[URBANTH-L]REV: Lawless on Pierre-Louis, Haitians in New York City
(ARD)
Angela Jancius
acjancius at ysu.edu
Sun Aug 27 23:48:53 EDT 2006
Anthropology Review Database
http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=317
Pierre-Louis, François. Haitians in New York City: Transnationalism and
Hometown Associations. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006.
Reviewed 13 Aug 2006 by Robert Lawless robert.lawless at wichita.edu,
Department of Anthropology, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, USA
Although an exact count is unavailable, "The Department of City Planning
reported that there were approximately 95,580 foreign-born Haitians living
in the city in 2000, service agencies and other Haitian organizations have
estimated that more than 600,000 Haitians live in the New York metropolitan
area today" (p. 32). According to Pierre-Louis, the main problem of Haitians
in New York City was whether to assert themselves as a separate black ethnic
group speaking French (or Creole) and practicing Catholicism (or Voodoo) or
to blend in with the African-Americans. The creation of hometown
associations reflected this choice, and Pierre-Louis concludes, "[By] the
1990s it appeared that they were more comfortable in reinforcing their
distinct cultural and social differences than in joining forces with other
blacks in New York" (p. 22).
Most of the political activities of these New York City residents centered
on the overthrow of the Duvalier regime, and, when that occurred in 1986,
Haitian-Americans began creating "institutions that could help with the
rebuilding of Haiti as well as with assimilation in the United States" (p.
44). "Hometown associations have become important immigrant organizations in
the community since 1991 when President Aristide recognized their positive
contribution to Haiti's economy" (p. 27), and "the majority of the
immigrants who belong to hometown associations live in Brooklyn, primarily
in Flatbush" (p. 33). Haitian hometown associations commonly engage in
projects "such as fencing the local cemetery yard where relatives of their
members are buried, feeding schoolchildren, and providing generators to
local hospitals. Others are building market places, libraries, and even
hospitals" (p. 45).
In the course of his research Pierre-Louis "took trips to several provinces
in Haiti to meet with the affiliates of the hometown associations in New
York" (p. 45). He found some basic complaints, which included the facts that
those in Haiti believe that their projects are not fully supported by those
in New York City, while those in New York City believe that corruption and
lack of basic skills in Haiti impede the projects (p. 60).
The relationship of the hometown associations with the Haitian government is
rather problematic. "Leaders of the hometown associations believe that if
the government decentralized the state apparatus, they might be in a better
position to implement successful projects in their localities and tap into
the resources of Haitian professionals who live abroad" (p. 76). With the
downfall of the second Jean-Bertrand Aristide regime, in February 2004, the
Ministry of the Tenth Department, responsible for diasporic Haitians, no
longer had a role in the government. The current administration of recently
elected President René Préval was installed after this book was published.
Although Pierre-Louis admits, "Vodou, of course, is an essential element of
Haitian culture, both in the homeland and abroad" (p. 106), there is nothing
beyond this one sentence about the role of Voodoo in Haitian hometown
politics. The lack of any reference to Karen McCarthy Brown's wonderful 1991
book about Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn seems to me to be a
serious omission. Haitians in New York City does contain quite a bit of
accurate information on the history of Haiti and on Haitian-Americans,
especially, of course, in New York City, though I would have liked to have
seen these Ph.D. dissertations in the bibliography: Susan Huelsebusch
Buchanan's 1980 Scattered Seeds: The Meaning of the Migration for Haitians
in New York City; Carolle Charles's 1990 A Transnational Dialectic of Race,
Class, and Ethnicity: Patterns of Identities and Forms of Consciousness
among Haitian Migrants in New York City; Georges Eugene Fouron's 1985
Patterns of Adaptation of Haitian Immigrants of the 1970s in New York City;
Nina Barnett Glick's 1975 The Formation of a Haitian Ethnic Group; and
Elizabeth McAlister's 1995 "Men Moun Yo"; "Here Are the People": Haitian
Rara Festivals and Transnational Popular Culture in Haiti and New York City
(updated in her 2002 book Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and
Its Diaspora).
Only occasionally tightly focused, this relatively brief book is currently
the only source for information on the significant topic of Haitian hometown
associations. The first chapter exemplifies the peculiarity of this
vacillation with some curious information on the hometown associations of
Mexicans and Dominicans, pointing out, "Unlike the Mexicans and the
Dominicans, Haitian immigrants created their hometown organizations to
position themselves in the United States as a distinct ethnic group, to
support the democratization process in Haiti, and to address humanitarian
crises there" (p. 19). Neither Mexicans nor Dominicans are mentioned again.
To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the
following style:
Lawless, Robert. 2006 Review of Haitians in New York City: Transnationalism
and Hometown Associations. Anthropology Review Database. August 13.
Electronic document,
http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=317, accessed July 27,
2006.
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