The Good Road

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[music playing] Can, looking back, push us forward?

Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Billie Holliday.

Will our voice be heard through time?

In our past, inspire our future.

[music playing] The world comes to Miami.

They come for the beaches, the food, the people, the sunsets, and hope.

Miami has long been seen as a city full of hope and compassion for those who arrive on its shores.

A multifaceted and truly international city.

It is full of immigrant communities.

One of them is Little Haiti.

Little Haiti has long been a sanctuary for the newly arrived and the Haitian diaspora alike.

As the island of Haiti seems to descend further into chaos when that beacon is most needed, its light may be fading.

From outright racism and political forces to development and gentrification, a once thriving community is threatened.

But as we'll learn, a single spark can light up a dark room.

[music playing] Meet Sammy or Sammy Lamy from Miami as he introduced himself.

Sammy runs a workforce integration program for newly immigrated Haitians called Jobs for Us.

And as a first generation Haitian American, Sammy has a deep commitment to serving the Haitian community.

He wanted to show us around little Haiti to help his grasp its significance.

Our first stop is Vegan Mary, a health food store, juice bar, restaurant, and more.

Is still an anchor of the once vibrant community.

Run by Mono and Mimi, they welcomed us on what is normally their day off.

Is vegan food common?

Not common.

This will be actually a great.

This will be super cool.

It is very good.

Thanks.

Good morning, guys.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Welcome to the Vegan Marie.

Thank you.

You mean Hello, my friend.

Good Yes, it's food and supplements, but it's retail.

You guys are doing a lot of things here.

So Mimi, was it your idea?

Yes, it was my idea-- -- because it's like, well, this is a lot going on.

My daughter we were sitting talking about what next we can do.

And she said, mommy, you are vegan and your first name is Mary, why you just open a business you call it the Vegan Marie.

That would be nice.

I have my herbs, my jewelry, my everything.

Yeah, you do have a lot of stuff.

I mean, is veganism common from Haitians?

My ancestors used to be vegan.

Vegan is not a brand new stuff for us.

We been vegan.

It's more cheap and you eat more healthy.

And I'm 53 years old.

Look at my body.

[laughter] Sammy, I'm imagining that you must love this entrepreneurship.

Yes, Mono Mimi, there are people that I look for to show there is an opportunity.

So when you come to the country, it's not only about finding a job, but you do have an opportunity to start a business.

We're in Miami, but we're in what's called Little Haiti.

Yes, sure.

When I went to Haiti to get Mimi, she loved it here because it has all the plants that we have in Haiti, all the fruit trees.

I love it.

I feel like I'm back home.

I'm close to my land.

I love my country very well.

This is a place where you came and people played dominoes and you speak creole.

This is Little Haiti.

And does it still feel like that community?

No.

What's changing?

I mean, first thing that changes is gentrification.

So how important is a place like Little Haiti for people that are newly arrived?

It's very important.

As I said, Little Haiti it's like a sanctuary.

Although we have experienced gentrification and population decrease here, we still have some of our religious institutions.

So when they come from Haiti, they find a church home that provides the community for them.

There's businesses that they can work at.

So we know that more of our brothers and sisters are going to come to the United States, and we want to keep Little Haiti as a place of refuge and create an infrastructure here so that they can come in and integrate to the United States.

How else do you guys involve yourselves with the community?

I mean, we have a nonprofit organization called the Haitian cultural society, so we teach people how to dance, how to play the Haitian drums, teach them how to cook.

These are things that we are doing to keep our culture alive as a people, because you have a lot of kids that never heard of Haitian drum life or don't know what Haitian dancing is.

So that's why having this community and preserving the community is important for not just our generations, but future generations.

And lucky for us, Mano and Mimi wanted us to taste some of their fresh juices and restorative elixirs.

You guys are ready to start?

Yes, let's see what you got.

Now, this is called soursop.

It will help people that have cancer.

The leaves we use for people that have high blood pressure.

That's right.

Cheers for that.

Wow This is called passion fruit.

Ever had passion fruit?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Love yeah, yeah.

Salute.

Cheers, guys.

Well, that's a good compliment.

Is there a word like cheers or salute or-- Salute?

Salute?

Yeah.

Salute super cool.

Yeah Sally, you take a lot of French words.

