Everyone Except Haitians (Transcript)

In the wake of certain events occurring across the region, thousands of West Indians emigrated or sought refugee status to the United States by the 1970’s. Still, it would be newly arrived Haitians immigrants and Haitian refugees that faced the most prejudice. And even though one rap group would emerged in the 1990’s to address this anti-immigrant and anti-black discrimination, recent events have shown that these stigmas and stereotypes placed on Haitians have never really went away.

Build Up

So without going into an exhaustive history of the US immigration system, we are going to start this explanation in 1921 when the US passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 which set quotas on the number of immigrants from each country the U.S. admitted yearly. Now, the problem with this quota system is that it largely favoured British, German and Irish immigrants. Thus, minorities had a lot of issues immigrating to the US and this quota system became more chaotic in the wake of WWII when Jews and minorities were fleeing the Holocaust. To deal with this, by the end of the war the U.S. passed the Displaced Persons of Act of 1948 which was the first specific refugee act passed by the US government. This act was to deal with the problem of the quota system that was discriminatory to persons outside of Western Europe. However, this act was a refugee issue - it did not address the otherwise discriminatory Emergency Quota Act that was still on the books. 

It was not until 1965 that the Act was replaced when then US president Lyndon B. Johnson, signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The law is popularly known as the Hart-Celler Act due to Senator Philip Hart and Congressman Emanuel Celler who first introduced the bill in 1963. In its simplest explanation, the Hart-Celler Act eliminated the nationality-based immigration quotas that had being in place and was supposed to “prioritized highly skilled immigrants and opened the door for people with family already living in the United States” where there was a ceiling of 120,000 immigrants from the Americas and a per-country limit of 20,000 was set for Eastern Europe. Now at the same time this law was being signed, the president also made another change to the refugee system and this was specifically for the Caribbean region. Johnson announced that he would open the U.S. to all Cubans fleeing Cuba in the wake of their 1959 revolution. Immediately after, boats filled with Cubans were reaching Florida shores. And in what they announced was to make Cubans have a safer means of passage, the U.S. created an airlift program on Dec 1. 1965 where Cubans could apply for their relatives to be brought into the U.S. By 1973, almost 30,000 flights went from Cuba to the US, bringing more than 250,000 Cubans to the country. 

Now due to these changes in the US immigration and refugee system, in 1972 saw many Haitians fleeing the Duvalier regime to the U.S. via small boats. It is here our story start. 

The Haitian Program

By the time Haitian’s refugees landed on U.S. shores, they quickly release that the same immigration and refugee system that applied to other nationalities, did not apply to them. In the paper, “Refugees, Racism and Reparations: A Critique of the United States’ Human Immigration Policy”, published in the Stanford Law Review, Malissa Lennox stated that between 1972 to 1980, approximately 50,000 Haitians refugees applied for asylum in the U.S. - as few as 25 were approved. How was this possible? Well, it was through a deportation policy styled the “Haitian Program” that was employed by the U.S. state. On this Haitian program, Lennox stated:

“The INS [Immigration and Naturalisation Service] instructed judges to increase their caseload from as little as one scheduled deportation hearing a day to fifty five hearings per day. Asylum interviews were shortened from an hour and a half to only fifteen minutes of substantive dialogue. The INS gave immigration attorneys impossible schedules that often required them to litigate three different matters in the same hour and in three different places.” 

Now on March 17, 1980, the US enacted the Refugee Act of 1980. According to the U.S. government, the act “not only provided for the admission and adjustment of status of refugees but also established procedures for noncitizens to seek asylum”. Prior to this Act, there was no legal manner for someone in the U.S. to apply for protection under the United Nations Refugee Convention.

