Other Haitians with whom I’ve maintained longstanding contact agree. The Pierre family, whom I’ve known for for 20 years, are one example. They live in a Port-au-Prince neighborhood called Carrefour Feuilles (Leafy Crossroads), which Haitians consider to be a lower middle/working class neighborhood (although your average American would describe the realm as “very poor”). The patriarch, René Pierre, a disabled small businessman, struggles to get passable care from the nation’s rudimentary health system. His son-in-law, Etienne, is a primary school teacher, who is commonly without work attributable to the chronic economic crisis. Etienne’s wife is in Canada, a part of the large Haitian diaspora that sends home an astonishing $3.8 billion a 12 months—a sum that helps keep the country afloat, accounting for a 3rd of the annual economy. René Pierre’s 3 other sons and his grandchildren also live within the family compound.
You may at all times call Etienne to seek out out what’s really occurring in Haiti. Just a few weeks back, some in Haiti claimed that the widespread protests were of questionable sincerity, that they’d as an alternative been engineered by sections of the elite, or by the gangs, who paid people to exhibit. A U.S. State Department official shamefully endorsed this view.
Etienne corrected the record: “It’s Ariel Henry and his government that pays the bandits to déranger (disturb) the favored movements.” I asked: Why do Haitians think the U.S. props up Ariel Henry, when it’s obvious to everyone that he has no support? Etienne, without hesitation: “Because Joe Biden deported 1000’s of Haitian migrants to Haiti from the U.S./Mexico border—and Henry didn’t complain.” (The variety of Haitians deportees is now greater than 25,000.)