It's always hard to understand which one is French and which one is actually creole.

Creole, I like to call it a very accountable language because it's not a lot of words.

For that-- Good, good.

This you have one shot.

One shot.

Just do it straight down.

One shot.

Ready?

That does catch you quick.

And puts that heat.

[laughter] And it didn't stop there, as they invited us to come back later to try a vegan Haitian dish.

But for now, we're headed to the little Haiti cultural complex.

This complex, modeled after a once famous market in Port-au-Prince, is the true anchor of Little Haiti and has been for almost 20 years.

Sammy, you were saying that this is like one of those places that has been around, not this building, but this section.

Yes.

Since you were a kid?

Correct.

It started off as the marketplace, and that's where we went to purchase our goods, our food before we went to school or after school.

This is where we got services.

So it was the main street of Little Haiti.

It's considered historical, so it can never be broken down.

It feels like a little bit of a beacon.

Yes-- In the in the community.

And it brings people together.

I know May is Haitian heritage month, and May, 18, is Haitian flag day.

So during the month of May, there is events almost every day here.

This is a place we can come out and laugh, eat.

We bring out vendors here.

So yeah, this is a much needed place for the Haitian community.

It's up to the Haitian community to keep this place going, making sure that we have events.

We just found out that the summer camp was not funded this year.

How heartbreaking was that to hear that the summer camps aren't open?

Very heartbreaking, these programs are important.

They pay dividends down to the future.

It is that, too, man.

It takes someone who cares and someone who has grown up in this area who realizes that was really important to your formation as a child.

Yes, when you have immigrants parents, they work a lot.

They don't have the supplemental income to put us in these bigger summer camps.

So it's up to these programs that are subsidized that gives us something to do during the summer.

But I will get to work and make sure that we do have summer camps at the little Haiti cultural complex.

Sammy, to the rescue.

Yes.

You've seen Little Haiti change over your life, what's your sense of the direction?

We can't stop the change that's going on, so we have to figure out a way to be a part of it.

And by being a part of it, we'll be able to preserve our heritage, our culture.

So it's important that when these new stakeholders come into our community, we sit down at the table with them.

As the son of a Haitian immigrants, I feel like you feel it, your obligation.

So I have something that I tell all first generation Americans, we have a generational duty.

We have an ancestral duty.

We have the education, we have the access, and we need to use that for future generations, because the prior generations took these treacherous ways to get here and they had us on the us soil.

So let's take advantage of it.

We're using our privilege of being born in America to give back to our people.

So that's my call to action to all first generation Haitian Americans.

Sammy had to head to a jobs fair, but he left us in good hands.

Meet Paul Christian Namphy, a Haitian refugee and the political director and lead organizer at The Family Action Network Movement.

We arrived at Fanam, as it's called on a busy day.

New legislation and the possibility of a changing political environment meant hope and uncertainty all at once for the people seeking help at this community funded non-profit.

What does it mean for these people that are coming here that have no idea what to expect once they land?

How do you guys help them to assimilate, to understand what's available?

The most important thing to understand is the diversity.

Not everyone has the same story.

You will find intersections between people's story, generally leaving Haiti under very difficult conditions.

That's my case, and that's the case of most people who are here.

But people came through very different pathways.

Some of them came directly through the humanitarian parole program of the Biden Administration.

You have people who came through the 10 countries.

They left Haiti, went to South America, Brazil, Chile, and have had to make a very dangerous 10 country trek through the Darin Gap between Colombia and Panama, where many people have been killed, been raped, been robbed at gunpoint, and everyone has their story to tell.

Many who have arrived at the US Mexico border, instead of being asked by border patrol, are you OK?

How did you survive the Darien Gap?

It's usually here's your cell, and they're locked up and some of them are deported and others are able to be paroled in.

But once they arrive here, here at our office, it's an issue of welcoming.

How can we serve you?

And how can we lift your story and create a space for your agency and dignity?

Because we don't believe in simply in handouts.

We believe in fostering leadership.

The very people who are coming through these doors as members are the spokespeople of tomorrow.

How important is it for them to see someone that looks like them, like you and see some of the successful businesses?

A big portion of what we're doing is education, and it's the creation of agency.

We have adult education programs.

We have English language programs, we have citizenship classes.

