although these labels can (and probably should) be dismissed as oversimplified and destructive, they do offer a striking dichotomy to contemplate. Can seeming economic poverty be balanced against so-called cultural richness? Can the domains of economy and culture be reconciled as mutually useful? Specifically, can culture be exploited to enhance daily life and improve material existence?

Unique Challenges Face Psychiatrists Treating N.Y.’s Haitian Community

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessUnique Challenges Face Psychiatrists Treating N.Y.’s Haitian CommunityAaron LevinAaron LevinSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:16 Nov 2012https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.47.22.psychnews_47_22_5-bAbstractThe 2010 Haitian earthquake left massive trauma and loss in its wake, not only in Haiti but among the Haitian community in the United States.In October, just after APA’s 2012 Institute on Psychiatric Services ended in Manhattan, psychiatrists and others who work with that community gathered across the river in Brooklyn to reflect on the quake’s mental health effects.Louis Belzie, M.D., M.P.H.In general, reactions among community members are little different from reactions of other populations affected by a major tragedy, said Louis Belzie, M.D., M.P.H., health and palliative care at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center. These included depression and anxiety, as well as posttraumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, major depression, and panic disorder in the longer term. Most vulnerable to these symptoms were women, children, the elderly, and people who had a preexisting physical injury or preexisting mental illness.“Those who sought help often looked for a Haitian psychiatrist but stayed home if they could not find one to help them,” said Belzie.“Psychoeducation can expedite engagement by defining the process of therapy as well as patient expectations about it,” he noted. “It is also important for non-Haitian therapists to develop confidence in working with Haitians, particularly in the beginning stages of therapy.”Working with Haitians may not be easy, even for Haitian-born psychiatrists, said Mardoche Sidor, M.D., a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Harvard Medical School–Cambridge Health alliance.“They may not be able to tell you everything, even when asked, so form a relationship so that you can ask the questions the next time,” he said.In Brooklyn, immediately after the Haitian quake, staff members from SUNY Downstate Medical Center used their outreach van to connect with churches and religious leaders in the immigrant Haitian community.“We went to church basements and set up blood-pressure screenings,” recalled Michael Garrett, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry and vice chair for clinical services in the Department of Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. “That allowed us to informally engage people, and we found a number with serious problems, either physical or mental.”People who needed services were referred to King’s County Hospital or to Downstate’s clinics.Garrett and others received a grant from the Brooklyn Community Foundation to expand outreach to religious and community leaders, connect with social-service agencies to solve housing and other problems, and run educational support groups in churches.Georges Casimir, M.D.Managing problems in the geriatric population of New York’s Haitian community required consideration of immigration status as well as age, said Georges Casimir, M.D., a clinical associate professor in the Geriatric Psychiatry Division at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.Someone who had immigrated decades ago and worked in the United States would have a better understanding of the American health care system and likely be receiving government benefits for the aged.“But imagine an older person brought recently to the U.S. to care for their grandchildren while the parents were at work,” he said. “They might not be at ease here, go out very little, and face language barriers.”Because they had not worked outside the home, they would not be eligible for Social Security disability payments or Medicare. They might also have culturally different ideas about disability and recovery.Those individuals “are likely to present with somatic symptoms,” said Casimir. “To them, everything is physical.”The quake killed about 360,000 Haitians, including six medical-school classmates of child psychiatrist Pierre Jean-Noel, M.D., M.B.A.“Very young children, up to the age of 4, respond to the distress of their caregivers, so children’s responses depend of their caregiver’s responses,” said Jean-Noel, acting chair of psychiatry at Brookdale.From ages 4 to 6, children may see the event as their fault, he said, and they may exhibit symptoms such as fear of separation, insomnia, and regression. Between ages 6 and 12, children can understand concrete explanations of the earthquake but may still present with physical symptoms, aggression, regressive behavior, fear, anxiety, and confusion.Intervention is essential to prevent the child from seeing the world as a hostile and dangerous place, Jean-Noel said.“The Haitian Mental Health Forum was a culturally specific public-education event customized for the Haitian community of Brooklyn,” said Annelle Primm, M.D., M.P.H., director of APA’s Office of Minority and National Affairs, which cosponsored the program. “The event was designed to respond to the needs of diverse and underserved communities, disseminate information about local mental health resources, and collaborate with other organizations and institutions.” ISSUES NewArchived