No Passport Required

Nadet Green is a journalist that worked for NPR here in Florida and before that, she worked for Miami Herald. What is this? -

Nadet

This is pate kode. Mmm, it smells good. It's good. This literally is just fried dough and goodness. And goodness, yes. That's what it translates to. It is a Haitian patty with smoked herring. Ooh. Inside, sometimes they put pikliz on the inside and onions. Yours has eggs, boiled eggs in it. Mine does not, but it's good. Mmm, I grew up in Sweden. I thought I had every way of having herring and yet, there is a new way. This is breakfast, it's everyday snack and it lasts really well. You don't need a microwave, just throw it in your bag and you're good to go. This is more of the rustic, making your-- Oh, for the people. - For the people. I like that, yes. Like a herring pocket. And people make them differently and some folks with stuff different things in them, but typically, we find a smoked herring. This is delicious. As a journalist, Nadet is covering social economic issues, specifically in the Haitian community. So where are we right now? We are in Little Haiti. This is Notre Dame D'Haiti Catholic Church. It's often referred to as the living room of the Haitian community. -

Marcus

Oh, nice. -

Nadet

I grew up going to church here. This was where a lot of Haitian immigrants landed. My parents were actually migrant farm workers, so this was home. They lived here in Little Haiti. Oh, what is this? This is the Little Haiti Cultural Center. This is the marketplace and this architecture is built reminiscent of Haitian gingerbread architecture. Oh, cool. So when I was growing up, this was a vegetable market and stuff. You would go in here and you would see the old Haitian ladies selling fruits and veggies and whatever wares. Now it's kind of a community space. It's used for different things. And this is Libreri Mapou where you'll go to pick up Haitian text in Creole, in French, or in English. -

Marcus

Awesome. (speaking in a foreign language) Were you born here or in Haiti? I was born here in Miami. I was born here in Little Haiti. (speaking in a foreign language) as we say it. But you didn't aspire to stay here. The dream was to move to north Miami or you wanted to move to Miramar in Brower because it used to be an area that wasn't the preferred space to be. It was a predominately black immigrant community that was poor and working class. Now, you want to be close to downtown Miami because that has been revitalized and Little Haiti sits in the middle of all of that. This area has seen significant change. In some cases, some people were forced to sell their homes or were pushed out of their homes and renters who could no longer afford it moved to other spaces, so while you still have Haitians who still live here, it isn't the thriving hub of Haitians anymore. -

Marcus

So do you live in Little Haiti? -

Nadet

I do not. I can't afford to live in Little Haiti, actually. It's just much more expensive to live here than it used to be. -

Marcus

What's the conversation about that? There's been conversations about maintaining what remains because we still have the very rooted Haitian identity happening here. You might still come here for Haitian restaurants and then so how do you balance the tension of what was, what is, and what is to come? Although a lot of Haitian Americans have moved out to the suburbs of Miami and don't live in Little Haiti anymore, it's still the heart and center, both emotionally and culturally for the community. One interesting thing, it used to be that Haitian culture was only in Little Haiti. That is not the case anymore, so you go up to north Miami date and there's Haitianness. You go to south date and you'll find it. It's like in the same way in Miami if you ask someone, (speaks in a foreign language), you know what that is. You know what an empanada is. You know what griot and you know what pikliz is. You don't have to be Haitian to partake. Nice, nice. It's an example of how embedded the Haitian community has become here and how Haitian culture has also trickled out.