And we believe that no challenge is too great to overcome in this country because we do maintain the positive visions of the potential of the United States of America, despite its troubled history and despite some of the things that we're seeing today.

You see a lot of people coming throughout the day, children and families.

How does that make you feel personally?

It shows the great need in this society.

The United States of America is at a crossroads right now.

Which United States of America are we going to see moving forward?

Is it the United States of America of compassion?

Of the very same values that people talk about on the statue of liberty, give us your huddled masses.

People from all over the world who fled and found refuge here.

And is that tradition going to continue or is it going to be a United States of rejection?

Do you hope for a time when the people of Haiti can live where they want to live, which is Haiti?

We would like to be in Haiti.

We believe in a strong future, Haiti.

We realize that under the current circumstances, this will take years to resolve.

We believe that the end solution is a better Haiti, a stronger Haiti.

We could see along the democratic confederalist model, where you have the strengthening of women, you have the strengthening of local communities politically, economically.

This is the Haiti that we can build on.

But that is not for today or tomorrow.

And in the meantime, we have to simultaneously make sure that people who have left can build a future in where they are.

Polls work and the services fandom provide bring up a lot of complex issues.

We turn to someone who knows something about it.

Jacqueline Charles was interning at the Miami Herald at 14 years old.

She's now covered Haiti and the English speaking Caribbean for over a decade as a senior reporter.

A Haitian by blood, born in the Turks and Caicos, and raised by a Cuban stepfather, she knows something about nuance.

I grew up as a child of two parents who fled dictatorships.

My stepdad, Cuba and Fidel, and then my mom.

She's not a fan of my chosen profession.

No, because in Haiti, journalists are killed and she forgets what I do.

So when she calls me to tell me about, Haiti is on the news.

I know, mommy.

I wrote that.

It's literally my beat in my job.

My story.

Yeah-- Little Haiti is changing, how do you see that?

That community here in Miami.

It's now in the throes of gentrification.

And today, the fight for people, whether they live in little Haiti or not, is to hold on to today.

That some of those symbolic ties and real ties.

There's a battle, a larger battle that's looming here.

And it's this whole issue of, so am I American of Haitian descent or am I Haitian American?

We are very much aware that you have this whole generation that have no connection to Haiti.

They don't have families, they've never visited.

They just but their connection is that they're Haitian.

So when you think about little Haiti and it's completely gone and eroded, you think about that in terms of where is that touchstone, where is that place that everybody can gather?

Because it's still no matter how much we have achieved and we've succeeded in this community, you still have that sense that people look at you as the boat people or the basket case or that country.

You still feel like one of the most legitimate voices of someone covering that as their beat.

People say so, but I get it from both ways, it's like my god, why are you airing our dirty laundry?

You're a minority, And when you are reporting on your own community and you are, you're translating the unspoken.

But then I also get the people who appreciate the fact that I am that bridge.

Haiti is a very complicated place.

It's a very complicated story.

I just need to know where the landmines are.

I'm going to step on them, but I just need to know that-- I'm fixin to do this-- Exactly, exactly.

I'll tell you, I would go to Haiti with my mom all the time.

And when I go to Haiti, it is not like when I go to Haiti to work.

I remember I would say to my mother, it's summer, it's hot, and I'm in a house with no air conditioning, no electricity.

Could I just please go to the hotel?

I mean, literally, it's across the wall.

Can I go to the hotel?

No, no.

But why can't I go?

No, it would be rude.

And then it's 3:00 in the morning and the lights come on, and then everybody's running around in the house trying to iron, trying to do all these things that you do when electricity comes on.

And so as a journalist, when I'm sitting and I'm writing these stories, I can identify with that because I know what it's like.

All the things that you've seen in the Caribbean, but specifically in Haiti, are you hopeful for the future?

I was there in 2010 when the earthquake, well, I got to Haiti within 12 hours.

I broke the story that the president was alive.

I remember 2008 for back to back hurricanes in Haiti in 30 days.

We had food riots.

I had children dying of malnutrition.

I had a school collapse.

It was non-stop.

Go, go, go.

It's a lot.

But I also know that, people read me because they want to have that little bit of hope.

You have to believe in this hope.

If I don't if I don't believe that the Haitians will not find a way to empower themselves and take back their power and take back their lives, I need to advance the story.

I need to move the story forward.