A few days later on March 28, a bus crashed into the Peruvian embassy in Havana where all Cubans onboard claimed political asylum. Soon after, almost 10,000 Cubans were in the compound. By April 14, the Cuban government allowed 3,500 persons at the embassy to depart for the U.S. by way of Costa Rica. Then on April 19, two privately owned boats sailed from the U.S. into Mariel harbour to pick up 49 Cubans at the Peruvian embassy. The next day, the Cuban government announced that all Cubans wishing to go to the U.S. are free to do so by boarding boats at the Port of Mariel. Due to the opening of Mariel, almost 125,000 Cubans entered the U.S. from these boats, now organised by person in the U.S. But it was not just Cubans who were coming through this route - it was Haitians as well. And during the same period, almost 25,000 Haitians showed up on U.S. soil. And although both groups were subjected to a inhumane experience due to the lack of preparation to process these persons, Haitians realise they had additional barriers, thanks to the already in place “Haitian Program”,. To this Malissa Lennox writes: 

“In 1981, President Reagan issued a proclamation authorising the Coast Guard to interdict vessels carrying Haitian at sea, before they reached the U.S. soil. The Reagan Administration maintained that such interdiction was necessary because the uncontrolled flow of refugees posed a “serious national problem detrimental to the interest of the United States.” The administration entered into a agreement with the Baby Doc regime, calling for the interdiction and immediate return of all Haitian refugees. In exchange for signing the treaty, the United States increased aid to Haiti by $11.5 million”. 

Even though legal challenges would be brought against the U.S., it largely went nowhere, In one such case that played out in 1986-87, the Haitian Refugee Centre vs Gracey, the centre argued that the U.S. was violating the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Immigration and Nationality Act. However, the court decided against the centre, stating only persons who are on U.S. soil are entitled to these laws and since these are refugees at sea, these laws are not applicable to them. It is with this that the records show that between 1980 to 1989, 21,461 Haitians were intercepted at sea with only 6 granted permission to apply for asylum. 

By the early 1990’s, there was growing outrage over this interdiction policy. At a 1992 protest in demonstration, American tennis legend Arthur Ashe, the first Black man to win the US Open, Wimbledon, and Australian Open singles titles, told the press, ““I think our policy of interdiction is ridiculous. That’s why I’m here,” He said all this while wearing a T-shirt, which read: “Haitians: Locked Out Because They’re Black.”

In her critique of these policies Lennox also states: 

“The United Sates discontinued its policy of granting parole to Haitians and instituted a detention program in its place. The Attorney General is authorized to parole (or temporarily release) a refugee into the United States pending a decision on the asylum application, a process that can take years. The Attorney General has unfettered discretion to grant parole to refugees. In 1981, the Attorney General decided that Haitians were no longer eligible. Instead the NIS created a program under which Haitians were detained during the asylum application process and denied legal representation.” 

As such, Haitians were arrested and placed in detention facilities in Puerto Rico, Texas, Kentucky, New York, Florida and West Virgina. According to A. Naomi Paik in their paper, “The ‘Visible Scapegoats’ of U.S. Imperialism: HIV Positive Haitian Refugees and Carceral Quarantine at Guantanamo Bay”: 

“… when Ronald Reagan took command of the Presidency, he extended the Haitian Program by adding the element of interdiction. He came to power at time of economic malaise and a perceived decline of respect for law and order, the causes of which were often wrapped up in anti-immigrant discourses… The detention element of the program “disappeared” refugees held in detention, as the INS refused to release the names and locations of its prisoners, particularly those prisoners who had legal representation, but sent them to detention centers in far flung areas of the U.S.” 

Still, many persons spoke up about these detention centres and the inhumane treatment that Haitians were subjected to. According to witnesses, Haitians were subjected to daily abuse, degradation, and intimidation by the centres officials where some described it as concentration camps. Many facilities saw Haitians undergoing hunger strike to protest their prolonged incarceration and the anti-black racist treatment they endeavoured by immigration authorities. 

By November 29, 1981, the New York Times published an open letter, written by Haitian detainees in Puerto Rico detention facilities for the past eight months. In the letter titled, “Haitians: We’ll Kill Ourselves”, Haitians asked the United States Immigration Service, the following: 

“We are asking why you treat us this way. It is because we are Negroes? Why are you letting us suffer this way, America? Don’t you have a father’s heart? Haven’t you thought we were humans, that we had a heart to suffer with and a soul that could be wounded? Give us back our freedom. Why among all the nations that emigrate to the United States have only the Haitians known such suffering.” 

The same sentiment was shared in a letter to the U.S. based Haitian Refugee Project by fifty-seven Haitian refugees who were imprisoned in Alderson, West Virgina. In the letter the women wrote: 

“Are we not human beings like all other human being? Just because we fled our country to the U.S. is that why we are not considered human? Or is it because we’re black? Don’t we have a personality like all other human beings? What did the Haitian refugees do that was a crime so they would get treated in such a way like thus? They don’t treat refugees from other countries like this.”

