Haitians in Miami

Haitians in Miami

According to the Miami-Herald archives, Haitians started immigrating to the United States in the early 1800s, but did not receive much attention until the 1950s and early 1960s when Haitian immigration to the U.S. began to increase visibly.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service reported that between 1931 and 1940, there were only 191 legal Haitian immigrants in Miami. In contrast, between 1961 and 1970, there were almost 35,000 legal Haitian immigrants. There are no Haitian immigration statistics before 1932 because Haitians, were classified as Caribbean immigrants.
The U.S. Census Bureau, reports that 4.2% of the Miami-Dade County population was Haitian in 2000, making them the second largest immigrant group in the county after Cubans.
Those who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s and early 1960s were professional and highly-skilled workers, the Haitian educational and economic elite that were exiled by Duvalier. The second wave of immigration occurred in the mid 1970s. These immigrants belonged to the lower-middle class. The mass Haitian immigration to the U.S. in 1979 coincided with the Mariel boatlift in Cuba, which allowed Cubans to freely immigrate to the U.S.. Haitians joined the Cubans in their mass immigration to the U.S.. These Haitians were mostly poor peasants with agricultural work experience and were from rural and urban areas, the Artibonite Valley, and the north of Haiti especially Port-de-Paix. These immigrants were known as the Haitian Boat People. In 1986, another mass immigration to Miami from Haiti took place when the oppressive Duvalier dictatorship ended. Miami was overwhelmed by the number of Haitian immigrants and unwilling to accommodate them, so they were relocated to other towns.

Haitian nationals were not welcomed to Miami like the Cubans were. They were not given automatic status, nor were they do depend on the various services, such as housing, food, education and health care, that were afforded to other immigrant groups.
After President Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in 1991, another wave of Haitians came to the U.S., many of which were repatriated, as immigration law does not include any other nationality within the ‘wet foot/dry foot policy’ except Cubans.
Haitians also immigrated to Miami from Canada and the Northeastern U.S., in order to escape cold weather and find a climate and lifestyle more like those of Haiti. State Representative Philip Brutus explains the optimistic philosophy of Haitian immigrants: Being from Haiti, we always believed that in America, if you work hard and play by the rules, you could accomplish anything.
For the most part, Haitians in America have made great accomplishments and have contributed to the societies in which they live. They have brought the cultural to Miami.
Elisabeth A. Dorsette-Gauthier