And I very much do believe that the key to improvements in Haiti lies within Haitians.

Next up is Jacqueline's colleague Carl Juste.

Carl is an acclaimed photojournalist for the Miami Herald, an artist, curator, community activist, and member of the iris photo collective, amongst other things.

He also has a long history with little Haiti.

In fact, his father, Victor Juste coined the term little Haiti.

We met him not far from the Haitian cultural complex at his studio and one of the galleries he helps run through his role as the executive director for the Haitian Cultural Arts Alliance.

Almost forgot about that one.

My interest is to tell the stories of not being heard.

Listen to the whispers, because I believe in the power of the candle.

Port-au-Prince.

In a dark street, you walk into a shack and it's a little tiny candle.

And if you wait long enough, if you just wait long enough, you get to see the light.

Things develop.

My father, Vita, Just a matter of fact, the street that you're parked on, it's named after my parents.

And my parents mural is right across the street.

It keeps me rooted.

It keeps me grounded in their work.

Because my father was very politically active in Miami.

His store was in Little Haiti.

It was the cornerstone of the community.

So that's where people came to remember home when they couldn't go back home.

You have a lot of respect, but you could tell for your dad.

Yeah, my mom is equally because she's the mother of Little Haiti.

Little Haiti is welcoming.

They don't care where you're from.

It's where you're at that they're concerned about.

We're in a very precarious situation as Americans.

As a hyphenated American, I would always want to think of myself as being just American.

But this society isn't allowing me to do such.

I have to be a black American.

I can't just be a black American.

I can be a Haitian Black American.

And it keeps going down and down and down.

But I think all those things rise up.

The more I am, I think the better this country is.

Haiti has been paying the price for its independence for 200 plus years.

It was the first place with real democracy.

It's actually created.

That constitution was written.

Slaves were not an issue.

Haiti had courts, had institutions, had judges, had politicians.

Yes, we didn't like them, but they worked.

When you destroy those things, the fabric of a society and it falls apart like rice, paper, and water, and all you have is fragments you can't write a constitution on.

It really encourages me to see people like you who are willing to take some risks and actually shine a light on a place that people, Americans, a lot of Americans just want to ignore.

It is hard to see other people in pain.

I mean, they're just like me.

They're trying to navigate, understand how do they fit in?

We all are trying to do that.

But the burden, the weight, and the gravity of America is the racism.

We can't fly out of that atmosphere.

It always seems to keep reminding us.

And as much as that gravity holds me down, birds never worry about gravity.

They just fly.

And I want to continue to soar and I want to continue to fly.

And there's no better place to do it than here, specifically in Miami, which is not an American city.

It's an international city.

It doesn't belong to me, to you.

It belongs to the world.

Because it's a city of hopes.

It's a city of imagination.

It's a city of second chances.

And this country used to be about that.

The island of Haiti, with all of the trauma that they've been going through for years now.

How do you try to use art to represent Haiti?

Then I tell you about that candle in the dark?

Yeah.

My work is all about hope.

I'm in the hope business.

I've covered human beings at their worst state.

I seen things that most people should never even contemplate.

There is a responsibility to echo the sense that this is horrible, but we deserve better.

My work moving forward is to relight those candles.

His connection to little Haiti and his heritage runs deep, and much of that connection is reinforced by his work.

Next door to Carl is the studio of famed Haitian artist Edouard Duval Kelly, whom we hope to introduce you to sometime.

But for now, his art alone has quite a bit to say about Little Haiti and its mother island.

An outspoken voice about the plight of Haiti and a descendant of Toussaint Louverture, famed general of the Haitian revolution.

With his images still fresh, we returned to Vegan Mary for one last taste of Little Haiti.

Whether they identify as Haitian, Haitian American, or American of Haitian descent.

It's the hard work, love, and compassion of the people of Little Haiti that will define this community, not the labels and hyphens appended to their person.

Little Haiti is more than just the streets that define its borders and the murals that bring it color.

It's an idea and an especially American one at that.

To Carl's point, let's not forget it.

Funding for the good road has been provided by, Can looking back, push us forward?

Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Billie Holliday.

Will our voice be heard through time?

In our past inspire our future.

The concern-- What makes a good road?

Blazing a trail.

Making a difference.

Being unafraid to take the path of most resistance.

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[music playing]