“I fought with the kids across Flatbush everyday,” said Syndie Ciné, a second-generation Haitian-American living in New York. “They would see me and say, ‘here comes the dirty Haitian.’ Sometimes they would lift up my pant leg and ask if I was wearing socks that day or if I had HBO – Haitian Body Odor.”
Having to regularly fight “fist to cuffs” with her neighbors increased Ciné’s bond to family and culture. She didn’t want to assimilate. Many second-generation Haitian Americans struggle to reconcile their Haitian roots with the lives they have in the United States, caught between two cultures and often forced to choose one over the other. According to the Pew Foundation second-generation children are born in the United States to at least one immigrant parent.
Haitians started immigrating to the United States in large numbers in the 1970s to escape political oppression, crushing poverty, and lack of jobs back home. They risked their lives to come to the U.S. by any means necessary, legally or illegally.
But as they settled into their new lives, many Haitian refugees faced new challenges, including a crushing stigma. In the early 1980s, when researchers were beginning to understand the nature of the AIDS virus, the Center for Disease Control mislabeled Haitians as one of four carriers of HIV. Although Haitians were taken off the list a short time later, the stigma had already marked the Haitian-American community.
Images of emaciated Haitians arriving on boats off the coast of Florida also flooded newspapers and television screens. They were called “boat people.” Ultimately, the U.S. government amended its immigration policies for Haitians seeking political asylum, making them more harsh and discriminatory. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, Haitian refugees were no longer granted political asylum when they reached U.S. soil, unlike like Cuban counterparts.
Ciné, 25, grew up in New York in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the peak years of Haitian immigration to the U.S., with over 80,000 immigrants entering the country per year, according to the U.S. census. The time period also marked the beginning of their stigmatization.
Despite the stigmas, Ciné, whose parents were born in Haiti, embraced her Haitian roots. Growing up in Brooklyn’s East Flatbush neighborhood, Ciné was surrounded by Haitians and other West Indians. Her middle-class community maintained a similar set of values for the children born in the United States – church, chores and academic achievement.
“My mother said she had Haitian children, not American children and raised us that way,” said Ciné. “We ate Haitian food, listened to Haitian music, and had Haitian friends.”
Mass was held in French and Creole, with many of the first-generation Haitian Americans squirming in the pews. Homework was done with diligence and chores grudgingly completed.
“I did not know not doing your homework was an option,” said Ciné. “It was strictly enforced at home. My mother always said in America you need your education, or you’re not going to make it. I listened. I was taught to fear God and mummy.”
Identity is a complex issue for the children of immigrants.
“Second-generation West Indians in New York often identify as West Indian or in terms of their parents’ country of origin,” said Nancy Foner, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College in New York. “The problem is that this identity isn’t always recognized by others…they struggle to establish a West Indian identity that is recognized by others in the face of finding themselves being viewed as simply black or as black Americans,” she said.
But other second -generation Haitians reject their Haitian identity and adopt American identities instead, according to Flore Zéphir, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, who conducted a study on Haitian-American youth in New York. Zéphir found this trend most likely in members of lower socio-economic backgrounds whereas second-generation Haitian-Americans of higher socio-economic status were more likely to retain a Haitian ethnic identity.
“The younger kids today do not understand why their parents or other Haitians risked their lives life and limb to leave,” Ciné said. “Instead, they see the new immigrants with their clothes and accents and don’t want to be associated with them.”
Identity uncertainty can even cause second-generation immigrants to lie about who they are. When Ciné was growing up, a girl in her school lied about her Haitian roots. She felt it was the only way she would be accepted by her peers.
“She would always tell people she was Dominican or black Latina,” said Ciné, who discovered the truth one summer, when they were both visiting their grandmothers who lived across the street from each other in Haiti. “She told me people would accept her more that way and you know what? She was right. Nobody bothered or teased her about her culture because it was more accepted.”
A lot of Haitian-Americans don’t ever go back to Haiti, Ciné said, and don’t understand the hardships of their people.
“They don’t know what it’s like to see decaying bodies in abandoned cars, covering your mouth with a cloth because of their smell or to step over dead bodies in the street in the capital,” she said.
But there is beauty, history, culture and strength there, she said.
Ciné is working on a book on her life experiences, which charts her family’s journey from Haiti to New York, and her path toward understanding her relationship with Haiti.
“It can be hard,” said Ciné. “They call us ‘djaspwa’ or ‘diaspora’ down there because we’re the ones that left. We’re not accepted in Haiti or up here. We’re stuck in the middle.”