Still, when a health crisis took control of the U.S. society, anti-immigrant and anti-blackness sentiments led to a new stereotypes about Haitians. 

The 4 H’s

By the mid 1980’s, HIV/AIDS became one of the defining topics of the decade. But in the beginning, the scientific and health community did not have an official name for the strange disease. But that did not stop society from branding it in there own manner and in the early 80’s, and one term would come to dominate the press- the 4H disease. 4H stood for Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs, Heroin users and Haitians, and these persons were considered to be the alleged high-risk groups of HIV/AIDS. 

Immediately after the terminology appeared in numerous U.S. press, backlash arrived. A July 31, 1983 article in the New York Times titled “Debate Grows on U.S. Listing of Haitians in AIDS Category” states:

“The Haitian medical leaders’ basic criticisms of the Americans action were listed by Dr. Saidel Laine, president of the Haitian Medical Association. He said American health officials had used unscientific methods in their investigation which he called which he called ‘racist’ and said the findings had left a whole nation of people unduly alarmed and unfairly stigmatised.” 

To these backlash, American health officials offered a rebuttal. The same times article stated: 

“The American officials while conceding that more information about the disease was needed and that it had been extremely difficult for Haitians to accept the designation as an AIDS risk group, said the classification remained not only valid but also critically important. Higher rates for Haitians statistics gathered so far, Federal epidemiologists say, show the rate of AIDS diagnosed in this country among Haitian-born people be at least ten times higher than the rate of all Americans. Because of that, they say, all Haitians must be considered by the medical authorities to have an increased chance of getting the disease and must themselves acknowledge this higher risk.”

In Haiti, the 4-H stigma would have vast economic consequences. As Martha Cooley wrote in her piece, “Haiti: The AIDS Stigma”

“In the busy street of Port-au-Prince, few foreigners are in evidence. When asked why tourism has declined, Haitians cluck their tongues and murmur, “Qautre-H” in ironic tones.”

By a 1983, the New York Times reported a drop in tourism of about 20% from the last year. In just a few years, the economic ramifications of this would be felt as the country experienced an economic crisis in the form of food shortage - a problem made worse by the mass killing of the country’s pigs by a US-Canada-Mexico campaign. To learn more about this, checkout our Lest We Forget episode called, “The Slaughter of Haiti’s Pigs”. 

For those trying to gain refugee status, work, visitation and study visas in Haiti, 4-H stigma introduce a new barriers. As on young man told Martha Cooley: 

“You Americans think we’re stupid, don’t you? We know you don’t want us coming to your country any more. This 4-H thing is just one more way to keep us out.”

And then for Haitians who are already legally in the U.S. and even Americans of Haitians descent, they also faced prejudice that affected their livelihood and daily life. In an interview with Cooley, Dr. Jean-Claude Desgranges, a Haitian physician stated: 

“People are losing their jobs. A Haitian girl I know of was recently fired from her job as a maid because her employer thought she might have AIDS - and she was working for an American… Kids are refusing to sit next to Haitian students, even in kindergarten. It’s a real problem”. 

It was not until 1985, that the US state agency, the Center for Disease Control, would admitted their mistake in including Haitians on the list, thus removing Haitians the list. An April 10, 1985 New York Times article titled, “Haitians Removed From AIDS Risk Group” stated: 

“The Center for Disease Control have dropped recent Haitian immigrants from their list of groups considered to have the highest risk of contracting acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS, because scientists can no longer justify including them on statistical grounds, an official said today.” 

According to the same article, the latest AIDS report published, showed a total of 9,405 cases reported in the US where of that, only 285 or about 3% were Haitians. 

Despite the correction, the damage was already done. Coupled with the fact that this was all occurring at the same time when Haitians were slurred as boat people and faced discrimination over their legal status in the U.S., this stigma and other stereotypes placed on Haitians and Haiti-Americans would continue for the rest of the decade and the early 90’s. A narrative of anti-immigrant and anti-blackness led to Haitian and Haitian-Americans being seen as unskilled, uneducated, diseases-ridden and barbaric. This led to many persons in the U.S. hiding and downplaying their Haitians roots, especially those in the mainstream. Many kept their ethnicity a secret and some even went as far as allowing persons to mistake them as Jamaicans. And the Haitian immigrant experienced remained unchecked until June 1994 when the world heard Wyclef Jean asked, “Yo Mona Lisa, could I get a date on Friday?”

