LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The Haitian Center of Evansville

We live in perilous times. Facing food insecurity, healthcare cuts, and with public education perpetually on the chopping block.  The threats extend across our communities, from those with roots here dating back many generations to our New American communities. Perilous times call for courageous and visionary people and grass-roots work.  Fortunately, we have just those kind of people and organizations. But they need our support. The Haitian Center of Evansville has been doing the work of, by, and for the people.  The Center was established when it was convenient and so necessary.  With the support of city government.   Unfortunately for all of us the prevailing political winds have shifted. The necessity has not. Unfortunately for Evansville, the vintage vitriol and bile peddled by a second-rate consignment store operator with too much time on his hands and by an ethically challenged Attorney General who gleefully combines that level of willful ignorance with abusive power have tainted our discourse and imagination.    

The data are clear:  New American communities revive and enrich our economy and culture, and we call all win this way.  But here we are.  The threat from xenophobia, empowered by secret police, to our Latino, Haitian, and other New American communities puts all of us in harm’s way.  We’ve had families stay at home, not going to work, to school, or to medical appointments for fear of masked ICE goons or the malevolent gaze of – let’s be frank here – white supremacists who have the gall to ask them if they are “from here.”  This moment will destroy our humanity if we allow it to prevail.    

And at such a time that is trying our souls, how do WE, the people, respond?  

The Haitian Center of Evansville responded to a moment with a movement, with English as a Second Language courses for adult learners, a growing and hugely successful culture camp for youth, connections and outreach that meet new families in the area where they are and help them find their way every single day.  The Kreyòl Queens and Kings, a dance troupe of local youth at Bosse and Harrison, has brought joy to so many venues.  But they are more than a troupe, more than entertainment, they are a mentoring effort launched by the Center that is preparing a generation of leaders, artists, and citizens. And those off-the-clock moments day after day, attending needs in hospitals, visiting an 82-year-old veteran in a nursing home and offering him the first taste of soup joumou he’s had in ages along with the sweet sound of his own language.  Not program moments, sure, but people moments.  Priceless.  But for those moments to go on, the Center has to be able to keep its lights on and pay its bills.  That means the community that relies on it.  And the community that relies on the Center include public services like healthcare, education, and law enforcement.   

  
I don’t see how we have any other choice that answers speaks to the future we strive for than this:  to stand unequivocally with and for The Haitian Center, the Center this city helped found for a reason. There is no organization whose work matches what the Haitian Center is doing and has been doing, often without compensation for the time and energy it takes.  It’s not a salary or a fee that motivates them. To sit with a stricken mother in the hospital, bearing with her the unimaginable. To hear that mother call out, mwen te panse, mwen pou kont mwen. “I thought I was all alone.”  And to offer her a hand, a warm blanket, hot soup, and to sit with her.  That level of understanding and engagement cannot be achieved in anyone-size-fits-all organization, because we are NOT a melting pot.  There can always be coalition work, but the Haitian Center’s work is unique, connected, and necessary. 

While the Haitian Center brings volunteers and communities together, it cannot do so on goodwill alone.  The Center relies on funding through generous sources privately AND through public funds that see the stake the entire community has in the Center’s success and sustainability.  Now is not the time to retreat.  It is, in fact, precisely the time to redouble our efforts, to fortify our solid commitment to sustaining AND GROWING the vital work of The Haitian Center of Evansville. This work nurtures all of us, by helping new families, who are Evansville residents, who are constituents, who’ve taken root, prosper and thrive and contribute to our shared economic and cultural wealth.    

This gets to that age-old question, “Who is my neighbor.”  It also gets to, “Who are we?”  Many of our families have direct or indirect contemporary connections to immigrant experiences. When the hateful lunacy and the in-the-clear racism that have seized office and directed their zipties and tear gas canisters and their white rage upon those closest to us, what then? Who will stand then?  It is not only with sorrow for what we are losing right now and frustration with perceived indifference, but it is also with fear and grief for what’s next that I am speaking up.    

“Mwen te panse mwen pou kont mwen.”   None of us has to be alone.  But right now our exceptional servant leaders at the Haitian Center feel very much alone.  I have seen the tears in small moments that speak so forcefully if wordlessly about what they have endured already.  We can and must be here for each other.  What else matters in the end? The Haitian Center of Evansville has been there not only for the Haitian community but also for ALL of Evansville.  It is of Evansville.  There is perhaps no issue that will define our moral center today than how we receive our cast aside our New American neighbors.  If you are so moved, please support the Haitian Center.  They are accepting donations, both monetary and in-kind. Connect to their vibrant work at   (https://www.haitiancenterevv.org/) And please reach out to your elected officials and ask them to stand for us all including our Haitian and all our New American  friends, family, and neighbors. 

Thank you!

Thomas Stratton, MD