The Fugees Settled A Score

In 1994, U.S. rap group, The Fugees, released their debut album, Blunted On Reality. The group consisted of Wyclef Jean, a multi-instrumentalist who was born in Haiti before immigrating to the U.S. at the age of nine. Then there was Prakazrel Michel, otherwise known as Pras, who was born in New York to parents from Haiti; and rounding up the trio was Ms. Lauryn Hill, who was born in New Jersey. From their inception in 1990, the group was different from other rap groups in the space. For one, a woman, Ms. Hill, was the best rapper and singer in the group. As such, she is one of the first rappers who blended rapping with singing thus creating a type of melodic rap that laid the blueprint for modern day rappers such as Doechii, JID, Doja Cat, Young Thug, Drake and others. Then the group merged Black American art forms, rap and jazz, with Black West Indian music most notably Haitian rara, reggae and dancehall. But what was mostly radical about the group was their existence as they became one of the first people to challenge the negative notion of what being a “refugee” means - specifically Haitians refugees and immigrants. And one of the ways they challenged this was just by their name - The Fugees. In a 2016 article for the music publication, Pitchfork, Matthew Ismael Ruiz wrote:  

“When the Fugees first got together, “refugee” was most likely to be heard in a derogatory context. But Pras and Wyclef chose to embrace the culture, and seek common ground with refugees worldwide… in the ’90s, Pras and Wyclef were some of the only high profile Haitians in the public sphere, and it’s hard to understate just how radical it was for a crew of mostly Haitians to call themselves the Refugee Camp.”

Still, Blunted on Reality did not meet the excepted commercial acclaim and sales that was expected of them and the group was in danger of getting dropped by their label. They were saved by a then 22 year old producer, Salaam Remi, who had received industry acclaim by remixing dancehall songs by Super Cat and Shabba Ranks. As such, Salaam was brought on to remix a few songs song off the album. The first, Nappy Heads - The Remix, immediately got mainstream attention and soon after the song peaked at number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 - the groups first entry on the charts; and also was number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales charts. 

It was off this success that that group would be given a $135,000 advance and complete creative control to create their next album. As such, on February 13, 1996, the group released The Score, which further expound on the Black American and Black immigrant experience in the U.S. and ultimately made The Fugees one of the most successful rap groups of all times. As Pitchfork stated in a June 19, 2024 tweet, The Score is “a socially conscious blockbuster grounded by the realities of the immigrant experience”. 

A number of songs would see the group members spotlighting or critiquing anti-black immigrant sentiments implemented by the state. Most notably ‘Ready Or Not’, say Pras rapping, “I, refugee from Guatanamo Bay/Dance around your border like I’m Classius Clay”.

To note in the wake of the overthrown of Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, thousands of Haitians took to the sea to seek asylum in the U.S. However, they were stop by U.S. Coast Guards where they were sent to the U.S. naval base located at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. At its peak in 1991 and 1992, there were about 12,000 Haitians at Guantánamo Bay. The base was crowded, confusing and it was a difficult reality for Haitians as many experienced horrific conditions with little oversight. It is this reality that was depicted in the ‘Ready or Not’ music video. As Matthew Ismael Ruiz wrote: 

“It was genuinely wild to see the ‘Ready or Not’ video in rotation on MTV… a million dollar Hollywood production depicting Caribbean outlaws openly flouting racist and illegal - U.S. border policies towards those they slurred as boat people.”

Other songs such as No Woman No Cry, the group stated was a “dedication to all the refugee worldwide”. The album would also paid homage to other West Indian country, most notable Jamaica. In fact, the music video for the one of the album’s biggest hits, Fugee-La was shot in Jamaica and was a recreation of Jamaica’s first ever featured film, The Harder They Come (1972). The song also had a remix by Jamaican superstar producer duo, Sly & Robbie. 

Still, the album was propelled by Ms. Lauryn Hill’s as lead singer on a cover of Lori Lieberman’s 1972 single Killing Me Softly with His Song”, which became a number one hit a year later when it was re-recorded by Roberta Flack. The Fugees’ version of the song became a number one hit in twenty countries.

For their efforts, The Fugees earned Grammy three nominations including Album of the Year. Despite losing the nomination, they took home the win for Best Rap Album and Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal for “Killing Me Softly With His Song”. However, soon after, the group members, would embarked on solo projects. In just a year, Wyclef would released “The Carnival” June 1997 and the Pras would released “Ghetto Superstar” in October 1998. Ms. Hill efforts would come in August 1998 where the accomplishments of “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” is too long to list on this episode. Just know, she won five Grammys the following year, including Best Album of the Year making her, at the time of this recording, the first rapper and one of only four Black women to take home the prestigious award. She is also one of three women to ever win Best Rap Album. By 2023, the Rolling Stone named “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” the 10 best album of all times and a year later Apple Music had it has it #1.

Still, the group has never reunited again to create another body of work thus making The Score their last project. Still one cannot discount the legacy of the album. In 2023, the Rolling Stone placed it at number 134 on its Best Album of All Times list. Still, as the years went by, the standing of the group’s Haitian members would be in disarray within the community. In the wake of the Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, the New York Post reported that Wyclef’s charity organisation, Yele Haiti Foundation, only spent USD$5.1 million on relief efforts when $16 million was collected in the months following the earthquake. By October 2012, the New York Times reported that the charity went out of business “leaving a trail of debts, unfinished projects and broken promises”. Then in 2023, Pras, was found guilty in U.S. federal court in Washington on 10 criminal counts relating to conspiracy to defraud the US, witness tampering and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The charges are related to the $4.5 billion looting of Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund known as 1MDB. 

Today, the two men’s more positive legacy and The Fugees overall, is that they challenge the negative stereotypes placed on Haitians and Haitian-American and further propelled the immigrant experience to the mainstream. As Matthew Ismael Ruiz stated: 

“Their effect on the palpable stigma towards Haitians may not be quantifiable, but at a time when Haitians had trouble selling their homes and Haitian goods could not be sold in stores, it was a strong statement of identity and a rejection of the status quo.” 

The Cats and The Dogs 

Still, despite The Fugees’ efforts and others like them in addressing the racist stereotypes about Haitians immigrants, it has not gone away. In one of the most recent cases in September 2024, then U.S. Vice Presidential candidate, J.D. Vance made a tweet that Haitian immigrants were eating the pets of residents in Springfield, Ohio. Immediately, town officials and authorities stated that they have received no reports of missing pets or Haitian immigrants eating domestic animals. According to the BBC, the story was from a viral Facebook post where the poster got the story from the friend of a neighbour’s daughter. 

However, during the presidential debate days later, Donald Trump, said: 

“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating cats – they are eating the pets of the people that live there”

He also further stated that he saw people on television [saying] ‘My dog was taken and used for food’”. Though the president was corrected, he never retracted his statements. 

Then in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, J.D. Vance admitted that the story was made up. However, he stated his reason for this. As he stated: 

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do… It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it. I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies.”

To note, these Haitian were in the U.S. legally under temporary legal protections, humanitarian parole and temporary protected status. Most of the Haitians in the Springfield were there for work as the town was experiencing a labour shortage due to population decline. It was the ease of getting work why in just a few years, almost 15,000 Haitians flocked to the town for work. The influx of this many people in a town of almost 60,000 person, in just a short period of time, would case a strain on the town resources. As the New York Times reported: 

“Businesses needed workers, and Haitians, many already authorized to work, heard living costs were low. But the newcomers have strained resources, and that has fueled tension”.

However in the wake of the claims of Haitians eating cats and dogs, the story did not revolve around Springfield needed more resources to accommodate their new residents but the apparent barbaric nature of Haitians. By mid-September, the Associated Press reported that more than 30 bomb threats have been made against schools, government buildings and city officials’ homes since last week, forcing evacuations and closures. Fearing for the lives, many Haitians called out of work and pulled their children from schools temporarily. 

A few months in mid-January 2025, the United States have adopted a series of politics to emphasise their dedication on the “war on immigration”. This includes mass deportation, suspending their refugee resettlement program and for the first time, will be sending migrants from the U.S. to Guantánamo Bay. As such, Haitians refugees and immigrants, in the wake of their country going through years of political instability and dealing with the effects of climate change, would have to content with new obstacles in emigrating to the U.S. And let us not forget, the already old issues with dealing with racist stereotypes thrown at them.